Name: Claudius Ptolemaeus
Dates: c.98 to 179 AD.
Map type: Early wood block engraved, geometrical and scientific maps.
Claudius Ptolemaeus, also known as Ptolemy, was a remarkable geographer, cartographer and astronomer. It is believed that his work in these fields affected scientific thinking for centuries after his death. Working for the museum of Alexandria perhaps inspired Ptolemy to look to the stars from the ancient texts he studied in great detail, to produce a theory that was, at the time unrivalled in its plausibility and sense.
It's often cited that the earliest printed atlases were editions of Claudius Ptolemy's geographical work from around 150 A.D. For about fifteen years, Ptolemy worked on his studies in Alexandria, and consulted a number of people of various religious denominations who, like many, were passing through the town on their travels between cultures and for trade. Ptolemy’s notion was to apply a scientific approach to collating and interpreting information to display in map form. His use of longitude and latitude and co-ordinates to show scientifically the location of noted places or features was a major breakthrough and a critical feature of cartographic development.
The results of this wealth of scientific research and discovery were published in in two major works attributed to Ptolemy: Geographia, a summary of geographic knowledge, geometry and map-making, and the Almagest, which covered his ideas on astronomy. Though dis-proven sometime later by the Polish astronomer Copernicus (Kopernik), Ptolemy's notion of the earth being at the centre of the known universe was accepted and researched thinking for many years.
But it was his Geographia that had the more practical effects on civilisation. In fact, Claudius Ptolemaeus was hailed and for centuries respected with the epithet 'father of cartography'.
It was really the development of printing and wider publishing that allowed the 16th and 17th century European (mainly) cartographers, such as Ortelius and Mercator and Münster, to veer away from the archaic principles of Ptolemy's more academic maps, and provide more detailed, practical and artistic maps and atlases, that would become the norm of the age.
It's often cited that the earliest printed atlases were editions of Claudius Ptolemy's geographical work from around 150 A.D. For about fifteen years, Ptolemy worked on his studies in Alexandria, and consulted a number of people of various religious denominations who, like many, were passing through the town on their travels between cultures and for trade. Ptolemy’s notion was to apply a scientific approach to collating and interpreting information to display in map form. His use of longitude and latitude and co-ordinates to show scientifically the location of noted places or features was a major breakthrough and a critical feature of cartographic development.
The results of this wealth of scientific research and discovery were published in in two major works attributed to Ptolemy: Geographia, a summary of geographic knowledge, geometry and map-making, and the Almagest, which covered his ideas on astronomy. Though dis-proven sometime later by the Polish astronomer Copernicus (Kopernik), Ptolemy's notion of the earth being at the centre of the known universe was accepted and researched thinking for many years.
But it was his Geographia that had the more practical effects on civilisation. In fact, Claudius Ptolemaeus was hailed and for centuries respected with the epithet 'father of cartography'.
It was really the development of printing and wider publishing that allowed the 16th and 17th century European (mainly) cartographers, such as Ortelius and Mercator and Münster, to veer away from the archaic principles of Ptolemy's more academic maps, and provide more detailed, practical and artistic maps and atlases, that would become the norm of the age.