The Geography

Translated and edited by Edward Luther Stevenson. With an introduction by Joseph Fischer. Best known today as the author of the "Almagest", in which he expounded the geocentric astronomical system that held sway in Europe until the 16th century, Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 90-168 A.D.) was also famed as a geographer. His reputation in this area rests mainly on his "Guide to Geography", one of the great classics in the history of civilization, which listed over 8,000 places in Europe, Africa and Asia, tabulated according to latitude and longitude. Although the "Guide to Geography" contained many errors, it exerted great influence on later generations, including such explorers as Christopher Columbus, who used it to fortify his conviction that it was possible to reach Asia by traveling westward. As it turned out, Asia was not nearly as close as Ptolemy had claimed. Similarly, it was not until the 18th century that the voyages of Captain James Cook disproved the Ptolemaic idea that a southern continent bounded the Indian Ocean. In spite of these and other shortcomings, however, the "Guide" remains an important landmark in the first serious attempts to construct an accurate geography of the world. Now Ptolemy's "Geography" is widely available for the first time to students, geographers, historians, cartographers and general readers. This inexpensive paperback version reproduces the rare first (and definitive) English translation, published in a limited edition of 250 copies by the New York Public Library. The work also includes 27 maps from the Ebner Manuscript, ca. 1460, and two additional maps. An introduction by Professor Joseph Fischer, S.J., assesses the lasting importance and influence of this monumental work. - - - But it is clear by this time that Stevenson's translation has little to do with standard editions. It ignores the best basis of Ptolemy's "Geography", the most up-to‑date critical Greek texts, and resorts to what is probably the worst basis, the Renaissance Latin translations. The reason for this mistaken procedure is probably that Stevenson was especially familiar with the latter and especially ignorant of the former. As a student of the modern history of cartography, he was naturally much interested in the channels through which Ptolemy's influence reached the fertile field of modern science. At the same time he knew little about the remote origins of this influence and had no training in handling the works of antiquity — "small Latin and less Greek," to say nothing of the technique of criticism and translation. His performance in these capacities betrays the amateur and dilettante at every turn. The translation is a complete failure. Whatever value the publication has must be sought in the reproductions of the maps, and even this is not very great. On the one hand, the Codex Ebnerianus is outranked by an autograph MS. of Nicolaus Germanus' maps in the Biblioteca Nazionale at Naples; and on the other hand the Codex Ebnerianus had already been reproduced in the copper plate maps of the Roman editions of 1478, 1490, 1507, 1508. The same plates were used apparently for all of these editions. In delineation they correspond very closely with the New York photographic reproductions; and in color they are all equivalent, since neither reproduction portrays color at all. Thus the recent reproduction only slightly improves our knowledge of a comparatively unimportant source of the Ptolemaic tradition. (Aubrey Diller, 1935).