To establish the sequence of the editions of the Cosmographiæ introductio in 1507[552] is a bibliographical task of some difficulty, and experts are at variance. D’Avezac (Waltzemüller, p. 112) makes four editions in 1507, and establishes a test for distinguishing them by taking the first line of the title, together with the date of the colophon; those of May corresponding to the 25th of April, and those of September to the 29th of August:—
1. Cosmographiæ introdu—vij kl’ Maij.
2. Cosmographiæ introductio—vij kl’ Maij.
3. Cosmographiæ—iiij kl’ Septembris.
4. Cosmographiæ introdu—iiij kl’ Septembris.
PTOLEMY’S WORLD.
(Reduced after map in Bunbury’s Ancient Geography, London, 1879, vol. ii.)
The late Henry C. Murphy[553] maintained that nos. 1 and 4 in this enumeration are simply made up from nos. 2 and 3 (the original May and September editions), to which a new title,—the same in each case,—with the substitution of other leaves for the originals of leaves 1, 2, 5, and 6,—also the same in each case,—was given. Harrisse, however, dissents, and thinks D’Avezac’s no. 1 a genuine first edition. The only copy of it known[554] was picked up on a Paris quay for a franc by the geographer Eyriès, which was sold at his death, in 1846, for 160 francs, and again at the Nicholas Yéméniz sale (Lyons, no. 2,676), in 1867, for 2,000 francs. It is now in the Lenox Library.[555]
Of the second of D’Avezac’s types there are several copies known. Harrisse[556] names the copies in the Lenox, Murphy,[557] and Carter-Brown[558] collections. There is a record of other copies in the National Library at Rio Janeiro,[559] in the Royal Library at Berlin,[560] in the Huth Collection[561] in London, and in the Mazarine Library in Paris,—a copy which D’Avezac[562] calls “irréprochable.” Tross held a copy in 1872 for 1,500 francs. Waldseemüller’s name does not appear in these early May issues, which are little quartos of fifty-two leaves, twenty-seven lines to the full page, with an inscription of twelve lines, in Roman type, on the back of the folding sheet of a skeleton globe.[563]
On the 29th of August (iiij kl’ Septembris) it was reissued, still without Waldseemüller’s name, of the same size, and fifty-two leaves; but the folding sheet bears on the reverse an inscription in fifteen lines. The ordinary title is D’Avezac’s no. 3. Harrisse[564] mentions the Lenox and Carter-Brown[565] copies; but there are others in Harvard College Library (formerly the Cooke copy, no. 625, besides an imperfect copy which belonged to Charles Sumner), in Charles Deane’s Collection, and in the Barlow Library. The Murphy Library had a copy (no. 680) in its catalogue, and the house of John Wiley’s Sons advertised a copy in New York in 1883 for $350.
There are records of copies in Europe,—in the Imperial Library at Vienna, in the National Library at Paris, and in the Huth Collection (Catalogue, i. 356) in London. D’Avezac (Waltzemüller, pp. 54, 55) describes a copy which belonged to Yéméniz, of Lyons. Brockhaus advertised one in 1861 (Trömel, no. 1). Another was sold in Paris for 2,000 francs in 1867. There was another in the Sobolewski sale (no. 3,769), and one in the Court Catalogue (no. 92). Leclerc, 1878 (no. 599), has advertised one for 500 francs, Harrassowitz, 1881, (no. 309) one for 1,000 marks, and Rosenthal, of Munich, in 1884 (no. 30) held one at 3,000 marks. One is also shown in the Catalogue of the Reserved and Most Valuable Portion of the Libri Collection (no. 15).