Talk:Geography (Ptolemy)

[Untitled]
"Geographia" is a latinized form of the greek title of the work. Standard english scholarship on Ptolemy's work (including Berggren and Jones cited here and "The HIstory of Cartography") uniformly use "Geography" as the title of the work. This is particularly important since the work has been refered to by a wide range of different titles, at different times and in different languages. In the Renaissance, it was frequently called the Cosmographia, for example. As such, I recommend that the title of this entry be ""Geography" (Ptolemy)" This would also necessitate a disambiguation link between Ptolemy's work and geography as a general field of knowledge. --Sean Roberts 17:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The dates of sources and original texts
The dates of the oldest still-surviving copies could be provided (with links to the images of these old books).

Also maybe some scholar has tracked down who copied which part and when and how exactly it was transferred to the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium), Arab world, and Western Europe. Kazkaskazkasako (talk) 12:25, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Images from medieval books
Does anyone known the original book from where this picture (File:Ptolemy Cosmographia Dacia+Danube.jpg) is taken? Note that it is not the same with this File:Ptolemy_Cosmographia_1467_-_Balkan_Peninsula.jpg, which comes from the 1467 book, currently at the National Library of Poland. Just trying to make sense of it and add more detail to the pictures on Commons and the article. Note that the unknown book has better quality and somewhat more detail on this map. Thanks!--Codrin.B (talk) 18:28, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Latin "Translation" (1511)
Under Sources a "Latin translation" is mentioned (full title: "Claudii Ptholemaei Alexandrini liber geographiae cum tabulis et universali figura et cum additione locorum quae a recentioribus reperta sunt diligenti cura emendatus et impressus"). However, this is in fact not a genuine translation, because nearly all geographical positions in this edition are "corrected" to reflect early sixteenth century geographical knowledge. For example, the shape and position of the British Isles in this book is very different from Ptolemy's original data, as can be seen by comparing the position numbers (longitude and latitude) with Nobbe's Greek edition. This Latin edition therefore gives, in a sense, a distorted image of Ptolemy's achievenement.

This is confirmed by the full latin title of the book, which may be translated as "The geography book by C.P. the Alexandrian with tables and the shape of the world and with the addition of positions that have been found by recent men, with painstaking care corrected and printed".

I therefore think a warning should be added to the mentioning of this source. For example, instead of the tag "Latin Translation" it would be less misleading to describe it as "Latin translation, with updated (16th century) geographical positions".

Hans van Deukeren (talk) 02:27, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

The two other Latin editions mentioned in the Sources list (viz. Basileae/Venezia, apud Henricum Petrum, 1540; and Venetiis, apud Vincentium Valgrisium, 1562), are genuine translations. I have therefore put these two before the "corrected" edition.

Hans van Deukeren (talk) 02:56, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Sources for future article expansion
More here: — Llywelyn II   14:28, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Stephenson's translation
I don't think a discussion of the inaccuracies would fit in the list of links. Here is one review:

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/ISIS/22/2/reviews/Stevensons_Ptolemy*.html

Note that the site hosting Stephenon's edition *also* hosts Diller's reiew and Thayer's own disclaimer.173.66.5.216 (talk) 00:38, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

First Latin translation
This article says that the earliest translation of Ptolemy's text was made in 1406 or 1407 by Jacobus Angelus in Florence, Italy, under the name Geographia Claudii Ptolemaei. But the article on Maximus Planudes (who died in 1305) says he translated the Geography into Latin. Eroica (talk) 15:04, 16 January 2018 (UTC)

Ancient Greeks did not discover the Americas
Reference is made to Lucio Russo's theory of Greek discovery of the Americas in antiquity based off the extremely dubious association of the Forgotten Isles with the Antilles instead of the Canaries. Ptolemy obviously rescaled the circumference of the earth to fit with the sacred number of 180,000, not because he heard reports of travel to the Antilles. Ptolemy was all about sacred numbers. He slipped sacred numbers into his books on astrology, music, and even optics.

Lucio Russo is a crackpot: http://akira.ruc.dk/~jensh/Publications/2006%7BR%7D02_Russo.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.238.233.68 (talk) 22:23, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Peerlings, Laurentius, and van den Bovenkamp
These are apparently about a 16th century Rome edition of the Cosmographia. However, they are clearly not references for the article content. Uncle G (talk) 08:16, 31 July 2019 (UTC)


 * it's troubling seeing us hold on to such a pivotal book on the foundation of the perception of geography that has so little physical evidence but an idea, which is why there is so much confusion, I mean the name of the of the book for god's sake.. 68.55.48.69 (talk) 16:39, 25 October 2023 (UTC)