A rare Ptolemaic map of central Russia showing the region between the Black Sea with a recognisable Crimean peninsula to the Caspian Sea. It was published in Giacomo Gastaldi's influential edition of Ptolemy's "Geographia". It is adorned with two birds on the left and an apparent shipwreck points to dangerous waters. Gastaldi was arguably the greatest Italian cartographer of the sixteenth century. It is also the world's first printed pocket atlas, and the first to use a mechanism to hold the plates in position so that the impression was good and level. Karrow, R.W. (16 c.) 30/41; Nordenskiold Collection 214; Phillips, P.L. (Atlases) 369; Shirley "Atlases in the BL" T.Ptol 9a.