Untitled Map of the World

Probably an intermediate state of Reisch's unusual world map. He published his first world map in his ‘Margarita Philosophica’ of 1503. This map is a reduced version, with four rather than twelve windheads, published in Gruninger’s edition of the ‘Margarita…’. In 1981, the American dealer Walter Reuben acquired an unusual variant of the map, believed to have come from a 1504 (Schott) edition of Reisch’s ‘Margarita’. The map very closely follows Reisch (1), but retains only the four principal windheads, with the windhead at the top centre similarly facing to the right. The oceans, however, are striated in the same style as Reisch (2).

“There is no doubt in my mind that it is pulled from a completely new block rather than one that had been masked or altered”. It seems possible that this unrecorded variant may predate the normal four-headed version” (Shirley).

“Gregor Reisch, confessor to the Emperor Maximilian I, was the author of a popular handbook of moral and natural philosophy which appeared in many editions throughout the sixteenth century. From all accounts it was one of the most widely-read textbooks for university students. The printer of the first edition was J. Schott, publisher of the Waldseemüller Ptolemy” (Shirley).