Antonio Floriano, Untitled, Venice, 1555, double hemisphere map cut into 36 gores in the manner of printed globes, engraving on laid paper, map sheet (cut and laid onto backing), 18-1/4 x 32-1/2 in., overall 20-1/4 x 35 in.

Note: Bearing no title, location, or date, this rare and striking Renaissance map of the world by Antonio Floriano of Udine was most likely published in 1555, when Floriano applied for a privilege to print "a mappemonde which has never been made before, with the aid of which one can easily study and learn cosmography and see the entire picture of the world, since it can be reduced to spheric form." Based on Gerard Mercator's 1538 world map, it is unusually rendered as 36 globe gores, and features little ornamentation aside from two portrait cartouches at the upper corners depicting Ptolemy and Floriano, the other cartouches having been left blank.

Literature: Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World, London: Holland Press, 1983, no. 99

cut along plate line and laid down on paper backing, large area of staining to right of join line, paper backing with staining and toning, handling creases; frame with light wear and abrasions