Leen Helmink Antique Maps

Francesco di Nicoli Berlinghieri (1440-1501) was a member of an old Florentine family and he held a number of official posts in that city. He was hardly a geographer and certainly in no sense a cartographer.

The identity of the engraver of the maps remains in dispute but it is believed by some to be Francesco Roselli who was one of the earliest known map sellers and active in Florence up to his death in 1513.

The maps in Berlinghieri's atlas are the only ones in any edition of Ptolemy printed on the original Ptolemaic projection with equidistant meridians and parallels. Unlike other early Ptolemaic atlases, sets of Berlinghieri's maps were sold separately without text. The maps were not reprinted.