I Got 99 Ptolemies But a 1477 Ain’t One: A Journey Through Bookbinding History

This post is written by Book Conservators Katherine Kelly and Jennifer Evers.

It’s not very often that you have the chance to look at 99 copies of the same book. However, among the Library’s vast collections are an extraordinary 99 copies of Ptolemy’s Geographia, divided between the Geography and Map Division and Rare Book and Special Collections. These copies include 45 discrete editions and span the years from 1475 to 1843. You can read more about the Library’s Ptolemaic Atlases, look at digitized copies, and see a full list of them here in this LibGuide.

As book conservators in the Library’s Conservation Division, we undertook a survey of every one of these 99 copies of Geographia, and we found some fascinating things. But first, a bit of background.

The O.G.

Claudius Ptolemy was a 2^nd century polymath. He was a geographer, astrologer, astronomer, and mathematician who wrote a number of scientific treatises, including Geographia. This text provided instructions on how to make maps and a list of about 8000 place names with their latitudes and longitudes – all the information needed to draw and fill in the maps.

For centuries, Geographia was the best and pretty much only European cartographic text. It was replicated in manuscript form from the 2^nd century until the first printed version was produced in 1475. Because it was so often and so widely printed, looking at and comparing physical copies of the different editions can reveal shifting trends in binding styles, changes in book production, and a narrative of interaction between books and book owners.

99 Copies

Below are all 99 copies of Geographia held by the Library of Congress, in chronological order starting from the upper left corner. The only edition that we are missing is the 1477 printing (and if anyone out there knows of an available copy, please do let us know!).

These bindings showcase an extensive range of materials and styles, including hefty alum tawed pigskin, which wins the prize for most durable covering material.

There are also loads of parchment bindings, a style that was quick and easy to produce, and which is also fairly durable. Parchment seems to be a pretty common binding material for atlases in general, possibly because they were heavily used and consulted there was a need to be housed in sturdy, protective covers.

Swagga Like Us

Some of these bindings are total knockouts. These include one bound in parchment waste from a medieval choir book, one rebound by a famous 20th century bookbinder, and one bound in red parchment with Ptolemy’s portrait on the front cover, framed in gold.

A Hard Knock Life

Only about 30 of the Library’s 99 copies of Geographia are still in their original bindings. The rest of them have been rebound, either because of damage or to reflect changing trends in binding aesthetics. Some have actually been rebound several times.

Many bindings demonstrate the utilitarian approach favored by the Library in the early 20^th century. During this period, the priority was to create standardized, efficient, and sturdy covers for research materials. These were produced by the Government Printing Office (GPO), and allowed books to be safely handled by researchers for decades. The robust GPO bindings appear nearly identical in structure, with only slight variations in color or material choice. Although these bindings were very durable, they often resulted in an unfortunate loss of historical information when the original bindings were removed and discarded.

The Goat

It turns out that you really cannot judge a book by its cover. Imagine our surprise, upon opening one of these relatively boring and nondescript bindings, to discover that a thoughtful GPO binder had included the old parchment covers.

These covers feature a distinctive goat stamp, and with a bit of research, we found another book with a nearly identical design in the collections at the Morgan Library in New York. This leads us to believe that this 1561 copy of Geographia was once owned by Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford (1581-1627) as she used this stamp on the books in her personal library. This wealthy and influential Countess was a patron of literature and the arts in Jacobean England (more about her here).

As there are no annotations or distinguishing marks in the text that would otherwise link this book to the Countess, this connection was only preserved by the thoughtful actions of a GPO binder.

The World is Yours

Many – but not all – of the atlases in our survey feature printed maps. The images above show the variations in the world map across editions. They are printed in woodblock or copperplate, and many of the earlier maps are hand colored.

Some of the most visually interesting maps depict personified winds blowing across the oceans, like the ones below. These winds range in temperament from slightly ill to proudly confident to extremely cranky.

Big Primping

While surveying the 99 Ptolemaic atlases, it was also fascinating to see the progression of the history of the book through changes in printing. Prior to the mid-1450s, books were written by hand. Fancier books would have been written by scribes, and an illuminator would have painted the ornate capital letters at the beginning of a section. When movable type was introduced, some of these manuscript traditions – for a while, at least – continued on in printed books.

The progression of these changes can be seen in the images below. The first image (1475) shows a beautifully illuminated hand-drawn initial, with the letter A in gold leaf. In the second image  (1478), the printer left a blank space for the initial letter, but it was never filled in by an illuminator. The third image (1482) is of an initial that has been printed and carefully hand-colored, while the last image (1486) also shows a printed initial, but with rather slapdash hand-coloring.

Although these particular images are in chronological order, the transition from manuscript to print was not so linear and distinct, and vestiges of manuscript tradition continued in printed books for many years.

Encore

As we rounded out our tour of the 99 Ptolemies at the Library of Congress, we debated whether or not to include a 100th item – a single leaf from a 1482 Ptolemy which survived as the cover of another, now unknown book. Much like the Library’s Gutenberg Bible, a small number of the 1482 Ptolemies were printed on parchment. It’s also an example of how scrap parchment was reused to economically bind books (like the choir book binding above).

While this leaf may not make it onto the list of the 99 Ptolemaic atlases, it does help tell the story of how Ptolemy’s text and maps were printed, valued, rebound, used, and reused over the centuries. Together, these books showcase the amazing variety of materials, histories, and stories to be told and remind us that there is always more to be discovered in the Library’s collections.

Additional Resources

John Pitcher, Daniel versus Jonson: Books, Beasts and Birds, The Review of English Studies, Volume 73, Issue 312, November 2022, Pages 860–881, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/hgac019 

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