LIBRARY
16th century printed books
Catalogue of 16th-century printed books (click here)
The codex of Pietro Coppo
Petrus Coppus Fecit – De summa totius orbis
Along with a number of other precious museum pieces, the Maritime Museum keeps within its collection two manuscripts bound in a single text-block, i. e. De summa totius orbis and Portolano, together with 15 coloured printed charts. Its author is Pietro Coppo from Izola, one of the most important chorographers and cartographers. He was born in Venice in the second half of 1469 or in the first half of 1470.
In Izola, these works of world significance were thus created: De toto orbe (1518–1520), De Summa totius orbis (1524–1526), Portolano (1528), Del sito de Listria (1529, 1540).
The most important parts of the Codex are the geographic woodcut charts also called Tabulae. They delineate the geocentric system, a planisphere, the British Isles, the Iberian Peninsula, Istria, France, northern Italy, the Mediterranean, central and southern Italy with the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, Asia Minor, Persia, the Adriatic coast from Venice to Ravenna with the lower course of the rivers Adigio and Po, Crete, the Holy Land, and the navigational chart of the Adriatic Sea.