National Library Home > News & Events
Gateways

Ptolemy World Map Returned to the Spanish National Library

Claudius Ptolemaeus (2nd century)
Map of the Known World
(Ulm: Leinhart Holle, 1482)
hand-coloured map; 55.5 x 40.3 cm

A ceremony was held at the National Library on 4 February 2008 at which a rare Ptolemy world map was returned to the Spanish Government.

In August 2007, the map was removed from the 1482 edition of Ptolemy’s Cosmographia, along with other rare documents held by the Biblioteca Nacional, Spain’s national library.

Investigations by Interpol and the Australian Federal Police led authorities to seize the map from an art gallery in Sydney’s east two months later. The map was then sent to the National Library in Canberra for assessment and safekeeping and, at the ceremony, was handed to the Spanish Ambassador, Antonio Cosano, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, Anthony Byrne. Also in attendance was the Director of the Biblioteca, Milagros del Corral, who described the map as a national treasure that had been an integral part of the library’s collection since it was founded about 300 years ago.

One of the first occasions on which Ptolemy’s revolutionary global projection of the known world had been printed, the map had a profound influence on how geography was understood, and holds a number of ‘firsts’— it was the first to extend the global view beyond Ptolemy’s ancient (second century) world view, the first such world map to be printed outside of Italy, and the first to bear an engraver’s signature, ‘Johann, woodcutter of Armzheim’. With its brilliant ultramarine painted oceans, it is also one of the most striking and copied of early world maps.

Mr Cosano applauded Australia’s cooperation in locating and returning the map to Spain. ‘This country is sending a very strong and firm message that it fully implements its international obligations and Australia is not a safe haven for the illicit export of the cultural heritage of any nation.’ The map handed over was among 12 of the stolen items to be recovered, with four still missing. A Uruguayan national, Cesar Gomez Rivero, who was being held in Argentina has since been charged with the thefts. It is believed that Rivero, a regular visitor and researcher at the Biblioteca, had taken away the documents on his various visits between 2004 and 2007.

Partly as a consequence of the discovery of the thefts, a massive inventory project is to be undertaken of over 500 000 books, the most valuable among the 25 000 000 or so documents in the Biblioteca’s possession. The task will also help with a project known as Biblioteca Digital Hispánica, which, once completed, will offer online access to the complete texts of the library’s valuable collection in several languages.

Dr Martin Woods
Curator of Maps