The Great World Maps
Silvani's Heart-Shaped World, 1511
The world as a heart, printed in red and black.
- Map
- World map, from Ptolemy, Geographia
- Mapmaker
- Bernardo Silvani
- Date
- 1511
- Held by
- Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library · via Digital Commonwealth
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and explore.
Size
$29.00
The story
Bernardo Silvani edited Ptolemy's Geographia for its Venice printing of 1511 and gave it this world in a heart-shaped projection, printed in two colours, red and black. Around the border blow the twelve winds that Aristotle named, as heads, among the signs of the zodiac. Inside, the climate zones run as bands across the world, marked CLIMA in red: seven north of the equator, five to the south. The Greeks and Romans thought of the winds as persons who brought fair or foul weather, and here they still are, puffing at the edges of a printed map.
About this reproduction
- A faithful reproduction of a public-domain map held by Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center, Boston Public Library · via Digital Commonwealth — the work is centuries out of copyright.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper or 400gsm canvas; framed pieces sit behind acrylic.
- Color-managed to the source scan; we correct nothing and invent nothing.
- Ships in 5–10 business days, rolled in a heavy-wall tube (framed and linen-backed pieces ship flat-packed).
- If it arrives less than perfect, we reprint or refund — your choice.
Why our maps cost more than a poster: we print from the highest-resolution scans in existence, at sizes where the engraving itself becomes visible — the sea monsters, the tiny place-names, the burin lines — on matte paper that holds every line without glare.
