Richard William Seale, from Christoph Cellarius (Keller), Lipsia, Johann Gottlieb Gleditsch

Matteo Giro

Printed book, 2 vols.

Published for the first time in 1701, this text was the reference source for almost a century for European scholars of the geography of classical antiquity. In addition to teaching philosophy and rhetoric, the German scholar Christoph Keller (1638-1707), better known as Cellarius, was a professor of history at the University of Halle. He is considered the historian who first popularized the “medieval era” in a modern sense, by dividing the history of humankind into three eras: “Ancient,” “Medieval,” and “New.” The edition exhibited here, edited by the geographer Johann Konrad Schwartz (1676-1747), includes 34 etched maps. It describes and above all illustrates with profound erudition the geography of the lands reached by the Roman Republic and by the Roman Empire through the age of Constantine.

Bibliography: Brunet I, 1724; Ebert 3868; Tooley’s Dictionary of Mapmakers. (1999), I, p. 134; Tooley’s Dictionary of Mapmakers. (2004), IV, p. 249.