1-152-220 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Title page of Isagoge in Typum Cosmographicum seu Mappam Mundi by Peter Apian, 1523. The page is illustrated with a map, centred on the Mediterranean, showing only three continents, Europe, Africa and Asia, surrounded by the four elements; fire, air, water and earth. Apian (1495-1552), German geographer, mathematician and astronomer, established his reputation by issuing a world map in 1520, and the 1524 publication of his work of geography Cosmographia. In 1527 he published Rechnung, an arithmetical textbook, which included the first printed account of Pascal's triangle. Apian's most important work in astronomy was his Astronomicum Caesareum of 1540, which contained detailed descriptions of five comets.