World Map - Francesco Ghisolfi, 16th century.
This is a small world map that was first meant to wrap around a globe. The map is cut into long, curved strips with tiny place names and thin coastlines printed on warm parchment style paper. It has a quiet, detailed look that fits well beside books, wood and brass in a study or library.
About this map print
This design is linked to Francesco Ghisolfi, an Italian mapmaker who worked in the Genoese nautical tradition in the mid 1500s. Surviving examples show the world engraved as a set of globe gores, the narrow strips that were cut out and pasted onto a wooden sphere to make a printed globe. Each strip carries part of Europe, Africa, Asia and the recently mapped Americas, with simple coastlines and labels taken from sea charts and early world atlases.
In some impressions the ends of the strips are decorated with zodiac signs and small figures, which shows how close this map sits to richly painted portolan atlases made for wealthy clients. The layout belongs to the same world of globe gores and portolan charts that many Renaissance cartographers used, but here the whole globe is broken into a few compact pieces instead of spread flat on a single sheet like later oval world maps such as Ortelius’s Typus Orbis Terrarum.
Craft & finishThis antique world map print is made on hand processed paper, with subtle gold added by hand and a beeswax finish so it feels close to real parchment when you hold it. The surface catches the light softly, but colors can look a little different from screen to screen.
Find more prints like this in our Antique Maps collection.
World Map (Francesco Ghisolfi, 16th century.) - Antique World Map
In case your print creases during the travel, as it usually does travel for some time, you can safely warm it up with a hair-dryer, and the wax will melt back right into it. You can also use a lighter, which is a much faster method, but be careful to keep the flame either above the paper or parallel to it (which means holding the paper vertically) so it doesn't smudge or even catch fire. The chance of the print actually creasing is very small, as they are rolled in bubble-wrap and shipped in a cardboard box.Also, be sure to keep the print out of the direct sunlight, as it can melt or fade.
Visit the link below to see more about how our replicas are made, how to display them, and repair the damage:
https://www.artifex-replicas.com/post/about-our-parchment-replicas
