Three maps of Greek islands. Left: Zante; top right: the Strophades, where the Harpies lived in classical mythology (Strivali); bottom right: the coastline of the Peloponnese (P.della Morea) and surrounding islands.

From the second Zoppino edition of Benedetto di Bordone’s ‘Isolario’, published in 1534. Bordone’s (1460-1539) “Isolario…”, or book of islands, was the first printed isolario to encompass the entire world, the only printed isolario to precede it was the little book of Bartolomeo dalli Sonetti, 1485, which covered only the Aegean islands. The isolario was a popular genre that had first appeared in manuscript examples by Cristoforo Buondelmonte dating from the early fifteenth-century, Bordone expanded on the usual theme to encompass lands beyond the eastern Mediterranean, the Aegean archipelago and the Levant, to guide travellers to other parts of Europe and the world, stretching as far as the Indian Ocean, the African coastline and the New World.

Bordone’s work combines conventional and maritime cartography: the representation of settlements echo maps, and the coastlines are in the style of nautical charts.