Rare Ptolemaic woodcut map of France showing the country during the Classical period. The rough boundaries of each of the Celtic tribes of Gaul are marked, as are known Roman and Celtic cities.



This map was published in the 1541 edition of Ptolemy's Geographia with maps by Laurent Fries, text by Michael Servetus, and published by Gaspar Treschel.The map's geography is based on data compiled in the second century AD by the Greco-Roman geographer Claudius Ptolemy, which explains the distorted shape. Fries also published his own "modern" map of France, derived from a larger map by Martin Waldseemuller, which was intended to contrast with this "ancient" map.



[FR2297]