First edition of a fascinating composite volume bringing together three works on geography, astrology, and ethnography. The first and principal part, Europae descriptio lucidissima, offers a vivid description of Europe, dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. This geographical sketch extends beyond the continent to include chapters on Northern Africa and Western Asia, and serves as the textual companion to a large map of Europe produced by Anselmus and Christoph Zell (also Cella, Zellius or Cellarius).
First published in Antwerp in 1535, the work appeared in a second edition the following year, and a German version was also published by Christoph Zell in 1536 under the title Canon oder ausslegung diser gegenwertigen Mappen, Europa genannt.
The map to which the text refers, long believed lost and known only from a single incomplete copy preserved in Berlin, was cited by the great cartographer Abraham Ortelius and holds an important place in the history of early European cartography. The brothers Zell were related to Heinrich Zell (died after 1560), the Cologne-born mathematician and cosmographer later active in Königsberg, whose cartographic work represented a significant stage in the development of printed maps.
The second part of the present work contains Prognosticon Antonii Torquati, an astrological and prophetic treatise by the Ferrarese physician and astrologer Antonio Torquato. First published in Vienna in 1534, it was dedicated to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and famously predicted, as early as 1480, the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1595-a prophecy said to have inspired Hungarian resistance to the Turks.
The third and final text, De fide et moribus Aethiopum, is an account of the faith and customs of the Ethiopians by the Franciscan scholar Franciscus Titelmannus (Frans Tittelmans, 1502-1537), and was originally printed in his Chronica compendiosissima (Louvain, 1534).
With a later, partially crossed out manuscript cypher ("bgdg") on the title page. The fore edge margin has been cut slightly short, mildly affecting the printed notes, some light browning throughout. Otherwise in very good condition. Bagrow, Ortelii Catalogus Cartographorum, II, pp. 109-114; Nijhoff & Kronenberg 545, STCV 12917149; USTC 403926; WorldCat 902524964.