Berlinghieri, Francesco di Nicolo

Berlinghieri was born in Florence into a family with over 200 years of involvement in Florentine politics and found work in Florence in the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici. In 1464 he began work on a treatise based upon Ptolemy‘s “Geographica” updating its maps and including a commentary in verse form. It was printed in 1482 with copper-engraved maps by the German printer Nicolaus Laurentii, also known as Niccolò Tedesco, under the title “Septe Giornate della Geographia di Francesco Berlinghieri”, meaning “The Seven Days of Geography”. It was one of the first printed works based on Ptolemy and also the first to be printed in vernacular Italian. Berlinghieri was also among the first to supplement the traditional maps contained in the Geographia with updated maps of France, Italy, Spain and the Holy Land.