History
In production for 12 years, the first copies were printed in 1539 in Venice.
The map was printed from nine 55x40 cm woodcut blocks to produce a document that is 1.70 m tall by 1.25 m wide.
All of the map's copies passed out of public knowledge after 1574, and the map was largely forgotten – perhaps because only a few copies were printed and because Pope Paul III asserted a 10-year "copyright." It was later widely questioned whether the map had ever existed.
In 1886, Oscar Brenner found a copy at the Hof- und Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Germany, where it currently resides. In 1961, another copy was found in Switzerland, brought to Sweden the following year by the Uppsala University Library; as of 2007 is stored at Carolina Rediviva.
A faithful reproduction of the map was printed in Rome by Antoine Lafréry in 1572.
Read more about this topic: Carta Marina
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