APIAN (Peter). Cosmographie, ou description des quatre parties du monde, contenant la situation, division, & estendue de chascune region & province d'icelles. Antwerp, Jean Bellère, 1581. In-4, fawn calf, triple gilt fillet, smooth spine decorated throughout with gilt foliage, title in gilt cartouche, smooth edges (Binding of the period). First collective edition in French, containing Apian's Cosmography, additions by Gemma Frisius, texts relating to America by Lopez de Gomara and Girava (Situation des Indes Occidentales et description des Indes), followed by Georg Peurbach's Table gnomonique, Johann Spang's La Fabrique du baston astronomique and Sebastian Munster's Extraict des principes de la géométrie. The Cosmography of Peter von Bennewitz known as Apian (1495-1552) was first published in Latin in 1524, then in French in Antwerp in 1544. This is its fourth French edition, Gaultherot having published two editions in Paris in 1551 and 1553. Profuse and beautiful woodcut illustration comprising 110 figures in the text, including five volvelles complete with their movable parts - on pp. 20 (2 p.m.), 22 (single thread), 26 (3 p.m. and a thread), 66 (3 p.m.) and 189 (2 p.m.) - and a "cosmographic charter of the winds" drawn on a fold-out hors texte plate reproducing a map by Gemma Frisius now lost. A copy complete with all its loose parts and the folding map, which is rare, well preserved in an attractive period binding carefully restored. From the libraries of William Kerr, Marquess of Lothian (1661-1722), with bookplate, and J. Clarence Davies (1867-1934), with bookplate. Binding restored, hinges redone, spine rebacked, faint spotting in margins of a few leaves, angular lack on p. 175.