[ΑΝΩΝΥΜΟΣ ΡΑΒΕΝΝΑΣ ΓΕΩΓΡΑΦΙΑ]- ANONYMI RAVENNATIS QUI CIRCA SAECULUM VII VIXIT DE GEOGRAPHIA LIBRI QUINQUE, pARIS 1688 FIRST EDITION, in 8vo, contemporary full leather with some wear, spine restored, text clean, complete [42], 313p.[62], overall in very good condition. One of the very early Byzantine Geographies written in the 7th century in Ravenna, then capital of the Byzantine Exarchate of Italy. The Cosmographia was written by an unknown cleric, it is a massive list of over 5,000 names of cities, rivers, and islands covering the entire known world-from Britain and Ireland to India and China. The "Anonymous" author used ancient Roman maps, including the lost sources of the Tabula Peutingeriana, that no longer exist. For many Roman towns in Britain, Germany, and the East, this book is the only reason we know their names today. It focus in the Byzantine Empire, with hundreds of references in the Greek area, and captures the world at the exact moment it was changing from Roman to Medieval, recording the names of places just before they were renamed by Slavic, Germanic, or Arab conquerors. It was edited by Dom Placide Porcheron, a Benedictine monk who discovered the manuscript. Porcheron included a very useful index and notes trying to identify where these ancient cities were located on a 17th-century map.