It was a project among this St.-Dié coterie to edit Ptolemy,[549] and illustrate his cosmographical views, just as another coterie at Vienna were engaged then and later in studying the complemental theories of Pomponius Mela. Waldseemüller, as the teacher of geography, naturally assumed control of this undertaking; and the Duke himself so far encouraged the scheme as to order the engraving of a map to accompany the exposition of the new discoveries,—the same which is now known as the Admiral’s map.[550] In pursuance of these studies Waldseemüller had prepared a little cosmographical treatise, and this it was now determined to print at the College Press at St.-Dié. Nothing could better accompany it than the Latin translation of the Four Voyages of Vespucius and some verses by Philesius; for Ringmann, as we have seen, was a verse-maker, and had a local fame as a Latin poet. Accordingly, unless Varnhagen’s theory is true, which most critics are not inclined to accept, these letters of Vespucius first got into print, not in their original Italian, but in a little Latin quarto of Waldseemüller, printed in this obscure nook of the Vosges. Under the title of _Cosmographiæ introductio_, this appeared twice, if not oftener, in 1507.[551] To establish the sequence of the editions of the _Cosmographiæ introductio_ in 1507[552] is a bibliographical task of some difficulty, and experts are at variance. D’Avezac (_Waltzemüller_, p. 112) makes four editions in 1507, and establishes a test for distinguishing them by taking the first line of the title, together with the date of the colophon; those of May corresponding to the 25th of April, and those of September to the 29th of August:— 1. _Cosmographiæ introdu—vij kl’ Maij._ 2. _Cosmographiæ introductio—vij kl’ Maij._ 3. _Cosmographiæ—iiij kl’ Septembris._ 4. _Cosmographiæ introdu—iiij kl’ Septembris._ [Illustration: PTOLEMY’S WORLD. (_Reduced after map in Bunbury’s Ancient Geography, London_, 1879, _vol._ ii.)] The late Henry C. Murphy[553] maintained that nos. 1 and 4 in this enumeration are simply made up from nos. 2 and 3 (the original May and September editions), to which a new title,—the same in each case,—with the substitution of other leaves for the originals of leaves 1, 2, 5, and 6,—also the same in each case,—was given. Harrisse, however, dissents, and thinks D’Avezac’s no. 1 a genuine first edition. The only copy of it known[554] was picked up on a Paris quay for a franc by the geographer Eyriès, which was sold at his death, in 1846, for 160 francs, and again at the Nicholas Yéméniz sale (Lyons, no. 2,676), in 1867, for 2,000 francs. It is now in the Lenox Library.[555]