
The Waldseemüller map or ''Universalis Cosmographia'' ("Universal
Cosmography") is a printed wall map of the world by the German
cartographer
Cartography (; from , 'papyrus, sheet of paper, map'; and , 'write') is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an imagined reality) can ...
Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name "
America
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
". The name ''America'' is placed on South America on the main map. As explained in ''
Cosmographiae Introductio'', the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian
Amerigo Vespucci. The map also first showed the
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
, separating the
Americas
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...
from
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
.
The map is drafted on a modification of
Ptolemy's second projection, expanded to accommodate the Americas and the high latitudes.
[Snyder, John P. (1993). ''Flattening the Earth: 2000 Years of Map Projections'', p. 33. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.] A single copy of the map survives, presently housed at the
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
in Washington, D.C.
Waldseemüller also created
globe gores, printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto spheres to form globes of the Earth. The wall map, and his globe gores of the same date, depict the American continents in two pieces. These depictions differ from the small inset map in the top border of the wall map, which shows the two American continents joined by an
isthmus
An isthmus (; : isthmuses or isthmi) is a narrow piece of land connecting two larger areas across an expanse of water by which they are otherwise separated. A tombolo is an isthmus that consists of a spit or bar, and a strait is the sea count ...
.
Wall map
Description
The map was meant to document and update new geographical knowledge from the discoveries of the last years of the fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth centuries. It consists of twelve sections printed from woodcuts measuring . Each section is one of four horizontally and three vertically, when assembled. The map uses a modified Ptolemaic
map projection
In cartography, a map projection is any of a broad set of Transformation (function) , transformations employed to represent the curved two-dimensional Surface (mathematics), surface of a globe on a Plane (mathematics), plane. In a map projection, ...
with curved meridians to depict the entire surface of the Earth. In the upper-mid part of the main map there is inset another, miniature world map representing to some extent an alternative view of the world.
Longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east- west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek lett ...
s, which were difficult to determine at the time, are given in terms of degrees east from the
Fortunate Islands (considered by
Claudius Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and ...
as the westernmost known land) which Waldseemüller locates at the
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...
. The longitudes of eastern Asian places are too great. Latitudes, which were easy to determine, are also quite far off. For example, "Serraleona" (
Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered to the southeast by Liberia and by Guinea to the north. Sierra Leone's land area is . It has a tropical climate and envi ...
, true latitude about 9°N) is placed south of the equator, and the
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( ) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A List of common misconceptions#Geography, common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Afri ...
(true latitude 35°S) is placed at 50°S.
The full title of the map is ''Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes'' (The Universal Cosmography according to the Tradition of Ptolemy and the Discoveries of
Amerigo Vespucci and others
). One of the others was
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...
. The title signalled his intention to combine or harmonize in a unified cosmographic depiction the traditional Ptolemaic geography of Europe, Asia and Africa with the new geographical information provided by
Amerigo Vespucci and his fellow discoverers of lands in the western hemisphere. He explained: "In designing the sheets of our world-map we have not followed Ptolemy in every respect, particularly as regards the new lands ... We have therefore followed, on the flat map, Ptolemy, except for the new lands and some other things, but on the solid globe, which accompanies the flat map, the description of Amerigo that is appended hereto."
Several earlier maps are believed to be sources, chiefly those based on the
Geography (Ptolemy)
The ''Geography'' (, , "Geographical Guidance"), also known by its Latin names as the ' and the ', is a gazetteer, an atlas (book), atlas, and a treatise on cartography, compiling the geographical knowledge of the 2nd-century Roman Empire. ...
and the Caveri
planisphere and others similar to those of
Henricus Martellus or
Martin Behaim
Martin Behaim (6 October 1459 – 29 July 1507), also known as and by various forms of , was a German textile merchant and cartographer. He served John II of Portugal as an adviser in matters of navigation and participated in a voyage to Wes ...
. The
Caribbean
The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...
and what appears to be
Florida
Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
were depicted on two earlier charts, the
Cantino map, smuggled from Portugal to Italy in 1502 showing details known in 1500, and the
Caverio map, drawn –1506 and showing the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...
.
While some maps after 1500 show, with ambiguity, an eastern coastline for
Asia
Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...
distinct from the
Americas
The Americas, sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America and South America.''Webster's New World College Dictionary'', 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. When viewed as a sing ...
, the Waldseemüller map apparently indicates the existence of a new ocean between the trans-Atlantic regions of the Spanish discoveries and the Asia of Ptolemy and Marco Polo as exhibited on the 1492 Behaim globe. The first historical records of Europeans to set eyes on this ocean, the
Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...
, are recorded as
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
Vasco Núñez de Balboa (; c. 1475around January 12–21, 1519) was a Spanish people, Spanish explorer, governor, and conquistador. He is best known for crossing the Isthmus of Panama to the Pacific Ocean in 1513, becoming the first European to ...
in 1513. That is five to six years after Waldseemüller made his map. In addition, the map apparently predicts the width of South America at certain latitudes to within 70 miles.
However, as pointed out by E.G. Ravenstein, this is an illusory effect of the cordiform projection used by Waldseemüller, for when the map is laid out on a more familiar
equirectangular projection
The equirectangular projection (also called the equidistant cylindrical projection or la carte parallélogrammatique projection), and which includes the special case of the plate carrée projection (also called the geographic projection, lat/l ...
and compared with others of the period also set out on that same projection there is little difference between them: this is particularly evident when the comparison is made with
Johannes Schöner's 1515 globe.
[E.G. Ravenstein, ''Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe,'' London, George Philip, 1908, p. 36.]
Apparently most map-makers at the time still erroneously believed that the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus, Vespucci, and others formed part of the
Indies
The East Indies (or simply the Indies) is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The ''Indies'' broadly referred to various lands in the East or the Eastern Hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found i ...
of Asia. Amerigo Vespucci said: "After we sailed ca. 400 leagues along the coast without interruption, we concluded that this is mainland, by which I mean that it forms the easternmost point of Asia and the first tip of Asia reached when sailing westbound". On his 1506 world map,
Giovanni Contarini called the land later called ''America'' by Waldseemüller the ''Antipodes''.
Waldseemüller drew upon the
1506 world map of
Nicolaus de Caverio, where an inscription off the coast of ''vera cruz'' (America/Brazil) says: "The land called Vera Cruz was found by Pedro Álvares Cabral, a gentleman of the household of the King of Portugal. He discovered it as commander of a fleet of 14 ships that that King sent to Calicut, and on the way to India, he came across this land here, which he took to be terra firma
ainlandin which there are many people, described as going about, men and women, as naked as their mothers bore them; they are lighter-skinned." This came from the account of the discovery by
Pedro Álvares Cabral of the ' (new land of Parrots) during his voyage to India of 1500–1501, as reported by Giovanni Matteo da Camerino, "il Cretico", secretary of the Venetian Ambassador to Spain and Portugal, published in the ''Paesi Novamente Retrovati'' of Fracanzano da Montalboddo, where the relevant passage read: "They were borne by a west wind beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and discovered a new land, which they called that of Parrots, for there they found birds of this kind of incredible size... They judged that this was mainland because they ran along the coast more than two thousand miles but did not find the end of it". Caverio's inscription was copied by Waldseemüller and placed in the same location on his map, with the significant difference that, although Cabral and his companions believed that they had reached "the mainland", i.e. part of Asia, Waldseemüller, for unexplained reasons, asserted in the inscription on his map concerning America that it was "an enormous sea-girt island of yet unknown size", i.e. not part of Asia.
Some believe that it was impossible for Waldseemüller to know about the Pacific, which is depicted on his map. The historian Peter Whitfield has theorized that Waldseemüller incorporated the ocean into his map because Vespucci's accounts of the Americas, with their savage peoples, could not be reconciled with contemporary knowledge of India, China, and the islands of the Indies. Thus, in the view of Whitfield, Waldseemüller reasoned that the newly discovered lands could not be part of Asia, but must be separate from it, a leap of intuition that was later proven uncannily accurate.
An alternative explanation is that of George E. Nunn (
see below). Chet Van Duzer has said that the explanation for the depiction of the Ocean to the west of ''America'' is that Marco Polo had stated that ''Zipangu'' (Japan) was an island, so that there had to be sea between it and ''America'', which Waldseemüller had concluded was also an island.
''Mundus Novus'', a book attributed to Vespucci (who had himself explored the extensive eastern coast of South America), was widely published throughout Europe after 1504, including a version by Waldseemüller's group in 1507 under the title, ''Quatuor Americi Vespucii Navigationes''. It expressed the belief of Vespucci and his companions that: "We knew that land to be not an island but continent, both from its long extending coasts which do not enclose it and from the infinite number of inhabitants which it contains". "Continent" meant, at that time, one of the three known continents, Europe, Africa and Asia, that adjoined each other (from Latin "continens"="touching") surrounded by the Ocean, which was divided by Africa into the Western, or Atlantic and Eastern, or Indian Oceans which contained the Earth's large and small islands. Vespucci's belief, therefore, was that the land was part of the continent of Asia.
It has been theorized that "continent" in the Mundus Novus meant the same as its modern meaning, that is, one of the Earth's main continuous land-masses, and that therefore it had first introduced to Europeans the idea that this was a new continent and not Asia, and that this led to Waldseemüller's separating the Americas from Asia, depicting the Pacific Ocean, and the use of the first name of Vespucci on his map.
An explanatory text, the ''Cosmographiae Introductio'', widely believed to have been written by Waldseemüller's colleague
Matthias Ringmann
Matthias Ringmann (1482–1511), also known as Philesius Vogesigena, was an Alsatian German Humanism, humanist scholar and cosmography, cosmographer. Along with cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, he is credited with the first documented usage of ...
, accompanied the map. It was said in Chapter IX of that text that the Earth was now known to be divided into four parts, of which Europe, Asia and Africa, being contiguous with each other, were one continent, while the fourth part, America, was "an island, inasmuch as it is found to be surrounded on all sides by the seas". This differed from the belief expressed by Vespucci in ''Quatuor Americi Vespucii Navigationes,'' published in the same book as an appendix, that the land he found was part of the continent of Asia: "After nineteen days we reached new land, which we took to be the mainland". The two contradictory views were published in the same book without explanation or comment.
The inscription on the top left corner of the map proclaims that the discovery of America by Columbus and Vespucci fulfilled a prophecy of the Roman poet,
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; 15 October 70 BC21 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Rome, ancient Roman poet of the Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Augustan period. He composed three of the most fa ...
, made in the
Aeneid
The ''Aeneid'' ( ; or ) is a Latin Epic poetry, epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Troy, Trojan who fled the Trojan War#Sack of Troy, fall of Troy and travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Ancient Rome ...
(VI. 795–797), of a land to be found in the southern hemisphere, to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn:
The "path" referred to is the ecliptic, which marks the sun's yearly movement along the constellations of the zodiac, so that to go beyond it meant crossing the southernmost extent of the ecliptic, the Tropic of Capricorn. 19° beyond Capricorn is latitude 42° South, the southernmost extent of America shown on Waldseemüller's map. The map legend shows how Waldseemüller strove to reconcile the new geographic information with the knowledge inherited from antiquity.
The southernmost feature named on the coast of ''America'' on the Waldseemüller map is ''Rio decananorum'', the "River of the Cananoreans". This was taken from Vespucci, who in 1501 during his voyage along this coast reached the port which he called ''Cananor'' (now
Cananéia). Cananor was the port of
Kannur
Kannur (), formerly known in English as Cannanore, is a city and Municipal corporation (India), municipal corporation in the state of Kerala, India. It is the administrative headquarters of the Kannur district and situated north of the maj ...
in southern India, the farthest port reached in India during the 1500–1501 voyage of the Portuguese
Pedro Álvares Cabral, the discoverer of Brazil, two of whose ships Vespucci encountered as they returned from India. This may be an indication Waldseemüller thought that the "River of the Cananoreans" could have actually been in the territory of Cananor in India and that ''America'' was, therefore, part of India.
The name for the northern land mass, ''Parias'', is derived from a passage in the ''Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci,'' in which, after several stops, the expedition arrives at a region that was "situated in the torrid zone directly under the parallel which describes the Tropic of Cancer. And this province is called by them
he inhabitantsParias." ''Parias'' was described by Waldseemüller's follower,
Johannes Schöner as: "The island of Parias, which is not a part or portion of the foregoing
'America''but a large, special part of the fourth part of the world", indicating uncertainty as to its situation.
[Johannes Schoner, ''Luculentissima quaedam terrae totius descriptio,'' Nuremberg, 1515, Tract. II, fol. 60v]
''PARIAS'' and
''AMERICA'', corresponding to North and South America, are separated by a strait in the region of the present Panama on the main map but on the miniature map inset into the upper-mid part of the main map the isthmus joining the two is unbroken, apparently demonstrating Waldseemüller's willingness to represent alternative solutions to a question yet unanswered.
The map shows the cities of ''
Catigara'' (near longitude 180° and latitude 10°S) and ''Mallaqua'' (
Malacca
Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia located in the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca ...
, near longitude 170° and latitude 20°S) on the western coast of the great peninsula that projects from the southeastern part of Asia, or
''INDIA MERIDIONALIS'' (Southern India) as Waldseemüller called it. This peninsula forms the eastern side of the
'' SINUS MAGNUS'' ("Great Gulf"), the
Gulf of Thailand
The Gulf of Thailand (), historically known as the Gulf of Siam (), is a shallow inlet adjacent to the southwestern South China Sea, bounded between the southwestern shores of the Indochinese Peninsula and the northern half of the Malay Peninsula. ...
. Amerigo Vespucci, writing of his 1499 voyage, said he had hoped to sail westward from Spain across the Western Ocean (the Atlantic) around the Cape of Cattigara mentioned by Ptolemy into the Sinus Magnus. Ptolemy understood Cattigara, or
Kattigara, to be the most eastern port reached by shipping trading from the Graeco-Roman world to the lands of the Far East. Vespucci failed to find the Cape of Cattigara on his 1499 voyage: he sailed along the coast of Venezuela but not far enough to resolve the question of whether there was a sea passage beyond leading to Ptolemy's Sinus Magnus. The object of his voyage of 1503–1504 was to reach the fabulous spice emporium of "Melaccha in India" (that is, Malacca, or
Melaka
Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a state in Malaysia located in the southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca. The state is bordered by Negeri Sembilan to the north and west and Johor to t ...
, on the Malay Peninsula). He had learned of Malacca from one Guaspare (or Gaspard), a pilot with
Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet on its voyage to India in 1500–1501, whom Vespucci had encountered in the Atlantic on his return from India in May 1501.
[Felipe Fernández-Armesto, ''Amerigo: The Man who gave his Name to America,'' New York, Random House, 2007, pp. 86, 168.] Christopher Columbus, in his
fourth and last voyage of 1502–1503, planned to follow the coast of
Champa
Champa (Cham language, Cham: ꨌꩌꨛꨩ, چمڤا; ; 占城 or 占婆) was a collection of independent Chams, Cham Polity, polities that extended across the coast of what is present-day Central Vietnam, central and southern Vietnam from ...
southward around the Cape of Cattigara and sail through the strait separating Cattigara from the New World, into the
Sinus Magnus to Malacca. This was the route he understood
Marco Polo
Marco Polo (; ; ; 8 January 1324) was a Republic of Venice, Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known a ...
to have gone from China to India in 1292 (although Malacca had not yet been founded in Polo's time).
[http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ren/Ren1/304.1.html; cited in George E. Nunn, "The Three Maplets attributed to Bartholomew Columbus", ''Imago Mundi,'' vol. 9, 1952, 12–22.] Columbus anticipated that he would meet up with the expedition sent at the same time from Portugal to Malacca around the Cape of Good Hope under
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama ( , ; – 24 December 1524), was a Portuguese explorer and nobleman who was the Portuguese discovery of the sea route to India, first European to reach India by sea.
Da Gama's first voyage (1497–1499) was the first to link ...
, and carried letters of credence from the Spanish monarchs to present to da Gama. The map therefore shows the two cities that were the initial destinations of Amerigo Vespucci and Christopher Columbus in their voyages that led to the unexpected discovery of a New World.
[
Just to the south of ''Mallaqua'' (]Malacca
Malacca (), officially the Historic State of Malacca (), is a States and federal territories of Malaysia, state in Malaysia located in the Peninsular Malaysia#Other features, southern region of the Malay Peninsula, facing the Strait of Malacca ...
) is the inscription: ''hic occisus est S. thomas'' (Here St. Thomas was killed), referring to the legend that Saint Thomas the Apostle
Thomas the Apostle (; , meaning 'the Twin'), also known as Didymus ( 'twin'), was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus according to the New Testament. Thomas is commonly known as "doubting Thomas" because he initially doubted the resurrection of ...
went to India in AD 52 and was killed there in AD 72. Waldseemüller had confused Malacca (Melaka) with Mylapore in India.[ The contemporary understanding of the nature of Columbus' discoveries is demonstrated in the letter written to him by the Aragonese cosmographer and Royal counsellor, Jaume Ferrer, dated 5 August 1495, saying: "Divine and infallible Providence sent the great Thomas from the Occident into the Orient in order to declare in India our Holy and Catholic Law; and you, Sir, it has sent to this opposite part of the Orient by way of the Ponient estso that by the Divine Will you might arrive in the Orient, and in the farthest parts of India Superior in order that the descendants might hear that which their ancestors neglected concerning the teaching of Thomas ... and very soon you will be by the Divine Grace in the Sinus Magnus, near which the glorious Thomas left his sacred body".
An inscription on the bottom right corner of the map explains that the map depicts the newly discovered parts of the world, added to those known from classical times:]Although many of the ancients were most assiduous in describing the world, yet not a little remained unknown to them, such as, in the west, America, called by that name after its discoverer, which must be considered the Fourth part of the World. So, also, in the south, the African Part that begins at nearly seven degrees this side of Capricorn and extends very extensively southward beyond the Torrid Zone and Tropic of Capricorn. As also in the east, where the Region of Cathay and some portion of India Meridional are situated beyond longitude hundred and eighty degrees. We have added all these to what we formerly knew, so that lovers of these kinds of things may behold whatever of it at this day is opened to our eyes and approve our work. But one thing we ask, that those who are untaught in and ignorant of cosmography do not at once condemn before they have learned what will no doubt be dearer to them when later they understand it.
History
At the time this wall map was drawn, Waldseemüller was working as part of the group of scholars of the Vosgean Gymnasium at Saint-Dié-des-Vosges
Saint-Dié-des-Vosges (; , before 1999: ''Saint-Dié'') is a Communes of France, commune in the Vosges department, Grand Est, northeastern France.
It is a Subprefectures in France, sub-prefecture of the department.
Geography
Saint-Dié is locat ...
in Lorraine
Lorraine, also , ; ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; ; ; is a cultural and historical region in Eastern France, now located in the administrative region of Grand Est. Its name stems from the medieval kingdom of ...
, which in that time belonged to the Holy Roman Empire
The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...
. The maps were accompanied by the book ''Cosmographiae Introductio'' produced by the Vosgean Gymnasium.
Of the one thousand copies that were printed, only one complete copy of the original is known to exist today. It is, in fact, a reprint in the form of a printer's proof from after 1516 instead of 1507, date of the first edition, of which there is no extant example. It was owned by Johannes Schöner (1477–1547), a Nuremberg
Nuremberg (, ; ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the Franconia#Towns and cities, largest city in Franconia, the List of cities in Bavaria by population, second-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Bav ...
astronomer, geographer, and cartographer. Its existence was unknown for a long time until its rediscovery in 1901 in the library of Prince Johannes zu Waldburg-Wolfegg in Schloss Wolfegg in Württemberg
Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart.
Together with Baden and Province of Hohenzollern, Hohenzollern, two other histo ...
, Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
by the Jesuit
The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
historian and cartographer Joseph Fischer. It remained there until 2001 when the United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
purchased it from Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee for ten million dollars.
Chancellor Angela Merkel of the Federal Republic of Germany symbolically turned over the Waldseemüller map on April 30, 2007, within the context of a formal ceremony at the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
, in Washington, DC. In her remarks, the chancellor stressed that the US contributions to the development of Germany in the postwar period tipped the scales in the decision to turn over the Waldseemüller map to the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
as a sign of transatlantic affinity and as an indication of the numerous German roots to the United States. Today another facsimile
A facsimile (from Latin ''fac simile'', "to make alike") is a copy or reproduction of an old book, manuscript, map, art print, or other item of historical value that is as true to the original source as possible. It differs from other forms of r ...
of the map is exhibited for the public by the House of Waldburg in their museum on Waldburg Castle in Upper Swabia.
Since 2007, to the celebration of the 500 year jubilee of the first edition, the original map has been permanently displayed in the Library of Congress, within a specially designed microclimate case. An argon
Argon is a chemical element; it has symbol Ar and atomic number 18. It is in group 18 of the periodic table and is a noble gas. Argon is the third most abundant gas in Earth's atmosphere, at 0.934% (9340 ppmv). It is more than twice as abu ...
atmosphere fills the case to give an anoxic environment. Prior to display, the entire map was the subject of a scientific analysis project using hyperspectral imaging
Hyperspectral imaging collects and processes information from across the electromagnetic spectrum. The goal of hyperspectral imaging is to obtain the spectrum for each pixel in the image of a scene, with the purpose of finding objects, identifyi ...
with an advanced LED camera and illumination system to address preservation storage and display issues.
The Waldseemüller map was inscribed on UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
's Memory of the World Register
UNESCO's Memory of the World (MoW) Programme is an international initiative to safeguard the documentary heritage of humanity against collective amnesia, neglect, decay over time and climatic conditions, as well as deliberate destruction. It ca ...
in 2005.
Nunn's analysis
The geographers of Italy and Germany, like Martin Waldseemüller and his colleagues, were exponents of a theoretical geography, or cosmography. This means they appealed to theory where their knowledge of the American and Asiatic geography was lacking. That practice differed from the official Portuguese and Spanish cartographers, who omitted from their maps all unexplored coastlines.[George E. Nunn, ''The Columbus and Magellan Concepts of South American Geography,'' Glenside, Beans Library, 1932.]
The second century Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and ...
had believed that the known world extended over 180 degrees of longitude from the prime meridian of the Fortunate Isles (possibly the Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (; ) or Canaries are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean and the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, Autonomous Community of Spain. They are located in the northwest of Africa, with the closest point to the cont ...
) to the city of '' Cattigara'' in southeastern Asia. (In fact, the difference in longitude between the Canaries, at 16°W, and Cattigara, at 105°E, is just 121°.) He had also thought that the Indian Ocean was completely surrounded by land. Marco Polo demonstrated that an ocean lay east of Asia and was connected with the Indian Ocean. Hence, on the globe made by Martin Behaim in 1492, which combined the geography of Ptolemy with that of Marco Polo, the Indian Ocean was shown as merging with the Western Ocean to the east. Ptolemy's lands to the east of the Indian Ocean, however, were retained in the form of a great promontory projecting far south from the southeastern corner of Asia—the peninsula of Upper India (India Superior) upon which the city of Cattigara was situated.
Another result of Marco Polo's travels was also shown on Behaim's globe—the addition of 60 degrees to the longitude of Asia. Columbus had not actually seen Behaim's globe in 1492 (which apparently owed much to the ideas of Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli); but the globe, except for one important point, reflects the geographical theory on which he apparently based his plan for his first voyage. The exception is that Columbus shortened the length of the degree, thus reducing the distance from the Canaries to ''Zipangu'' (Japan), to about 62 degrees or only 775 leagues. Consequently, it seemed to Columbus a relatively simple matter to reach Asia by sailing west.
In the early 16th century, two theories prevailed with regard to ''America'' (the present South America). According to one theory, that continent was identified with the southeastern promontory of Asia that figures on Behaim's globe, India Superior or the Cape of Cattigara. The other view was that ''America'' (South America) was a huge island wholly unconnected with Asia.[
Balboa called the Pacific the ''Mar del Sur'' and referred to it as "la otra mar", the other sea, by contrast with the Atlantic, evidently with Behaim's concept of only two oceans in mind. The ''Mar del Sur'', the South Sea, was the part of the Indian Ocean to the south of Asia: the Indian Ocean was the ''Oceanus Orientalis,'' the Eastern Ocean, as opposed to the Atlantic or Western Ocean, the ''Oceanus Occidentalis'' in Behaim's two ocean world.][
According to George E. Nunn, the key to Waldseemüller's apparent new ocean is found on the three sketch maps made by Bartolomé Colon (that is, Bartholomew Columbus, Christopher's brother) and Alessandro Zorzi in 1504 to demonstrate the geographical concepts of Christopher Columbus. One of the Columbus/Zorzi sketch maps bears an inscription saying that: "According to Marinus of Tyre and Columbus, from Cape St. Vincent to Cattigara is 225 degrees, which is 15 hours; according to Ptolemy as far as Cattigara 180 degrees, which is 12 hours".][ This shows that Christopher Columbus overestimated the distance eastward between Portugal and Cattigara as being 225 degrees instead of Ptolemy's estimate of 180 degrees, permitting him to believe the distance westward was only 135 degrees and therefore that the land he found was the East Indies. As noted by Nunn, in accordance with this calculation, the Colon/Zorzi maps employ the longitude estimate of Claudius Ptolemy from Cape St. Vincent eastward to Cattigara, but the longitude calculation of Marinus and Columbus is employed for the space between Cape St. Vincent westward to Cattigara.
Nunn pointed out that Martin Waldseemüller devised a scheme that showed both the Columbus and the Ptolemy-Behaim concept on the same map. As Waldseemüller himself said: "We have followed Ptolemy on the flat map, except for the new lands". On the right hand side of the Waldseemüller 1507 map is shown the Ptolemy-Behaim concept with the Ptolemy longitudes: this shows the huge peninsula of India Superior extending to the south of the Tropic of Capricorn. On the left side of the Waldseemüller map the discoveries of Columbus, Vespucci and others are represented as a long strip of land extending from about latitude 50 degree North to latitude 40 degrees South. The western coasts of these trans-Atlantic lands discovered under the Spanish crown are simply described by Waldseemüller as ''Terra Incognita'' (Unknown Land) or ''Terra Ulterius Incognita'' (Unknown Land Further beyond), with a conjectural sea to the west, making these lands apparently a distinct continent. ''America's'' (that is, South America's) status as a separate island or a part of Asia, specifically, the peninsula of India Superior upon which Cattigara was situated, is left unresolved. As the question of which of the two alternative concepts was correct had not been resolved at the time, both were represented on the same map. Both extremities of the map represent the eastern extremity of Asia, according to the two alternative theories. As Nunn said, "This was a very plausible way of presenting a problem at the time insoluble."][George E. Nunn, "The Lost Globe Gores of Johann Schöner, 1523–1524", ''The Geographical Review,'' vol. 17, no. 3, July 1927, pp. 476-480 https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/208330.pdf?acceptTC=true][George E. Nunn, ''The World Map of Francesco Roselli,'' Philadelphia, Beans Library, 1928.]
As noted by Nunn, the distance between the meridians on the map is different going eastward and westward from the prime meridian which passes through the Fortunate Isles (Canary Islands). This has the effect of representing the eastern coast of Asia twice: once in accordance with Ptolemy's longitudes to show it as Martin Behaim had done on his 1492 globe; and again in accordance with Columbus' calculation of longitudes to show his and the other Spanish navigators' discoveries across the Western Ocean, which Columbus and his followers considered to be part of India Superior.[
On his 1516 world map, the ''Carta Marina,'' Waldseemüller identified the land he had called ''Parias'' on his 1507 map as ''Terra de Cuba'' and said it was part of Asia (''Asie partis''); that is, he explicitly identified the land discovered by Columbus as the eastern part of Asia.][
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Globe gores
Besides ''Universalis Cosmographia'', Waldseemüller published a set of gores for constructing globes. The gores, also containing the inscription ''America'', are believed to have been printed in the same year as the wall map, since Waldseemüller mentions them in the introduction to his ''Cosmographiæ Introductio''.[Shirley, Rodney W. (1993). ''The Mapping of the World'', p. 29. London: New Holland (Publishers) Ltd.] On the globe gores, the sea to the west of the notional American west coast is named the ''Occeanus Occidentalis,'' that is, the Western or Atlantic Ocean, and where it merges with the ''Oceanus Orientalis'' (the Eastern, or Indian Ocean) is hidden by the latitude staff. This appears to indicate uncertainty as to ''America's'' location, whether it was an island continent in the Atlantic (Western Ocean) or in fact the great peninsula of India Superior shown on earlier maps, such as the 1489 map of the world by Martellus or the 1492 globe of Behaim.[
Only few copies of the globe gores are extant. The first to be rediscovered was found in 1871 and is now in the James Ford Bell Library of the ]University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...
. Another copy was found inside a Ptolemy atlas and had been in the Bavarian State Library in Munich since 1990. The Library recognized in February 2018, after reviewing its authenticity, that this map is not an original copy - it was printed in the 20th century.
A third copy was discovered in 1992 bound into an edition of Aristotle in the Stadtbücherei Offenburg, a public library in Germany. A fourth copy came to light in 2003 when its European owner read a newspaper article about the Waldseemüller map. It was sold at auction to Charles Frodsham & Co. for $1,002,267, a world record price for a single sheet map.
In July 2012, a statement was released from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich, LMU or LMU Munich; ) is a public university, public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Originally established as the University of Ingolstadt in 1472 by Duke ...
that a fifth copy of the gore had been found in the LMU Library's collection which is somewhat different from the other copies, perhaps because of a later date of printing.
LMU Library has made an electronic version of their copy of the map available online.
See also
* Ancient world maps
* Caverio map, made in 1505.
*History of cartography
Maps have been one of the most important human inventions, allowing humans to explain and navigate their way. When and how the earliest maps were made is unclear, but maps of local terrain are believed to have been independently invented by man ...
* Johannes Schöner globe, made in 1520.
* List of most expensive books and manuscripts
* Mappa mundi
* Naming of the Americas
* Piri Reis map
*''Theatrum Orbis Terrarum
(, "Theatre of the Lands of the World") is considered to be the first true modern atlas. Written by Abraham Ortelius, strongly encouraged by Gillis Hooftman and originally printed on 20 May 1570 in Antwerp, it consisted of a collection of un ...
'', considered to be the first true modern atlas.
*World map
A world map is a map of most or all of the surface of Earth. World maps, because of their scale, must deal with the problem of projection. Maps rendered in two dimensions by necessity distort the display of the three-dimensional surface of t ...
References
Further reading
*
*Lester, Toby:
A world redrawn: When America showed up on a map, it was the universe that got transformed
, ''Boston Globe'', October 11, 2009
* Lester, Toby, "Putting America on the Map", Smithsonian, Volume 40, Number 9, p. 78, December 2009
*Lester, Toby: ''The Fourth Part of the World: An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America'', Free Press, 2010, 496 p. .
*
*
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*Chet Van Duzer, "Waldseemüller's World Maps of 1507 and 1516: Sources and Development", ''The Portolan,'' No.1, Winter 2012, pp. 8–20.
*Martin Lehmann, "The depiction of America on Martin Waldseemüller's world map from 1507 — Humanistic geography in the service of political propaganda", ''Cogent Arts & Humanities,'' 3 (1), 2016, DOI: 10.1080/23311983.2016.1152785
*Martin Lehmann (ed.), ''Der Globus mundi Martin Waldseemüllers aus dem Jahre 1509: Text, Übersetzung, Kommentar,'' Berlin, Freiburg im Breisgau, Rombach Verlag, 2016.
External links
1507 Waldseemüller Map from the US Library of Congress
* ttp://www.bell.lib.umn.edu/map/WALD/indexw.html Martin Waldseemüller - Bell Library: Maps and Mapmakers*World Digital Library
The World Digital Library (WDL) is an international digital library operated by UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress.
The WDL has stated that its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume ...
presentation o
''Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorum que lustrationes'' or ''A Map of the Entire World According to the Traditional Method of Ptolemy and Corrected with Other Lands of Amerigo Vespucci''
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
.
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Historic maps of the world
World Digital Library
Memory of the World Register
16th-century maps and globes
1500s in science