Jump to content

Martin Waldseemüller

From Catholicism Wiki
Martin Waldseemüller
Martin Waldseemüller (19th-century painting)
Martin Waldseemüller (19th-century painting)
Born c. 1470
Wolfenweiler, Margraviate of Baden, Holy Roman Empire
(now Schallstadt, Germany)
Died 16 March 1520 (aged 49–50)
Saint Dié, Duchy of Lorraine, Holy Roman Empire
(now Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, France)
Alma mater University of Freiburg
Occupation Cartographer
Movement German Renaissance

Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – 16 March 1520) was a German cartographer and humanist scholar. Sometimes known by the Hellenized form of his name, Hylacomylus, his work was influential among contemporary cartographers. His collaborator Matthias Ringmann and he are credited with the first recorded usage of the word America to name a portion of the New World in honour of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci in a world map they delineated in 1507. The same map was the first to show the Americas as a distinct landmass clearly separated from Asia by the Pacific Ocean.[1] Waldseemüller was also the first to produce a printed globe and the first to create a printed wall map of Europe. A set of his maps printed as an appendix to the 1513 edition of Ptolemy's Geography is considered to be the first example of a modern atlas.

Life and works

Details of Waldseemüller's life are scarce. He was born around 1470 in the German town of Wolfenweiler. His father was a butcher and moved to Freiburg (now Freiburg im Breisgau) in about 1480. Records show that Waldseemüller was enrolled in 1490 at the University of Freiburg, where Gregor Reisch, a noted humanist scholar, was one of his influential teachers;[2][3] the printer Johannes Schott was his classmate.[4] After finishing at the university, he lived in Basel, where he was ordained a priest, and apparently, gained experience in printing and engraving while working with the printer community in Basel.[2][5]

Around 1500, an association of humanist scholars formed in Saint Dié, in the Duchy of Lorraine, under the patronage of René II, Duke of Lorraine. They called themselves the Gymnasium Vosagense and their leader was Walter Lud. Their initial intention was to publish a new edition of Ptolemy's Geography. Waldseemüller was invited to join the group and contribute his skills as a cartographer. How he came to the group's attention is unclear, but Lud later described him as a master cartographer. Matthias Ringmann was also brought into the group because of his previous work with the Geography and his knowledge of Greek and Latin. Ringmann and Waldseemüller soon became friends and collaborators.[6][7]

1507 world map

In 1506, the Gymnasium obtained a French translation of the Soderini Letter, a booklet attributed to Amerigo Vespucci that provided a sensational account of four alleged Vespucci voyages to explore the coast of lands recently discovered in the western Atlantic. The Gymnasium surmised that this was the "new world" or the "antipodes" hypothesized by classical writers. The Soderini Letter gave Vespucci credit for discovery of this new continent and implied that newly obtained Portuguese maps were based on his explorations. They decided to put aside the Geography for the moment and publish a brief Introduction to Cosmography with an accompanying world map. The Introduction was written by Ringmann and included a Latin translation of the Soderini Letter. In a preface to the letter, Ringmann wrote

"I see no reason why anyone could properly disapprove of a name derived from that of Amerigo, the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius. A suitable form would be Amerige, meaning Land of Amerigo, or America, since Europe and Asia have received women's names."[8]

While Ringmann was writing the Introduction, Waldseemüller focused on the creation of a world map using an aggregation of sources, including maps based on the works of Ptolemy, Henricus Martellus, Alberto Cantino, and Nicolò de Caverio. In addition to a large 12-panel wall map, Waldseemüller created a smaller, simplified globe. The wall map was decorated with prominent portraits of Ptolemy and Vespucci. The map and globe were notable for showing the New World as a continent separate from Asia and for naming the southern landmass America. By April 1507, the map, globe and accompanying book, Introduction to Cosmography, were published. A thousand copies were printed and sold throughout Europe.[9]

The Introduction and map were a great success, and four editions were printed in the first year alone. The map was widely used in universities and was influential among cartographers who admired the craftsmanship that went into its creation. In the following years, other maps were printed that often incorporated the name America. Although Waldseemüller had intended the name to apply only to a specific part of Brazil, other maps applied it to the entire continent. In 1538, Gerardus Mercator used America to name both the north and south continents on his influential map, and by this point, the name was securely fixed on the New World.[10]

Ptolemy's Geography (1513)

After 1507, Waldseemüller and Ringmann continued to collaborate on a new edition of Ptolemy's Geography. In 1508, Ringmann travelled to Italy and obtained a Greek manuscript of Geography (Codex Vaticanum Graecorum 191). With this key reference, they continued to make progress and Waldseemüller was able to finish his maps. Completion was forestalled, though, when their patron, Duke René II, died in 1508. The new edition was finally printed in 1513 by Johannes Schott in Strasbourg. By then, Waldseemüller had pulled out of the project and was not credited for his cartographic work.[11][12] Nevertheless, his maps were recognized as important contributions to the science of cartography and were considered a standard reference work for many decades.[13]

About 20 of Waldseemüller's tabulae modernae (modern maps) were included in the new Geography as a separate appendix, Claudii Ptolemaei Supplementem. This supplement constitutes the first modern atlas.[14] Maps of Lorraine and the upper Rhine region were the first printed maps of those regions and were probably based on survey work done by Waldseemüller himself.[15]

The world map published in the 1513 Geography seems to indicate that Waldseemüller had second thoughts about the name and the nature of the lands discovered in the western Atlantic. The New World was no longer clearly shown as a continent separate from Asia, and the name America had been replaced with Terra Incognita (Unknown Land). What caused him to make these changes is not clear, but perhaps he was influenced by contemporary criticism that Vespucci had usurped Columbus's primacy of discovery.[12]

Other works

Waldseemüller was also interested in surveying and surveying instruments. In 1508, he contributed a treatise on surveying and perspective to the fourth edition of Gregor Reisch's Margarita Philosophica. He included an illustration of a forerunner to the theodolite, a surveying instrument he called the polimetrum. In 1511, he published the Carta Itineraria Europae, a road map of Europe that showed important trade routes and pilgrim routes from central Europe to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. It was the first printed wall map of Europe.[16]

In 1516, he produced another large-scale wall map of the world, the Carta Marina Navigatoria, printed in Strasbourg. It was designed in the style of portolan charts and consisted of 12 printed sheets.

The Paris Green Globe (or Globe vert), has been attributed to Waldseemüller by experts at the Bibliothèque Nationale, but the attribution is not universally accepted.

Waldseemüller died without a will on 16 March 1520 in Saint Dié in the Upper Rhenish Circle of the Holy Roman Empire, where he had served as a canon in the collegiate Church of Saint Dié since 1514.[17]

1507 map rediscovered

The 1507 wall map was lost for a long time, but a copy was found in Schloss Wolfegg in southern Germany by Joseph Fischer in 1901. It is the only known copy and was purchased by the United States Library of Congress in May 2003 for $10 million, the highest price paid to that time for a historical document.[18] Five copies of Waldseemüller's globular map survive in the form of "gores": printed map sections that were intended to be cut out and pasted onto a wooden globe.

Honours

  • Waldseemüller Rock in Antarctica is named after Martin Waldseemüller.

See also

  • Waldseemüller map
  • Naming of the Americas
  • History of the Americas
  • Richard Amerike
  • History of cartography
  • List of Catholic clergy scientists
  • List of German inventors and discoverers

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Martin Waldseemüller — (Graecized ILACOMILUS).

Learned Humanist and celebrated cartographer, born at Wolfenweiler near Fribourg, or in Fribourg itself, about 1475; died as a canon of St-Dié in Lorraine, probably at the beginning of 1522. The first authentic information concerning Waldseemüller is to be found in the matriculation register of the University of Fribourg, where his name is entered on 7 December, 1490, as "Martinus Walzenmüller de Friburgo Constantiensis Diocesis." His father moved about 1475 from Wolfenweiler to Fribourg; his mother seems to have been a native of Radolfzell on Lake Constance. There is no documentary evidence as to Martin's course of study at the university; it is plain, however, that he studied theology, for in 1514 he applied as a cleric of the Diocese of Constance for a canonry at St-Dié, and got it. That he began early to devote himself to geographical and chartographical studies is also clear from his great map-making which established his fame as early as 1507: the great map of the world and wall-map containing the name America; the small globe that also gives the name America, and the text to accompany the map and the globe, the much prized Cosmographiae introductio=1F, which among other things gives the reason for the use of the name America in the map and the globe, and contains, as an appendix, a Latin translation of the four journeys of Amerigo Vespucci. The title of this remarkable work, one of so much importance especially for America, is: "Cosmographiae introductio cum quibusdam geometriae ac astronomiae principiis ad eam rem necessariis. Insuper quatuor Americi Vespucii navigationes. Universalis Cosmographiae descriptio tam in solido quam plano, eis etiam insertis, quae Ptholomaeo ignota a nuperis reperta sunt." The map of the world in 1507, entitled "Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes", attracted the same attention upon its rediscovery by the writer of the present article as it did when first published. As Waldseemüller himself states, only a thousand copies of the map were issued. Of these only a single copy seems to have been preserved, and this was found in the library of Prince von Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee in the Castle of Wolfegg in Würtemberg. The map consists of twelve sections engraved on wood, and is arranged in three zones, each of which contains four sections; each section measuring to its edge 18 x 24.5 inches. The map, thus covering a space of about 36 square feet, represents the earth's form in a modified Ptolemaic coniform projection with curved meridians. It produced a profound and lasting impression on chartography, being of a wholly new type and representing the earth with a grandeur never before attempted. The preservation of the single copy of the map is due to the fact that the noted chartographer, Johannes Schöner, bound the different sheets together in a cover.

After completing the great publication of 1507, Waldseemüller and his friend Matthias Ringmann (Philesius) devoted themselves to completing the new Latin edition of the geography of Ptolemy. While Ringmann corrected the texts of the editions of Ptolemy issued at Rome and Ulm by means of a manuscript Greek text borrowed from Italy that is now known as the "Cod. Vatic. Graec. 191", Waldseemüller went over the accompanying maps and supplemented them by the addition of twenty modern ones, "which may be regarded as the first modern atlas of the world" (Nordenskiold, "Facsimile- Atlas"). In these chartographical labours Waldseemüller was aided by the secretary of Duke Rene of Lorraine, Canon Gaulthier Lud, who provided the necessary materials for the maps and the expenses of the printing. Waldseemüller sought in 1511 to interest Rene's son and successor, Duke Antoine, in his chartographical labours by dedicating to him the first printed wall map of Central Eurpoe, the "Carta iteneraria Europae", which has also been preserved in one copy found by Professor Dr. von Wieser. It does not appear, however, that Waldseemüller succeeded in this effort, for the publication of the edition of Ptolemy was not, as intended, at the expense of Lud Oessler and Uebelin, citizens of Strasburg. Waldseemüller's name is not mentioned in this celebrated edition of Ptolemy of 1513, although he seems to have taken part in the production of the work as printer; he calls himself explicitly in a letter written at this date in Strasburg: "clerc du diocese de Constance, imprimeur, demeurant a Strassburg" (cleric of the Diocese of Constance, printer, living at Strasburg).

After the completion of the Strasburg edition of Ptolemy and after he had obtained the canonry at St-Dié, to which Duke Antoine had the right of presentation, Waldseemüller zealously continued his chartographical labours in the little city of the Vosges Mountains. In addition to the map of the world in the "Margarita Philosophica nova" (Strasburg, 1515), issued by Gregorius Reisch, another result of his exhaustive research is the "Carta marina navigatoria" of 1516, which fairly competes in size and value with the great map of the world of 1507. It is markedly superior to the map of 1507 in its artistic ornamentation, and there are many important changes from the former map. It was so favourably received that the celebrated printer of Strasburg, J. Grieniger, applied to Waldseemüller to prepare German inscriptions for the map and to supply it with a fully illustrated German text so as to make it accessible to a greater number of persons. Waldseemüller began at once to make the preliminary prepartions for this task, but death prevented him from completing it, as it also prevented his finishing a new edition of Ptolemy which was to be of a more convenient size and was to have an explanatory text and a large number of illustrations. Both these undertakings were completed by the physician Laurentius Fries; unfortunately, what he produced did not equal the work of his predecessor. Much credit, however, is due the modesty with which Fries, in the Strasburg edition of Ptolemy of 1525, deprecated being praised for simply having reduced in form the work of another to whom the praise is due. Waldseemüller's maps and explanations are retained almost without change in the editions of Ptolemy of the years 1525, 1535, and 1541, while important emendations were made in the text of Ptolemy. Waldseemüller undoubtedly was one of the most distinguished chartographers of his time, and his work made a marked impression upon the development of chartography.

D'AVESAC, Martin Hylacomylus Waltzemuller, ses ouvrages et ses collaborateurs (Paris, 1867); GALLOIS, Les geographes allemands de la Renaissance (Paris, 1890); IDEM, Americ Vespuce et les geographes de Saint-Dié in Bulletin de la societe de geographie de l'Est (Nancy, 1906); FISCHER and VON WIESER, Dié alteste Karte mit dem Namen Amerika aus dem Jahre 1507 u. die Carta Marina aus dem Jahre 1516 des M. Waldseemuller (Ilacomilus) (Innsbruck, 1903); IDEM in the introduction of The Cosmographiae Introductio of Martin Waldseemuller in Martin Waldseemuller in Facsimile, ed HERBERMANN (New York, 1907); FLAMM, Die Herkunft des Cosmographen M. Waldseemuller (Walzenmuller) in Zeitschrift fur die Gesch. Des Oberrheins (Heidelberg, 1912), 42 sq.

References

  1. Back to citation Waldseemüller, Martin (December 12, 2007). "1507 World Map - Waldseemüller Maps - Exploring the Early Americas | Exhibitions - Library of Congress". www.loc.gov.
  2. Back to citation occurrence 2.0 Back to citation occurrence 2.1 Lester p. 343
  3. Back to citation Meurer p. 1204
  4. Back to citation "A Tour of Ptolemy's Maps". University of Minnesota. Retrieved 11 August 2021.
  5. Back to citation Fernández-Armesto p. 182
  6. Back to citation Lester pp. 343–344
  7. Back to citation Baldi p. 101
  8. Back to citation Fernandez-Armesto p. 185
  9. Back to citation Meurer pp. 1204–1206
  10. Back to citation Fernandez-Armesto pp. 185–186
  11. Back to citation Lester p. 379
  12. Back to citation occurrence 12.0 Back to citation occurrence 12.1 Meurer p. 1206
  13. Back to citation Wolff p. 117
  14. Back to citation Wolff p. 116
  15. Back to citation Meurer p. 1207
  16. Back to citation Wolff pp. 117–118
  17. Back to citation Van Duzer 2011
  18. Back to citation Hébert, John R. (September 2003). "The Map That Named America". Library of Congress. Vol. 62, no. 9. Retrieved 27 October 2018.

Bibliography

  • David Brown: 16th-Century Mapmaker's Intriguing Knowledge, in: The Washington Post, 2008-11-17, p. A7
  • Peter W. Dickson: "The Magellan Myth: Reflections on Columbus, Vespucci and the Waldseemueller Map of 1507", Printing Arts Press, 2007, 2009 (Second Edition)
  • Fernández-Armesto, Felipe (2007). Amerigo: The Man Who Gave his Name to America. New York: Random House. ISBN 9781400062812.
  • Hessler, John W. (2008). The naming of America: Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 world map and the Cosmographiae introductio. Giles. ISBN 978-1904832492.
  • King, Robert J. (2022). "The Antipodes on Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 World Map". The Globe (91): 43–60. ProQuest 2666975853.
  • Lester, Toby (2009a) Putting America on the Map, Smithsonian, Volume 40, Number 9, p. 78, December 2009
  • Lester, Toby (2009). The Fourth Part of the World: An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America. New York: Free Press. ISBN 9781416535317.
  • Meurer, Peter H. (2007). "Cartography in the German Lands, 1450–1650". In Woodward, David (ed.). The History of Cartography, Volume 3: Cartography in the European Renaissance, Part 2 (PDF). University of Chicago. pp. 1204–1207. ISBN 978-0-226-90734-5.
  • Seymour Schwartz: Putting "America" on the Map, the Story of the Most Important Graphic Document in the History of the United States, Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, 2007
  • Van Duzer, Chet; Larger, Benoît (2011). "Martin Waldseemuller's Death Date". Imago Mundi. 63 (2).
  • Van Duzer, Chet. "The Annotations in the 1525 Ptolemy in the Huntington Library: The Continuing Influence of Martin Waldseemüller's World Map of 1507." Huntington Library Quarterly 85, no. 3 (2022): 517–538.
  • Wolff, Hans (1992). "Martin Waldseemuller". In Wolff, Hans (ed.). America: Early Maps of the New World. Munich: Prestel. pp. 111–126. ISBN 3791312324.
Retrieved from "https://catholicism.wiki/index.php?title=Martin_Waldseemüller&oldid=183647"