Waldseemüller map
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The Waldseemüller map was drawn by Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 - 1518). First published in 1507, it was an early western map to chart latitude and longitude with precision, following the example of Ptolemy.
History
Of the one-thousand copies originally printed in April 1507, the only extant copy was originally owned by Johannes Schöner (1477 - 1547), a Nuremberg astronomer and geographer, and it was thought to have been lost long ago and was rediscovered in 1901 in Wolfegg Castle in Germany. It remained there until 2001 when the United States Library of Congress purchased it from Prinz Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg for ten million dollars. There has been some suggestion that the surviving wall map is from a second edition produced about 1515. It is believed to be the only one in existence, however, four reduced and simplified copies of the small globe produced at the same time exist in the form of "gores". Gores are printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto balls. One of these gores is in the [James Ford Bell Library]] at the University of Minnesota system.The map
It is made up of twelve sheets, and was drawn up by Waldseemüller, Ringmann, Lud, Basin and Pelerin. It is believed, by some, that the Wadseemüller map was a compilation of several earlier maps (chiefly those of Ptolemy and the Caveri planisphere and others similar to those of Martellus or Behaim) and was the first known western map to call the New World "America". The Caribbean and what appears to be Florida were depicted on two earlier charts, the Cantino map and the Caverio map. The Waldsemüller map also shows America separate from Asia and, therefore, an ocean appearing to presage the Pacific coast of The Americas, whereas the others do not make it clear whether or not their map-makers thought the western lands were part of Asia or separate.The mystery of the Pacific
Waldseemüller's 1507 map is intriguing for another reason, related to its naming of America as a new continent. It depicts North and South America astonishingly accurately, as two large continents, joined (or nearly so) by a narrow isthmus, with mountainous western coasts and a great ocean beyond separating them from Asia. However, the first European to set eyes on this ocean - the Pacific - was Vasco Núñez de Balboa in 1513, or, Ponce de León in 1512 or 1513 - six years after Waldseemüller made his map. Until this time, it was still erroneously believed that the lands discovered by Columbus, Vespucci et al formed part of Asia and the Indies. Thus, there seems to be no way that Waldseemüller could have known about the Pacific. The historian Peter Whitfield has theorised 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 China and the Indies. Thus, Waldseemüller reasoned, the newly discovered lands could not be part of Asia but must be separate from it - a leap of intuition that was later proved uncannily precise. Additionally, Vespucci's book, Mundus Novus, widely published throughout Europe after 1504 (including by Waldseemuller himself in 1507) first introduced to Europeans the idea that this was a new continent and not Asia, hence, Waldseemuller's separating America from Asia creating a proto-Pacific Ocean.[link]
See also
- Ancient world maps
- World map
- Timeline of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
- Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
- Piri Reis map, made in 1513 (based on 20 older maps).
- Gavin Menzies
- 1421 hypothesis
External links
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