Everything about Waldseem Ller Map totally explained
The
Waldseemüller map,
Universalis Cosmographia, is a wall map of the world drawn by
German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller and originally published in April 1507. It was one of the first maps to chart
latitude and
longitude precisely, following the
example of Ptolemy, and was the first map to use the name "
America". Waldseemüller also created globe
gores, printed maps designed to be cut out and pasted onto spheres to form globes of the Earth.
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 in
Lorraine, which in that time belonged to the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The maps were accompanied by the book
Cosmographiae Introductio produced by the Vosgean Gymnasium.
Wall map
The full title of the map is "Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes". It is believed by some that it was based on several earlier maps, chiefly those based on the
Ptolemy atlas and the Caveri
planisphere and others similar to those of Martellus or Behaim. The
Caribbean and what appears to be
Florida 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 circa 1503-1504 and showing the Gulf of Mexico. Sailors and fishermen frequented these waters without making maps and fishing areas may have remained proprietary secrets for a long time. Whereas, the earlier maps may not assure whether or not their map-makers thought the western lands were separate from
Asia (although an eastern coastline for Asia is depicted on the maps dated after 1500), the Waldseemüller map shows
America clearly separated from Asia by a large expanse of ocean.
The Waldseemüller map depicts
North and
South America as two large
continents. The main map shows the two continents slightly separated, while the small inset map in the top border shows them joined by an
isthmus. The name "America" is placed on South America, this being the first map known to use this name. As explained in
Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of
Amerigo Vespucci.
In depicting the
Americas separate from Asia, the map shows a great ocean between the mountainous western coasts of the Americas and the eastern coast of Asia. The first historical records of Europeans to set eyes on this ocean, the
Pacific, are recorded as
Vasco Núñez de Balboa in
1513 or,
Ponce de León in
1512 or
1513. Those dates are five to six years after Waldseemüller made his map. In addition, the map predicts the width of South America at certain latitudes to within 70 miles.
Apparently among most map-makers until that time, it was still erroneously believed that the lands discovered by
Christopher Columbus, Vespucci, and others formed part of the
Indies of Asia. Thus some believe that it's impossible that Waldseemüller could have known about the Pacific, which is depicted on his map. The historian Peter Whitfield has theorised that Waldseemüller incorporated the ocean into his map because Vespucci's accounts of the Americas, with their so-called "savage" peoples, couldn't be reconciled with contemporary knowledge of
India,
China, and the islands of Indies. Thus, Waldseemüller reasoned, the newly discovered lands couldn't be part of Asia, but must be separate from it, a leap of intuition that was later proved uncannily precise.
Most importantly,
Mundus Novus, a book attributed to Vespucci, who had explored the extensive eastern coast of South America, was widely published throughout Europe after 1504, including by Waldseemuller's group in 1507, first introduced to Europeans the idea that this was a new continent and
not Asia, hence, Waldseemüller's separating America from Asia, depicting the Pacific Ocean, and the use of the first name of Vespucci on his map.
The wall map consists of twelve sections printed from wood engravings measuring 18 x 24.5 inches (46 x 62 cm). Each section is one of four horizontally and three vertically, when assembled. The map uses a modified Ptolemaic
conformal projection with curved meridians to depict the entire surface of the Earth.
Extant copies
Of the one thousand copies of the wall map printed, only one is known still to exist. It was originally owned by
Johannes Schöner (1477–1547), a
Nuremberg astronomer, geographer, and cartographer. Its existence was unknown for a long time until its rediscovery in 1901 in the library of Prince von Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee in
Wolfegg Castle in
Württemberg,
Germany by
Joseph Fischer. It remained there until 2001 when the
United States Library of Congress purchased it from Waldburg-Wolfegg-Waldsee for ten million dollars. It will be permanently displayed in the Library of Congress, within a display case filled with
argon.
Further Information
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