Waldseemuller

NAME: Waldseemuller, Martin

ACHIEVEMENT(S): Gave America its name.

NICKNAME/ALIAS: also spelled Waltzemuller, or Walzenmuller; Greek,

Hylacomylus, or Ilacomilus

PLACE OF BIRTH: c.1470, at Radolfzell, Württemberg [Germany]

DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 1518-21?, at Saint-Dié, Lorraine [now in France],

aged 48/51

DISCIPLINE: Cartographer

FIELD: Cartography

LANGUAGE: Latin and German

PARENTS: Conrad Waldseemuller and ?

SIBLINGS: Unknown

SPOUSE: None

CHILDREN: None

EDUCATION: University of Freiburg im Breisgau, 1490-93?

MAJOR WORK: 'Introduction to Cosmography', 1507

LIFE AND TIMES: Although little information exists concerning his childhood and youth, it is known that his family moved to Freiburg in 1480 or 1481, and that ten years later his father, Conrad, became a member of the city council.

In 1490 Waldseemuller entered the University of Freiburg, where he studied theology and cosmography. Sometime between 1493 and 1505 Waldseemuller worked in Basel, Switzerland, where the printer Johann Amerbach introduced him to the art of printing woodcut illustrations. During this time he was ordained, and began his first searches for manuscripts to be used for a revised edition of Ptolemy's* 'Geographia'.

About 1505 Waldseemüller moved to France, to the town of Saint-Dié in the Vosges mountains, and the site of a Benedictine monastery. At Saint-Die a printing press had recently been set up under the patronage of René II, Duke of Lorraine, who was a keen collector of foreign books and maps, and was especially interested in geography. Waldseemuller settled at the duke's court.

He joined the circle surrounding the duke's secretary (and owner of the print shop) Gauthier Ludd, who had established a society for humanists and scholars of the arts and sciences known as the 'Gymnasium Vosagense'.

This group, which included Matthias Ringmann (a poet and teacher of Latin who had also studied with Reisch), were especially interested in collecting and publishing information on the new world then becoming known through the voyages of discovery, with Waldseemuller, as a writer, cartographer and printer, as probably the most versatile member of the group.

The great scheme of the group at Saint-Die was to publish a major new edition of Ptolemy's 'Geographia' accompanied by many fine illustrative maps, and their first task was to borrow a Greek manuscript of the text from a monastery and then compare Ptolemy's maps with several other more recent maps and with the recent writings of the explorer Vespucci*.

This proved to be a very large undertaking, and although the editing was in process by 1505, it soon became clear that it would take many years to complete. Meanwhile, Waldseemuller had added the information gained from Vespucci's voyages of discovery to a great woodcut map of the world as an "introduction" for students to these new discoveries (both as map and globe gores), which on 25 April 1507 was published with a slim volume:''Introduction to Cosmography.'

This book, which was written by Waldseemuller and sponsored by the duke, consisted of a general introduction to cosmography and a Latin translation of the report on Vespucci's four voyages.

Both the world and wall map contained for the first time the name 'America' on the southern part of the New World, and in the text Waldseemuller suggested that the fourth part of the world should be called the land of Amerigo, or America, since it was discovered (as he believed) by Amerigo Vespucci.

Waldseemuller's map and text attracted much attention, because it showed an entirely new view of the world, with an extra continent in the middle of the Atlantic and another ocean beyond, separating the New World from Asia. (This had never been put forward by Columbus, who continued to believe that he had landed in the East).

Such was its success, that a thousand copies were issued at Saint-Die, a single copy of which is fortunately preserved, thanks to the work of the noted cartographer Johannes Schoner who bound the different sheets together in a cover. After completing this great publication of 1507, Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann 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, mainly, of a manuscript Greek text borrowed from Italy), Waldseemuller went over the accompanying maps and supplemented them by the addition of twenty modern ones, of which he personally designed eleven, including an important world map showing the New World but naming it 'Land of the Holy Cross' (as if he had possibly realized that Vespucci was not in fact its discoverer after all).

Printed in 1513 (two years after Ringmann's death) in Strasbourg by Johann Schott (another former student of Reisch), the 'Geographia' may be regarded as the first modern atlas of the world.

In 1514, Waldseemuller was appointed canon of Saint-Die, and during his remaining years he continued to work as a cartographer. In addition to the two world maps to accompany the 'Introduction' and his edition of Ptolemy's 'Geographia', in 1516 he produced a world map entitled 'Carta marina navigatoria', a "Portuguese Navigational Sea-chart of the known Earth and Oceans" which made many important changes to his 1507 world map, and was in fact the first and only printed version of the world charts previously known only to Spanish and Portuguese explorers and their patrons.

Two years after publishing the great 'Carta marina', Waldseemüller died, leaving a legacy of maps and a book, and the name "America" on the world map.

ASSESSMENT: An accomplished cartographer know primarily for putting America on the map.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: His work related to that of Apian*

ONELINER: Martin Waldseemuller, namer of America

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

DSB, EB

New Catholic Encylopedia