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Abstract
Editor's Note: This brief overview of the history of
Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 map and its acquisition
by the Library of Congress is presented as a complement to John Hessler's article, "Warping Waldseemüller:
A Cartometric Study of the Coast of South America
as Portrayed on the 1507 World Map" (Coordinates, Series A, No.
4). A high-resolution image of the Waldseemüller
map can be found at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3200.ct000725C.
Keywords: Waldseemuller, Library
of Congress, maps, cartography, exploration, Renaissance
In late May 2003, the Library of Congress
completed the purchase of the only surviving copy of the first image of the
outline of the continents of the world as we know them today— Martin Waldseemüller’s monumental 1507 world map. That map has
been referred to in various circles as America's
birth certificate, and for good reason—it is the first document on which the
name America
appears. It is also the first map to depict a separate and full Western
Hemisphere and the first map to represent the Pacific
Ocean as a separate body of water. The purchase of the map
concluded a nearly century long effort to secure for the Library of Congress
that very special cartographic document revealing new European thinking about
the world nearly 500 years ago.
Martin Waldseemüller,
the primary cartographer of the map, was a sixteenth-century scholar,
humanist, cleric, and cartographer who had joined the small intellectual
circle, the Gymnasium Vosagense, organized
in Saint-Dié,
France. He
was born near Freiburg,
Germany,
sometime in the 1470s, and died in the canon house at Saint-Dié in 1522. During his lifetime, he devoted much of his
activities to cartographic ventures, including the famous world map, a set of
globe gores (for a globe with a 3 inch diameter) and, the Cosmographiae
Introductio (a book to accompany the map) in
the spring of 1507; the 1513 edition of the Ptolemy (Begin Page 2) Geographiae;
the Carta Marina, a large world
map, in 1516; and a smaller world map in the 1515 edition of Margarita Philosophica Nova among other items.
Thus, in northeast France was born the
famous 1507 world map, entitled Universalis
cosmographia secunda Ptholemei traditionem et Americi Vespucci aliorum que lustrationes
(A drawing of the whole earth following the tradition of Ptolemy and the
travels of Amerigo Vespucci
and others). That map, printed on twelve separate sheets from wood block
plates, when assembled would measure more than 4 ½ feet by 8 feet in
dimension. The large map is an early sixteenth-century masterpiece,
containing a full map of the world, two inset maps showing separately the
Western and Eastern Hemispheres, illustrations of Ptolemy and Vespucci, images of the various winds, and extensive
explanatory notes about selected regions of the world. Waldseemüller’s
1507 map was a bold statement that rationalized the modern world in light of
the exciting news arriving in Europe as a result of explorations sponsored by
Spain, Portugal, and others—not only across the Atlantic Ocean, but around
the African coast and into the Indian Ocean. The map must have created quite
a stir in Europe, since its findings
departed considerably from the accepted knowledge of the world at that time,
which was based on the second century A.D. work of the Greek geographer,
Claudius Ptolemy. To us, the 1507 map appears remarkably accurate; but to the
world of the early sixteenth century it represented a considerable departure from
accepted views regarding the composition of the world. Its appearance
undoubtedly ignited a debate in Europe regarding its portrayal of an unknown
continent (unknown to Europe and others in the Eastern Hemisphere) between
two huge bodies of water, the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and separated from
the classical world of Ptolemy, which had been confined to the continents of
Europe, Africa, and Asia.
While it has been suggested that Waldseemüller incorrectly dismissed Christopher
Columbus’s great achievement in history by the selection of the name America for the Western Hemisphere, it is
evident that the information that Waldseemüller and
his colleagues had at their disposal recognized Columbus's previous voyages of exploration
and discovery. However, the group also had acquired a recent French
translation of the important work Insuper
aquattor Amerigo Vespuccii navigationes, Amerigo Vespucci's letter
detailing his purported four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean to America
between 1497 and 1504. In that work, Vespucci
concluded that the lands reached by Columbus
in 1492, and explored by Columbus and others over the ensuing two decades,
was indeed a segment of the world, a new continent, unknown to Europe. Because of Vespucci's
recognition of that startling revelation, he was thus honored by the use of
his name for the newly discovered continent. It is remarkable that our entire
Western Hemisphere was thus named for a
living person; Vespucci died in 1512. With regard
to Columbus's exploits from 1492 forward—i.e. his various explorations
between 1492 and 1504— the 1507 map clearly shows Columbus's explorations in
the West Indies, and also the Spanish monarchs' sponsorship of those and
subsequent voyages of exploration. Shortly after the appearance of the 1507
world map by Waldseemüller, Vespucci
was appointed the first Pilot Major in the Spanish House of Trade (the Casa
de la Contratación) in Seville,
and in that capacity was responsible for navigational issues and concerns of
Spanish shipping to the new western possessions, across the Atlantic.
By 1513, when Waldseemüller
and the Saint-Dié scholars published the new
edition of Ptolemy's Geographiae,
and by 1516, when his famous Carta
Marina was printed, (Begin Page 3) Waldseemüller had removed
the name America from his
maps, perhaps suggesting that even he had second thoughts in honoring Vespucci exclusively for his understanding of the New World. Instead, in the 1513 atlas the name America does not appear anyplace in the
volume, and the place of America
is referred to as Terra Incognita (Unknown land). In the1516 Carta Marina, South America is called
Terra Nova (New World), and North America is named Cuba,
and is shown to be part of Asia. No
reference in either work is made to the name America. Yet, cartographic contributions
by Johannes Schöner in 1515 and by Peter Apian in
1520 adopted the name America
for the Western Hemisphere, and that name
became part of accepted usage.
A reported one thousand copies of the 1507
map were printed, which was a sizeable print run in those days. This single
surviving copy of the map exists because it was kept in a portfolio by
Johannes Schöner (1477-1547), a German globe maker,
who probably had acquired a copy of the map for his own cartographic work . That portfolio contained not only the unique copy
of the 1507 world map, but also a unique copy of Waldseemüller's
1516 large wall map (the Carta Marina)
and copies of Schöner's terrestrial (1515) and
celestial (1517) globe gores. Sometime later in history, the family of Prince
Waldburg-Wolfegg acquired and retained Schöner's portfolio in their castle in Baden-Württemberg,
Germany, where it remained unknown to scholars until the beginning of the
twentieth century when its extraordinary contents were revealed. The
uncovering of the 1507 map in the Wolfegg Castle
early last century is thought by many to have been one of the most
extraordinary episodes in the history of cartographic scholarship. The map
sheets have been maintained separated (not joined, with each of the large
maps comprised of twelve separate sheets) and that is the probable reason why
they survived. The portfolio with its great treasure was uncovered and
revealed to the world in 1901 by the Jesuit priest Josef Fischer, who was
conducting research in the Waldburg collection. In
1903 an elaborate set of facsimiles of the 1507 and the 1516 maps accompanied
by a scholarly study by Josef Fischer and Franz von Wieser
appeared.
The Library of Congress's Geography and Map
Division acquired in 1903 the facsimiles made of the 1507 and 1516 maps.
Throughout the twentieth century the Library continued to express interest in
and a desire to acquire the 1507 map, when, if ever, it was made available
for sale. Finally, in 1992, the realization that the 1507 map would be sold
was revealed to the Library of Congress and specialists in the Library were
encouraged to investigate the opportunity. Through the combined efforts of
several Library of Congress specialists, and many other members of the
Library's staff over an 11 year period, the map has made its way to the
Library of Congress. In 1999, Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg
notified the Library that the German national government and the
Baden-Württemberg state government had granted permission for a limited
export license. Having obtained this license, which allowed this German
national treasure to come to the Library of Congress, the Prince pursued an
agreement to sell the 1507 map to the Library. In late June 2001, Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg and the Library of Congress reached a
final agreement on the sale of the map at the price of $10,000,000. In late
May 2003, the Library completed a successful campaign to purchase Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, after receiving
substantial Congressional and private support to achieve the terms of the
contract.
The 1507 world map is now the centerpiece of
the outstanding cartographic collections of the Library of Congress, as it
would be for any world class cartographic collection. The map (Begin Page 4) serves as a
departure point in the development of the American cartographic collection in
addition to its revered position in early modern cartographic history. The
map provides a meaningful link between our treasured late medieval-early
Renaissance cartographic collection (which includes one of the richest
holdings of Ptolemy atlases in the world) and the modem cartographic age
unfolding as a result of the explorations of Columbus and other discoverers
in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It represents the point
of departure from the geographical understanding of the world based on
Ptolemy’s Cosmographiae and Geographiae to that emerging in the minds of
scholars and practical navigators as reports of the "new worlds" of
America, southern Africa,
and other regions of Asia and Oceania reached Europe's
shores. Waldseemüller recognized the transition
taking place, as the title of his map notes and his placement prominently of
images of Ptolemy and Vespucci, next to their
worlds, at the top portion of the 1507 world map denotes. The map now is part
of the rich cartographic holdings of the Geography and Map Division, which
includes some 5.2 million maps; 75,000 atlases; over 500 globes and globe
gores; and thousands of maps in digital form. And from that fragile first
glimpse of the world, so adequately described by Waldseemüller
in 1507, the Library of Congress’ cartographic resources provide the
historical breadth and cartographic depth to fill in the geographic blanks
left by those early cosmographers.
The Library’s acquisition of the Waldseemüller map represents an important moment to renew
serious research into this exceptional map, to determine the sources which
made possible its creation, and to investigate its contemporary impact and
acceptance. The map’s well announced acquisition provides us an extraordinary
opportunity to appreciate the earliest of early depictions of our modern
world. Major segments of this world map have not received the concentrated
scrutiny that the American segments have received. The very detailed
depiction of sub-Sahara Africa, the south coast of Asia, and even the areas
surrounding the Black and Caspian
Seas merit further
study and discussion in response to obvious questions regarding the
cartographic and geographic sources that were available and used by the
Saint-Dié scholars to reach their conclusions in
the 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemüller.[1]
Through agreement with Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg and the government of Germany, the 1507 world map by Martin Waldseemüller is to be placed on permanent display in the
Library of Congress’s Great Hall area in the Thomas Jefferson
Building. The Library
of Congress is proud to have obtained this unique treasure and is anxious to
have this great cartographic document receive the public acclaim and the
critical scholarly inspection that it so rightly merits.
Note
1. This call for further scholarship on the map, its impact, and the sources
used to produce it is not meant to suggest that previous scholarship is
lacking. The fine section on Martin Waldseemüller
in Robert W. Karrow, Jr.'s
Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps: Bio-Bibliographies of
the Cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570 (Chicago:
Speculum Orbis Press, 1993), 568-583, provides a
thorough record of Waldseemüller's research output.
Elizabeth Harris's "The Waldseemüller World
Map: a Typographic Appraisal," Imago Mundi,
v. 37 (1985), 30-53, is an extensive airing of the date of the printing of
the 1507 world map and other Waldseemüller
contributions. Works that have increased our knowledge about Waldseemüller and the group in Saint-Dié
include: Joseph Fischer and Franz R. Von (Begin Page 5) Wieser, Die
älteste Karte mit dem Namen
Americas...
(Insbruck, 1903); Silvo
A. Bedini's brief article on Waldseemüller
in his The Christopher Columbus Encyclopedia (New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1992), 729-731; and Armand P.D'Avezac de Castera-Macaya's Martin Hylacomylus
Waldseemüller.... (Paris: 1867).
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