Martin Waldseemüller was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
cartographerCartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
. He and
Matthias RingmannMatthias Ringmann was a German cartographer and humanist poet. He is credited with naming America on the map of his friend Martin Waldseemüller.- Life :...
are credited with the first recorded usage of the word
AmericaThe Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
, on the 1507 map
Universalis Cosmographia in honor of the Florentine explorer
Amerigo VespucciAmerigo Vespucci was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer. The Americas are generally believed to have derived their name from the feminized Latin version of his first name.-Expeditions:...
.
Life
Waldseemüller was born in
WolfenweilerSchallstadt is a town in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald in Baden-Württemberg in Germany....
, then his family moved to
FreiburgFreiburg im Breisgau is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the extreme south-west of the country, it straddles the Dreisam river, at the foot of the Schlossberg. Historically, the city has acted as the hub of the Breisgau region on the western edge of the Black Forest in the Upper Rhine Plain...
in
BreisgauBreisgau is the name of an area in southwest Germany, placed between the river Rhine and the foothills of the Black Forest around Freiburg im Breisgau in the state of Baden-Württemberg. The district Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald, which partly consists of the Breisgau, is named after that area...
(his mother came from
RadolfzellRadolfzell am Bodensee is a town in Germany at the western end of Lake Constance approximately 18 km northwest of Konstanz. It is the third largest town, after Constance and Singen, in the district of Konstanz, in Baden-Württemberg....
) and he studied at the University of Freiburg. He died March 16, 1520, "ab intestat", then a canon of the collegiate Church of Saint-Dié (located between Nancy, Lorraine and Strasbourg, Alsace in the heart of the Vosges blue mountain range along the Rhine river valley).
On April 25, 1507, as a member of the Gymnasium Vosagense at Saint Diey (German: Sankt Diedolt) in the
duchyA duchy is a territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess.Some duchies were sovereign in areas that would become unified realms only during the Modern era . In contrast, others were subordinate districts of those kingdoms that unified either partially or completely during the Medieval era...
of Lorraine (today
Saint-Dié-des-VosgesSaint-Dié-des-Vosges, commonly referred to as Saint-Dié, is a commune in the Vosges department in Lorraine in northeastern France.It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-Geography:...
,
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
), he produced a globular world map and a large 12-panel world wall map (
Universalis Cosmographia, both bearing the first use of the name "America". The globular and wall maps were accompanied by a book
Cosmographiae IntroductioCosmographiae Introductio was a book published in 1507 to accompany Martin Waldseemüller's printed globe and wall-map , which were the first appearance of the name 'America'...
, an introduction to
cosmographyCosmography is the science that maps the general features of the universe, describing both heaven and Earth...
. The book, first printed in the city of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, includes in its second part, a translation to Latin of the
Quattuor Americi Vespuccij navigationes (
Four Voyages of Americo Vespucci), which is apparently a letter written by Amerigo Vespucci, although some historians consider it to have been a forgery written by its supposed recipient in Italy. In the chapter nine of the first part of the
Cosmographiae Introductio, written by Mat(t)hias Ringmann (died in Sélestat in the year of Our Lord 1511 at the age of 29), it is explained why the name America was proposed for the then New World, or the Fourth Part of the World:
ab Americo Inventore ...quasi Americi terram sive Americam (from Amerigo the discoverer ...as if it were the land of Americus, thus America).
In 1513 Waldseemüller appears to have had second thoughts about the name, probably due to contemporary protests about Vespucci’s role in the discovery and naming of America, or just carefully waiting for the official discovery of the whole northwestern coast of what is now called North America, as separated from East Asia. In his reworking of the
PtolemyClaudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
atlas, the continent is labelled simply
Terra Incognita (unknown land). Despite the revision, 1,000 copies of the world maps had since been distributed, and the original suggestion took hold. While
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
was still called
Indies in documents for some time, it was eventually called
America as well.
The wall map was lost for a long time, but a copy was found in a castle at
WolfeggWolfegg is a town in the district of Ravensburg in Baden-Württemberg in Germany.-Overview:It is the site of Wolfegg Castle, the home of the Princes of Waldburg-Wolfegg, longtime owners of the only known copy of the Waldseemüller map. The map remained at the castle until 2001 when the...
in southern Germany by Joseph Fischer in 1901. It is still the only copy known to survive, and it was purchased by the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
in May 2003, after reaching an agreement in 2001. Four copies of the globular map survive in the form of "gores": printed maps that were intended to be cut out and pasted onto a ball. Only one of these lies in the
AmericasThe Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
today, residing at the
James Ford Bell LibraryThe James Ford Bell Library is named for its donor and patron James Ford Bell, the founder of the General Mills Corporation in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The collection consists of some 30,000 rare books, maps, manuscripts, broadsides, pamphlets and other materials documenting the history and impact...
,
University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
.
H.Res. 287 America
In 2007, US Congressman Alcee Hastings introduced a bill (H.Res 287) to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the first use of the name "America" with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus, the Organizing Committee and mayors in fifty states to champion the national strategy "Bring Home The Spirit of History in your town". Riccardo Gaudino, historian for the America500 Birthday Extravaganza Movement (2007–12) led the campaign for Who Named America? National Youth Literacy for the 21st Century. The resolution passed unanimously on July 11, 2007. Youth requested mayors and governors to issue Who Named America? proclamations for celebrating the "500th Birthday of the naming of America" in earth science to energize youth thirst for knowledge. The cartographer Martin Waldseemuller's print of the globe map resulted in many "firsts" in geography. It was first projection of earth to depict a new land mass not of Africa and Asia, and a new western ocean (known now as the Pacific). The Vision of America500 Birthday Extravaganza 2007-12 was inspired to explore humanity's spirit of ingenuity by celebrating a community story to open local windows to worldwide origins. US mayors & governors proclaimed April "World Geography Month" to energize learning of Waldseemuller globe map, said to have been printed on April 25, 1507, and share new insight into the birth of the word "America" as a milestone in the rise of planetary science.
See also
- Naming of America
- Discoverer of the Americas
The discovery of the Americas in modern western history is mainly attributed to the voyages of Christopher Columbus. The discovery of the Americas has also variously been attributed to others, depending on context and definition....
- Richard Amerike
Richard ap Meryk, Anglicised to Richard Amerike was a wealthy English merchant, royal customs officer and sheriff, of Welsh descent. He was the principal owner of the Matthew, the ship sailed by John Cabot during his voyage of exploration to North America in 1497...
- History of cartography
Cartography , or mapmaking, has been an integral part of the human story for a long time, possibly up to 8,000 years...
- List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics
External links
- The Cosmographiæ Introductio of Martin Waldseemüller (Facsimile), via Google Books.
- Silverado Middle School 8th Grade Leadership Class Launches Nationwide Who Named America? Knowledge Movement to commemorat the America500th Birthday for World Geography Month.", Patty Wyman, America500tv. April 25, 2008.
- "Pope Valley School Cuts 1507 Globe Map for World Geography Month.", Riccardo Gaudino, America500tv. April 20, 2007.
- "16th-Century Mapmaker's Intriguing Knowledge", David Brown, The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
. November 17, 2008; Page A07.
- "You Are Here—The Library of Congress buys 'America's birth certificate'.", John J. Miller, The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
. July 25, 2003.
- "The map that changed the world", Toby Lester The BBC, October 28, 2009.
- Who-named-America-and-why-should-Napa-care?
- "Naming of America", BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
.
- World Digital Library
The World Digital Library is an international digital library operated by UNESCO and the United States Library of Congress.The WDL has stated that its mission is to promote international and intercultural understanding, expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet, provide...
presentation of Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorum que lustrationes or A Map of the Entire World According to the Traditional Method of Ptolemy and Corrected with Other Lands of Amerigo Vespucci. Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
.