Waldseemuller, Martin b. (?) about 1475; Freiburg, Breisgau d.(?)
Famous for having given the newfound continent the name America, after Amerigo Vespucci. But there has always been a paradox in this fact. How did it come about that a cartographer of Breisgau should be the first to name and delineate regions newly reached by the mariners of Iberia from their bases far away on the Atlantic Coast? Waldseemuller was born about 1475, probably near Freiburg-im-Breisgau, whose university he attended.
He was early recognized as an accomplished humanist scholar and began to work in the learned circles patronized by Rene II, duke of Lorraine. This group established a printing press in St-Die, near Strasbourg, around 1505 and in 1507 published Waldseemuller’s Cos- mographiae Introductio (Introduction to Cosmography), in which the suggestion was made that the new continent be named America; this came about because letters concerning the supposed discoveries of Amerigo Vespucci formed a large part of the book.This publication and its variants were long known and studied, and then in the late nineteenth century scholars discovered both the globe gores designed to accompany the Introductio, and a large world map also dating from 1507. Wald- seemuller, in fact, went on to produce other maps, in particular those accompanying his 1513 edition of the Geography of the classical scholar Claudius Ptolemy. But his great fame rests on the world map of 1507, with its mention of America. This map had been discovered in 1900 in the collections at Wolfegg Castle. At the time of this writing in 2005 it seems likely that it will be purchased for the Library of Congress, so that it can be held and exhibited in Washington.
World map by Martin Waldseemuller, 1507, showing America. (British Library)
To revert to the paradox with which we began, the naming of the new continent took place in Lorraine because of the advanced printing techniques newly available there. Although the Iberian powers provided the mariners and cartographic skill, Spain and Portugal lacked the sophisticated printing presses that could produce large printed maps, and so America was named in the duchy of Lorraine, far from the Atlantic Ocean.
David Buisseret
References and Further Reading
Fischer, Joseph, and Franz von Wieser. Die alteste Karte mit dem Namen Amerika. Innsbruck, London: Wagner/Stevens, 1903.
Karrow, Robert, Jr. Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps. Chicago: Speculum Orbis, 1993.
Skelton, Raleigh A., ed. “Introduction.” In Geographia, Strasbourg, 1513. Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1966.