![]() His work displayed various iterations of the American continent as originally depicted in Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map.Ī small and generalized version was the circular world map which was included in his astronomical and geographical text book, Cosmographicus Liber, first published in 1524. They named it “America” in recognition of Vespucci’s writings.Īpianus, a noted German mathematician, astronomer and geographer, compiled several geographical publications during the first half of the 16th century. Dié group prepared the large wall map and globe which depicted this new continent. The latter, displayed here, explains that Amerigo Vespucci, who made several voyages to the New World subsequent to Columbus, hypothesized that these new lands were a separate continent. In 1507, the group issued three publications – a large wall map, a set of paper segments (gores) for making a small globe, and a short treatise called Cosmographia Introductio. Their objective was to reconcile and map the geographic information observed by Europeans explorers in the New World. Martin Waldseemüller has been recognized as the first European cartographer to depict the New World discoveries as a separate continent, which he named “America.” Waldseemüller was a member of a small group of scholars gathered by René II, Duke of Lorraine, in St. Ruysch applied the name “Mundus Novus” to these new lands. Hispaniola (Spagnola) and the other Caribbean islands are depicted as islands near the Asian mainland, while the northern coast of South America is depicted as an amorphous landmass floating in the middle of the ocean. ![]() On this map, Greenland (Gruenlant) and Newfoundland (Terra Nova) are attached to the Asian mainland. ![]() This rendition, which supports Columbus’ hypothesis that his discoveries were islands off the coast of the Asian mainland, suggests the difficulty European cartographers were having in trying to understand accounts of the exploration of New World discoveries. In 1507, the same year that Martin Waldseemüller issued three works announcing the existence of a new continent which he named America, a skilled cartographer named Johann Ruysch, a native of Antwerp who lived in Germany, published a totally different world map. geographer Eratosthenes had correctly estimated the Earth’s circumference at approximately 25,000 miles.īased on what he thought were accurate perceptions, Columbus believed that he could reach the east coast of Asia by sailing west from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean.įrom Claudius Ptolemy, Geographia (Rome, 1507) These scholars were even able to estimate the Earth’s circumference, although Ptolemy’s underestimated it by about 25 per cent. However, Claudius Ptolemy (2nd century A.D.), as well as other ancient and Greek scholars before him, hypothesized that the Earth was spherical in shape. ![]() It is the oldest surviving example of a terrestrial globe.Īs Columbus planned his voyage, one of his nagging fears was the Medieval notion that the Earth was a flat disc and that one would likely fall off the edge by sailing west from Europe. On the eve of Columbus’s first voyage west across the Atlantic Ocean, Martin Behaim of Nuremberg constructed a model (globe) of a spherical earth which he called an ‘Erdapfel’ (Earth apple). ![]()
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