Page 233 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

The Western Hemisphere is out of scale with
the Old World on the map, either out of ignorance
or a desire to show the details more clearly. The
map is full of place names in the Antilles and
along the South American and African coasts.
The prominent vertical line that touches South
America is the "line of demarcation" created by
the Treaty of Tordesillas to separate areas of Span-
ish and Portuguese sovereignty. The detail of the
coastline to the north, around Newfoundland and
Cape Breton, is thought to reflect a lost map
drawn by John Cabot. j. A.L.

1 3 2
Martin Waldseemiiller
German, 1470-1518
WORLD MAP

1507
woodcut on 12 sheets
120 x 240, each sheet 45 x 60 (4^/4 x 9 4^2, each
3
sheet i7 /4 x 23%)
references: Fischer and Wieser 1903, 1-18, 45-55,
pis. 1-13; Laubenberger 1959; Fite and Freeman
1969, 24-27, no. 8; Klemp 1976, no. 4; Harris 1985

Furstlich zu Waldburg-Wolfegg'sche
Kupferstichkabinett

In his Cosmographiae introductio published in
Saint-Die in Lorraine in May and September
1507, Martin Waldseemiiller (or perhaps Matthias
Ringmann: see Laubenberger 1959) noted that
the book was to constitute "a sort of introduction
to the cosmographical configurations which we
have depicted both on a globe and on a map/'
Today the map is known in only one impression,
in the library of the prince of Waldburg-Wolf egg.
It was discovered there early in this century in a
large folio volume bearing the ex libris of Johann
Schoner (1477-1557), the famous cartographer
from Nuremberg. This remarkable volume con-
tained Martin Waldseemiiller's woodcut world
maps of 1507 and 1516 (both unique examples)
and Diirer's map of the heavens of 1515 (see cats.
118,119), as well as gores of Schoner's celestial
globe of 1517.
Martin Waldseemiiller was born in Radolfzell
in Germany in 1470 and died probably in 1518, in
Saint-Die. He settled at the court of Rene n, duke
of Lorraine, where he produced various maps of
Europe and of the world. Most important is his
edition of Ptolemy's Geography published in inscription on a later map indicates that the orig- Appropriately, representations of Ptolemy and
Strasbourg in 1513, for its new maps brought the inal printing was 1,000 copies. Vespucci appear at the top at either side, empha-
traditional Ptolemaic world view up to date. The map's full title is Universalis cosmographia sizing the fact that the configuration combines
According to Waldseemiiller's own account, his secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Amend the traditional Ptolemaic vision of the world with
world map of 1507 was drawn and printed in the Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes (A Map of the the results of the latest geographical explorations.
small town of Saint-Die, although the woodcuts World According to the Tradition of Ptolemy and Africa is shown to be circumnavigable, but the
seem to have been made in Strasbourg. An the Voyages of Americus Vespucius and others). topography of India and what is now Sri Lanka

232 CIRCA 1492