The map that changed the world[Waldseemuller Map]

BBC ^ | 28 Oct 2009 | BBC

[BGHater]

Drawn half a millennium ago and then swiftly forgotten, one map made us see the world as we know it today... and helped name America. But, as Toby Lester has discovered, the most powerful nation on earth also owes its name to a pun.

Almost exactly 500 years ago, in 1507, Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann, two obscure Germanic scholars based in the mountains of eastern France, made one of the boldest leaps in the history of geographical thought - and indeed in the larger history of ideas.

Near the end of an otherwise plodding treatise titled Introduction to Cosmography, they announced to their readers the astonishing news that the world did not just consist of Asia, Africa, and Europe, the three parts of the world known since antiquity. A previously unknown fourth part of the world had recently been discovered, they declared, by the Italian merchant Amerigo Vespucci, and in his honour they had decided to give it a name: America.

But that was just the beginning. Waldseemuller and Ringman in fact had written the Introduction to Cosmography merely as a companion volume to their magnum opus: a giant and revolutionary new map of the world. It's known today as the Waldseemuller map of 1507.

1) First use of America on map, after explorer Amerigo Vespucci. 2) The Pacific not confirmed until six years after map made. 3) Old World shown as the ancients saw it. 4) New eastern sea route to India. 5) The legendary island of Taprobane. 6) Reference to legendary king Prester John.

[BGHater]

Another interesting Map:

The Piri Reis Map

[BGHater]

General map ping.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Please stop by the FReepathon thread and give it a bump. If you haven’t donated yet, please give it some thought.

Thank you!

[rfp1234]

Whew - we could have become the United States of Vespuccia.

Vespucci, by the way, is derived from vespa ("wasp").

[Erasmus]

Well, the Firesign Theatre sings “God Bless Vespucciland” in their mini-audioplay “Temporarily Humboldt County.”

[SuziQ]

Bump for later Friday reading

[Diver Dave]

Cool map. Doubt Google Maps will incorporate it into their library. :)

[martin_fierro]

There's more. The name America, for example, very probably represents not just a tip of the hat to Amerigo Vespucci but also a multilingual pun that can mean both "born new" and "no-place-land" - a playful coinage that seems to have inspired Sir Thomas More to invent his new world across the ocean, one meaning of which was also "no-place": Utopia.

CONFIRMED!

[Robert A Cook PE]

reference for later.

[SunkenCiv]

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