'Amerigen' was the German name coined by Martin Waldseemueller for the new continent (actually for South America)
Posted on 07/24/2003 8:12:50 AM PDT by Ed Straker
Article Published July 24, 2003
America put on the map
First document to name country makes its debut
Story by Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The earliest map using "America" to label part of the New World is going on display in America for the first time.
The 496-year-old Martin Waldseemueller map, sometimes called America's birth certificate, will be on public view at the Library of Congress starting today.
The library recently completed the $10 million purchase of the 12-panel map covering 36 square feet, the most expensive single item it has ever acquired. It was owned by Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg, at whose castle in southwestern Germany the document was discovered a century ago. It is the only one known copy to survive of the 1,000 copies said to have been printed of the map.
"It was a bargain," said John K. Hebert, chief of the library's Geography and Map Division. He hopes for important new research now that the map is in the United States.
"AMERICA," in capital letters, appears on a part showing what is now Brazil.
An inset includes both North and South America, and a drawing of "Amerigi Vespucci." In an accompanying pamphlet, which will be displayed later, cartographer Matin Waldseemueller wrote that since Vespucci was the first to call it a continent, the land mass should be named after him.
Vespucci, an Italian who came to the New World soon after Columbus, sailed along South America's north and east coast.
Hebert speculates that Vespucci, or someone not yet identified, may have seen the west coast too, but he knows of no record of that. At three points, he said, the map gives a surprisingly exact width of South America — a width of 30 degrees of longitude at the equator, for example.
"It's much more accurate than anyone could guess from just an exploration of the east coast," Hebert said. He knows of no European exploration on the Pacific coast before the date of the map, 1507.
The Waldseemueller map is part of a larger exhibit at the library called "Rivers, Edens, Empires: Lewis & Clark and the Revealing of America."
'Amerigen' was the German name coined by Martin Waldseemueller for the new continent (actually for South America)
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