Terrestrial and celestial globes; their history and ... - 24grammata.com

Globes of the Early Sixteenth Century.
they exhibited genuine Vespucian data.^^ Whatever the
truth concerning the origin of these charts, that determina-
tion became a starting point for a most important evolu-
tion in cartographical history of the world."'' In April, 1507,
Waldseemiiller had written to his friend, Amerbach, in
Basel, "Non credo te latere nos Ptholomei cosmographiam,
recognitio et adiectis quibusdam novis tabulis impressuros
in oppido Divi Deodati. . . . Solidum quod ad generale
Ptholomei paravimus nondum impressum est, erit autem
impressum infra mensis spacium."^^ "I think you know al-
ready that I am on the point of printing in the town of
St. Die (Lorraine), the Cosmography of Ptolemy, after
having added to the same some new maps. . . . the globe
comprising Ptolemy in general, which we have prepared,
is not yet printed, but will be so in a month." While great
interest centers in these "new maps," prepared for the proposed
edition of Ptolemy, a greater interest now centers
in the map to which Waldseemiiller repeatedly alludes in
the years 1507-1511, especially in his 'Cosmographiae In-
troductio' (Fig. 31), which map it was the good
fortune of
Professor Joseph Fischer, S. J., to bring to light in the year
1902, as noted above.^^ In the dedication of his little book
to the Emperor Maximilian, he says, "Hinc factu est vt
me libros Ptholomei ad exeplar Grecu quorunda ope p
virili recognoscete & quatuor Americi Vespucii navigationu
lustratioes adiiciete: totius orbis typu ta in solido q3plano
(velut preuiam quanda ysagogen) p comuno studiosoru
vtilitate parauerim."^^ "Therefore studying to the best of
my ability and with the aid of several persons, the Books
of Ptolemy from a Greek copy, and adding the Relations
of the Four Voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, I have prepared
for the general use of scholars a map of the whole world,
like an introduction, so to speak, both in the solid and on
a plane." Waldseemiiller says further, wherein he gives a
description of his new map, "Propositum est hoc libello
quandam Cosmographie introductione scribere; quam nos
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