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

Second Quarter of the Sixteenth Century.
de Waes in East Flanders, not far from the city of Ant-
werp. His parents died while he was still a mere lad, but in
a great-uncle he found a faithful guardian and a generous
benefactor, who took care that his education should be the
best that was afforded by the schools of the Netherlands.
In 1527, at the age of fifteen, he entered the College of
Bois-le-Duc in Brabant, where he studied for three and one
half years, and in 1530 he was matriculated as a student
in the University of Louvain, famous throughout Europe
at that early date as a center of learning.^^ During his uni-
versity career he appears to have given much thought to
the problems of science, including the "origin, nature, and
destiny" of the physical universe. While these studies did
not bear directly upon that branch of science in which he
was to win for himself such marked distinction in later
years, they indicate the early existence of a desire for knowledge
scientific rather than for knowledge theological, not-
withstanding the fact that his guardian and patron was an
ecclesiastic.
In Gemma Frisius, an eminent professor of mathematics
in the University of Louvain, and at one time a pupil of
Apianus, he appears, as before noted, to have found a sympathetic
friend and counselor.®*' It probably was Frisius
who suggested a career for the young scientist, since we find
him, shortly after graduation, turning his attention to the
manufacture of mathematical instruments, to the drawing,
engraving, and coloring of maps and charts, wherein he
found a vocation for the remainder of his life. In 1537 his
first publication, a map of Palestine, appeared,
to which he
gave the title "Amplissima Terrae Sanctae descriptio.""
Immediately thereafter, at the instance of a certain Flemish
merchant, he undertook the preparation of a map of Flanders,
making for the same extensive original surveys. This
map was issued in the year 1540.*^* Mercator's first published
map of the world bears the date 1538. This map was
drawn in the double cordiform projection which seems first
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