Waldseemüller, Martin

Waldseemüller, Martin (c. 1470-c. 1522), German cartographer and cosmographer known as Ilacomilus, born probably in Radolfzell on Lake Constance (some sources name Wolfenweiler near Fribourg or Fribourg itself as his place of birth). Educated in Fribourg, from 1514 he lived at Saint-Dié in the Vosges mountains and was one of the group of humanists known as the Gymnasium Vosagense. In 1507 Waldseemüller produced a large map of the world, a small globe, and an accompanying treatise, Cosmographiae Introductio (Introduction to Cosmography). The treatise contains an account of the voyages of the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci, and in all three works the name America was applied for the first time to the newly explored lands. The map, engraved in wood and printed in 1,000 copies, consisted of 12 sections grouped in 3 zones. In 1511, Waldseemüller produced the first printed map of Central Europe, called Carta Itineraria Europae, and four years later he published a world map in his Margarita Philosophica Nova. His Carta Marina Navigatoria (1516) is another large map of the world and contains important corrections and improvements. Both maps were thought to have been lost until in 1901 a single copy of each was discovered in the library of the Castle of Wolfegg in Württemberg. Waldseemüller also revised and significantly expanded maps in the 1513 printing of Ptolemy's Geography, which formed a standard version for subsequent 16th-century editions.