Martin Behaim

Martin Behaim (c. 1459-1507), German geographer, born in Nuremberg. In 1484 he went to Portugal, where he acquired a reputation as a mapmaker (see Map). He claimed, probably falsely, to have accompanied the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cam in 1484 on a voyage along the western coast of Africa. In 1492 he fashioned a terrestrial globe, basing his work in part on the writings of the ancient Greek geographer and astronomer Ptolemy and in part on the discoveries of various medieval writers, notably the Italian traveller Marco Polo. The globe, which is in Nuremberg, perpetuated many of the geographical misconceptions common among Behaim's contemporary European cartographers (see Cartography).