In addition to his ‘Yslario’ we still have his remarkable map of the city of Mexico, belonging to the University Library of Upsala,[258] and one copy of his world map in gores (Fig. [59]), preserved in the Royal Library of Stockholm. It is this last-named map which especially interests us here.[259]
Fig. 59. Gore Map of Alonso de Santa Cruz, 1542.
Though the form of the map suggests that it had been the author’s intention to paste it on the surface of a prepared sphere, there appears to be good reason for thinking that this particular copy was not intended to serve him in a terrestrial globe construction. It is surrounded with an ornamental border finely executed in gold and white, and stretching across the top is a waving scroll in which has been written the inscription “Nova verior et integra totius orbis descriptio nunc primum in lucem edita per Alfonsum de Sancta Cruz Caesaris Charoli V. archicosmographum. A.D. M.D.XLII.” “A very new and complete description of the whole world now first prepared by Alfonso de Santa Cruz Cosmographer Major of the Emperor Charles V. 1542.” The original map is drawn on three connected sheets of parchment, as Dahlgren states in his excellent monograph, the total dimensions of which are 79 by 144 cm. In the lower corner on the left is the dedication: “Potentiss. Caes. Carlo V. Usi sumus et hic ad terrae, marisque simul, demonstractionem, sectione alia, Augustiss. Caesar, per equinotialem lineam Polum quemque, dividui ipsius globi, singula medietas obtinens, depressoque utroque in planum Polo, equinotialem ipsam secantes, rationem prospectivam servavimus, quemadmodum et in alia, veluti solutis Polis, itidem in planum discisis meridianis propalavimus, neque pretermissis hic longitudinum latitudinumque graduum parallelorum climatumque dimensionibus. Vale.” “O powerful Caesar! we have, here also in this map of land and sea, made use of a new division of the globe; namely, at the equator, so that each half of the globe thus divided has one of the poles as its center. By depressing the pole to the plane of the equator and by making incisions from the equator to the pole, we have made a projection similar to that presented to the public on the other map with detached poles and with the meridians separated on the same plane, without disregarding the correct dimensions of the longitude, latitudes, degrees, parallels, and climates. Farewell.”
The map represents the world in two hemispheres, a northern and a southern, each drawn on thirty-six half gores or sectors. The following appears to have been the method of construction. With the poles as centers, and with a radius equal to one fourth of the length of a meridian circle of the globe he drew his large circle or circles representing the equator and forming the bases of each of the half gores. Each of the large or equatorial circles he divided into thirty-six equal arcs, and from the points establishing such divisions he drew a meridian line extending in each hemisphere to the pole or center of his circle. These meridian lines were graduated and lines or arcs representing parallels of latitude were drawn intersecting them at intervals of ten degrees, having the pole as the common center in each hemisphere. Marking off on each of these parallels or arcs both to right and left a distance representing five degrees of the earth’s longitude, he thus established the points through which to draw his meridians which marked the boundaries of each sector, leaving between the sectors equal spaces to be cut away should the sectors be used for pasting on the surface of a sphere. Every fifth meridian and every tenth parallel is drawn in black; the equator, the tropics, the polar circles, and the prime meridian are gilded. The prime meridian runs somewhat to the west of the Island of Fayal. At longitude 20 degrees west is the papal line of demarcation which is called “Meridianus particionis,” crossing South America south of the mouth of the Amazon. On the one side of this line in the southern hemisphere appears the flag of Spain, on the other that of Portugal, thus designating specifically the “Hemisperium Regis Castelle,” and the “Hemisperium Regis Portugalie.” California is referred to as “ya q̄ descubrio el marq’s del valle,” “island discovered by the Marquis del Valle,” and the coast north of this point is called “ter̄a q̄ cnbio(?) a descubrio dē anto d’ mēdoca,” “land to discover which Don Antonio de Mendoza sent out an expedition.” In drawing the outlines of his continents he seems to have made use of the best available sources. The New World follows the Sevillan type, as represented in the Ribeiro maps, particularly the eastern or Atlantic coast regions, including, though in somewhat abbreviated form, the references to Gomez, Ayllon, and Narvaez. There is no distinct coast line north of California, which line follows the meridian of 105 degrees as far north as the Arctic circle, hence there is no positive representation of an Asiatic connection, but rather the indication of a doubt, as was indicated on maps of the type.
If Santa Cruz intended his peculiar gores to serve in the construction of a terrestrial globe, we cannot find that he impressed his method on the globe makers of the period. We seem to have but one striking imitation of his work, viz., in the gore map of Florianas, to which reference is made below.[260]
To that striking feature of many of the globe maps of the second quarter of the sixteenth century, in which an Asiatic connection of the New World is represented, attention has been called in the preceding pages; there likewise has been noted the fact that not a few of the map makers of the period expressed a certain degree of doubt as to whether the prevailing idea of the first quarter of the century (that the lands discovered in the west constituted a veritable New World) should be given over, preferring to omit altogether the west and northwest coast line of North America, or to make very indefinite allusion to the geography of the region.
We now come to the consideration of a map and globe maker who carries us back to the geographical notion of the earlier years of the century, namely, to the idea that the New World was nothing less than an independent continent. The activities of Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594) (Fig. [60]) were epoch making, and a reference to him more detailed than has been accorded his predecessors is fitting.[261] He was a native of Rupelmunde, a small town situated in the Pays de Waes in East Flanders, not far from the city of Antwerp. 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.[262] During his university 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, notwithstanding the fact that his guardian and patron was an ecclesiastic.