Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Map" to "Mars" / Volume 17, Slice 6

by Various

Fig. 26.

The maritime discoveries and surveys of that age of great discoveries were laid down upon so-called “plane-charts,” that is, charts having merely equidistant parallels indicated upon them, together with the equator, the tropics and polar circles, or, in a more advanced stage, meridians also. The astrolabe quadrant or cross-staff enabled the mariner to determine his latitude with a certain amount of accuracy, but for his longitude he was dependent upon dead reckoning, for although various methods for determining a longitude were known, the available astronomical ephemerides were not trustworthy, and errors of 30° in longitude were by no means rare. It was only after the publication of Kepler’s Rudolphine Table (1626) that more exact results could be obtained. A further difficulty arose in connexion with the variation of the compass, which induced Pedro Reinel to introduce two scales of latitude on his map of the northern Atlantic (1504; fig. 27).

Fig. 27.

The chart of the world by Juan de la Cosa, the companion of Columbus, is the earliest extant which depicts the discoveries in the new world (1500), Nicolaus de Canerio, a Genoese, and the map which Alberto Cantino caused to be drawn at Lisbon for Hercules d’Este of Ferrara (1502), illustrating in addition the recent discoveries of the Portuguese in the East. Other cosmographers of distinction were Pedro Reinel (1504-1542), Nuno Garcia de Toreno (1520), to whom we are indebted for 21 charts, illustrating Magellan’s voyage, Diogo Ribero (maps of the world 1527, 1529),[24] Alonzo de Santa Cruz, of Seville, whose Isolario general includes charts of all parts of the world (1541), John Rotz or Rut (1542), Sebastian Cabot (1544), as also Nicolas Desliens, Pierre Desceliers, G. Breton and V. Vallard, all of Arques, near Dieppe, whose charts were compiled between 1541 and 1554.

Of the many general maps of the world or of particular countries, a large number illustrate such works as G. Reisch’s Margarita philosophica (1163), the cosmographies of Peter Apianus or Bienewitz (1520, 1522, 1530), Seb. Münster (1544), J. Honter (1546) and Gulielmus Postel (1561) or the Geographia of Livio Sanuto (1588); others, and these the more numerous and important, supplement the original maps of several editions of Ptolemy. Thus the Roman edition of 1507, edited by Marcus Benaventura and Joa Cota, contains 6 modern maps, and to these was added in 1508 Joh. Ruysch’s famous map of the world on a modified conical projection. The next edition published at Venice in 1511 contained a heart-shaped world by Bernhard Sylvanus. The Strassburg Ptolemy of 1513 has a supplement of as many as 20 modern maps by Martin Waldseemüller or Ilacomilus, several among which are copied from Portuguese originals. Waldseemüller was one of the most distinguished cartographers of his day. He was born at Radolfzell in Baden in 1470, was associated with Ringmann at the gymnasium of St Dié, and died in 1521. He published in 1507 a huge map of the world, in 12 sheets, together with a small globe of a diameter of 110 mm., the segments for which were printed from wood-blocks. On these documents the new world is called America, after Amerigo Vespucci, its supposed discoverer. In 1511 Waldseemüller published a large map of Europe, in 1513 he prepared his maps for the Strassburg edition of Ptolemy, and in 1516 he engraved a copy of Canerio’s map of the world. The Strassburg Ptolemy of 1522 contains Waldseemüller’s maps,[25] edited on a reduced scale by Laurentius Frisius, together with three additional ones. The same set of maps is reprinted in the Strassburg edition of 1524, newly translated by W. Pirckheimer with notes by Joh. Müller Regiomontanus, and in the Lyon edition of 1535, edited by Michael Servetus. The new maps of the Basel edition of 1540, twenty-one in number, are by Sebastian Münster; Jacob Gastaldo supplied the Venice edition of 1548 with 34 modern maps, and these with a few additions are repeated in Girolamo Ruscelli’s Italian translation of Ptolemy published at Venice in 1561.

Equally interesting with these Ptolemaic supplements are collections like that of Anton Lafreri, which contains reprints of 142 maps of all parts of the world originally published between 1556 and 1572 (Geografica tavole moderne, Rome, n.d.), or that of J. F. Camocio, published at Venice in 1576, which contains 88 reprints.

The number of cartographers throughout Europe was considerable, and we confine ourselves to mentioning a few leading men. Among them Germany is then represented by G. Glockedon, the author of an interesting road-map of central Europe (1501), Sebastian Münster (1489-1552), Elias Camerarius, whose map of the mark of Brandenburg won the praise of Mercator; Wolfgang Latz von Lazius, to whom we are indebted for maps of Austria and Hungary (1561), and Philip Apianus, who made a survey of Bavaria (1553-1563), which was published 1568 on the reduced scale of 1 : 144,000, and is fairly described as the topographical masterpiece of the 16th century. For maps of Switzerland we are indebted to Konrad Türst (1495-1497), Johann Stumpf (1548) and Aegidius Tschudi (1538). A map of the Netherlands from actual survey was produced by Jacob of Deventer (1536-1539). Leonardo da Vinci, the famous artist, while in the service of Cesare Borgia as military engineer, made surveys of several districts in central Italy. Other Italian cartographers of merit were Giovanni Battiste Agnese of Venice, whose atlases (1517-1564) enjoyed a wide popularity; Benedetto Bordone (1528); Giacomo Gastaldo, cosmographer of the Venetian Republic (1534-1568), and his successor, Paolo Forlani. New maps of Spain and Portugal appeared in 1560, the former being due to Pedro de Medina, the latter to Fernando Alvarez Secco and Hernando Alvaro. Among the French map-makers of this period may be mentioned Oronce Finée (Finaeus), who in 1525 published a map of France, and Jean Jolivet (c. 1560). Gregorio Lilly (1546) and Humphrey Lhuyd of Denbigh (d. 1510) furnished maps of the British Isles, Olaus Magnus (1539) of Scandinavia, Anton Wied (1542), Sigismund von Herberstein (1549) and Anthony Jenkinson (1562) of Muscovy.

The cylindrical and modified conical projections of Marinus and Ptolemy were still widely used, the stereographical projection of Hipparchus, was for the first time employed for terrestrial maps in the 16th century, but new projections were introduced in addition to these. The earliest of these, a trapeziform projection with equidistant parallels, by D. Nicolaus Germanus (1466), naturally led to what is generally known as Flamsteed’s projection. Joh. Stabius (1502) and his pupil J. Werner (1514) devised three heart-shaped projections, one of which was equivalent. Petrus Apianus (1524) gave his map an elliptical shape. H. Glareanus (1510) was the first to employ an equidistant zenithal polar projection.

No reasonable fault can be found with the marine surveyors of this period, but the scientific cartographers allowed themselves too frequently to be influenced by Ptolemaic traditions. Thus Gastaldo (1548) presents us with a map of Italy, which, except as to nomenclature, differs but little from that of Ptolemy, although on the Portolano charts the peninsula had long since assumed its correct shape. Many of the local maps, too, were excellent specimens of cartography, but when we follow any cartographer of the period into regions the successful delineation of which depended upon an intelligent interpretation of itineraries, and of information collected by recent travellers, they are generally found to fail utterly. This is illustrated by the four sketch maps shown in fig. 28.

Fig. 28.