Columbus, trusting to Toscanelli’s misleading chart, looked upon the countries discovered by him as belonging to eastern Asia, a view still shared about 1507 by his brother Bartolomeo. Waldseemüller (1507) was the first to separate America and Asia by an ocean of considerable width, but J. Ruysch (1508) returns to the old idea, and even joins Greenland (Gruenlant) to eastern Asia. Bologninus Zalterius on a map of 1566, and Mercator on his famous chart of 1569, separates the two continents by a narrow strait which they call Streto de Anian, thus anticipating the discovery of Bering Strait by more than a hundred and fifty years. Anian, however, which they place upon the American coast, is no other than Marco Polo’s Anica or Anin, our modern Annam. Such an error could never have arisen had the old compilers of maps taken the trouble to plan Marco Polo’s routes.
Globes, both celestial and terrestrial, became popular after the discovery of America. They were included among the scientific apparatus of ships and of educational establishments. Columbus and Magellan had such globes, those of the latter produced by P. Reinel (1519), and Conrad Celtes tells us that he illustrated his lectures at the university of Vienna with the help of globes (1501). Globes were still engraved on copper, or painted by hand, but since 1507, in which year Waldseemüller published a small globe of a diameter of 110 mm., covered with printed segments or gores, this cheap and expeditious method has come into general use. Waldseemüller constructed his gores graphically, A. Dürer (1525) and Hen. Loriti Glareanus (1527) were the first who dealt scientifically with the principles underlying their construction. Globes covered with printed gores were produced by L. Boulenger (1514), Joh. Schöner (1515), P. Apianus, Gemma Frisius (1530) and G. Mercator (1541). Leonardo da Vinci’s rough map of the world in 8 segments (c. 1513) seems likewise to have been intended for a globe. Of J. Schöner we know that he produced four globes, three printed from segments (1515, 1523, 1533), and one of larger size (diam. 822 mm.), which is drawn by hand, and is preserved in the Germanic Museum at Nuremberg. Among engraved globes, one of the most interesting is that which was discovered by R. M. Hunt in Paris, and is preserved in the Lenox Library, New York. Its diameter is only 41⁄2 in. (127 mm.). The so-called “Nancy globe” is of chased silver, richly ornamented, and formerly served the purpose of a pyx. Its diameter is 160 mm., its date about 1530. About the same date is assigned to a globe by Robert de Bailly, engraved on copper and gilt (diam. 440 mm.). Celestial globes were manufactured by Regiomontanus (d. 1476) at Nuremberg, by Joh. Stöffler (1499), and by G. Hartmann (1535).
| Fig. 29. |
| Fig. 30.—Lenox Globes (1510). |
Mercator and his Successors.—Of Gerhard Kremer (1512-1594) the earliest works are a map of Palestine (1537), a map of the world on a double heart-shaped projection (1525), and a topographical map of Flanders based upon his own surveys (1540), a pair of globes (1541, diam. 120 mm.), and a large map of Europe which has been praised deservedly for its accuracy (1554). He is best known by his marine chart (1569) and his atlas. The projection of the former may have been suggested by a note by W. Pirkheimer in his edition of Ptolemy (1525). Mercator constructed it graphically, the mathematical principles underlying it being first explained by E. Wright (1594). The “Atlas” was only published after Mercator’s death, in 1595. It only contained nine maps, but after the plates had been sold to Jodocus (Jesse) Hondius the number of maps was rapidly increased, although Mercator’s name was retained. Mercator’s maps are carefully engraved on copper. Latin letters are used throughout; the miniatures of older maps are superseded by symbols, and in the better-known countries the maps are fairly correct, but they fail lamentably when we follow their author into regions—the successful delineation of which depends upon a critical combination of imperfect information.
Even before Mercator’s death, Antwerp and Amsterdam had become great centres of cartographic activity, and they maintained their pre-eminence until the beginning of the 18th century. Abraham Ortelius (1527-1592), of Antwerp, a man of culture and enterprise, but not a scientific cartographer, published the first edition of his Theatrum orbis terrarum in 1570. It then contained 53 maps, by various authors. By 1595 the number of maps had increased to 119, including a Parergon or supplement of 12 maps illustrating ancient history. In 1578 was published the Speculum orbis terrarum of Gerard de Jude or de Judaeis. Lucas Janszon Waghenaer (Aurigarius) of Enkhuizen published the first edition of his Spiegel der Zeevaart (Mariners’ Mirror) at Leiden in 1585. It was the first collection of marine maps, lived through many editions, was issued in several languages and became known as Charettier and Waggoner. In the same year Adrian Gerritsz published a valuable Paskaarte of the European Sea. Ten years afterwards, in 1595, W. Barentszoon published a marine atlas of the Mediterranean, the major axis of which he reduced to 42 degrees. Jodocus Hondius has already been referred to as the purchaser of Mercator’s plates. The business founded by him about 1602 was continued by his sons and his son-in-law, Jan Janszon (Jansonius) and others. By 1653 this firm had already produced atlases including 451 charts. Willem Janszon, the father of Hondius’s partner, published a collection of charts (1608), to which he gave the title of Het Licht der Zeevaart (the seaman’s light). Another cartographic publishing firm was established at Amsterdam in 1612 by Willem Janszon Blaeu (1571-1638), a friend of Tycho Brahe, from 1633 “mapmaker” of the states-general, and a man of scientific culture. He was succeeded by his son Jan (d. 1673) and grandson Cornelius, and before the end of the century turned out a Zee-Spiegel of 108 charts (1623), an Atlas novus (Nieuwe Atlas), 1642, enlarged in the course of time until it consisted of 12 folio volumes containing hundreds of maps. J. A. Colom in 1633 published a collection of maps under the quaint title of Vurig Colom der Zeevaert (Fiery Column of Navigation). Among more recent Dutch map publishers are Nicolaus Vischer (Piscator), R. Goos, H. Doncker, F. de Wit, and J. and G. van Keulen, whose atlases were published between 1681 and 1722. These Dutch maps and charts are generally accompanied by descriptive notes or sailing directions printed on the back of them. A similar work is the Arcano del mare of Sir Robert Dudley, duke of Northumberland, the numerous sheets of which are on Mercator’s projection (1631).
| Fig. 31.—Mercator’s Chart of the World (1569). |
In France, in the meantime, an arc of the meridian had been measured (1669-1670) by Jean Picard, numerous longitudes had been observed between 1672 and 1680 by the same, and by Phil. de Lahire (d. 1719), and these were utilized in a Carte de France “as corrected from the observations of the members of the Academy of Sciences” (1666-1699), in a map of the world (1694) by D. Cassini, as also in Le Neptune François (1693) with contributions by Pene, D. Cassini and others. These corrected longitudes were not yet available for the maps produced by Nicolas Sanson of Abbeville, since 1627. The cartographical establishment founded by him in that year was carried on after his death in 1667 by his sons, his son-in-law, P. Duval (d. 1683) and his grandson Robert du Vaugondy (d. 1766). Among the cartographers whom he employed were M. Tavernier and Mariette, and in many instances he mentioned the authors whose maps he copied. By 1710 the maps published by the firm numbered 466. Nicolas de Fer, the great rival of Sanson, and his heirs, are stated to have published as many as 600 maps after 1700.
In no other country of Europe was there at the close of the 16th century a geographical establishment capable of competing with the Dutch towns or with Sanson, but the number of those who produced maps, in many instances based upon original surveys, was large. Germany is thus represented, among others, by C. Henneberger (map of Prussia, 1576), by M. Oeder, (survey of Saxony, 1586-1607), A. Rauh (fine hill features on a map of the environs of Wangen and Lindau, 1617), W. Schickhardt (survey of Württemberg, 1624-1635), and G. M. Vischer (map of Austria and Styrai, 1669-1786); Switzerland by H. C. Gyger (Canton of Zürich, a masterpiece, 1667); Italy by G. A. Magini (1558-1610), and V. Coronelli, appointed cosmographer of the Venetian Republic, 1685, and founder of the Ac. Cosmogr. dei Argonauti, the earliest geographical society, and Diogo Homem, a Portuguese settled at Venice (1558-1574); Denmark by J. Mejer of Husum (1650); Sweden by A. Buraeus, the “father of Swedish cartographers” (1650-1660); the British Islands by Ch. Saxton (County Atlas of England and Wales 1575), J. Speed (Theatrum of Great Britain, 1610), Timothy Pont and Robert Gordon of Strathloch (map of Scotland, 1608), and A. Moll. A Novus atlas sinensis, based upon Chinese surveys, was published in 1655 by Martin Martini, S.J., a missionary recently returned from China. Isaac Voss, in his work De Nili (1659), published a map of central Africa, in which he anticipated D’Anville by rejecting all the fanciful details which found a place upon Filippo Pigafetta’s map of that continent.
The first maps illustrating the variation of the compass were published by Chris. Burrus (d. 1632) and Athanasius Kircher (Magnes, Rome, 1643), and maps of the ocean and tidal currents by the latter in his Mundus subterraneus (1665). Edmund Halley, the astronomer, compiled the first variation chart of scientific value (1683), as also a chart of the winds (1686).