| Martin Waldseemüller | |
| Strassburg, 1513 TABVLA MODERNA SECVNDE PORCIONIS APHRICE
Original woodcut
printed map : 360 x 510 mm (not including title above map)
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This is the earliest printed map of Africa south of the Equator. Martin Waldseemuller is most known today as the author of the famous 1507 wallmap of the world, Universalis Cosmographia..., the only of example of which was discovered in 1901 at Schloss Wolfegg and recently acquired by the Library of Congress. (This wallmap is the first to identify the New World with the wording "America"). The map shows considerable detail along the coast of Africa, with numerous landfalls and sightings recorded by the Portuguese. The interior shows little detail, apart from the Mountain of the Moon. The Mountains of the Moon, the traditional source of the Nile River is identified as "paludes nili", an earlier reference to the twin lakes. The geography for the map is most directly taken from the Genoese, Nicolo de Caverio's (or Canerio), manuscript map of the world of 1502-06 (at the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris), which in turn was based on an earlier Portuguese model. Evidently, a copy of the Caverio map was passed to Waldseemuller and Ringmann by Duke Rene, who was the patron for the group of geographers working in St Die, France. Though we have not yet been able to undertake a direct comparison of placenames on this map to those of Africa on Waldseemuller's 1507 wallmap, we believe there is close similarity.
The book,
Ptolemy's Geographia, from which this map of southern
Africa was taken, was published by Johann Schott in Strassburg.
The book contained a number of "modern" maps, that is, maps
based on an up-to-date knowledge of the world from the accounts
of the explorers, and not only on a classical understanding of
the world. There was a re-printing of this book in 1520.
Though the book is dated 1513, it appears that Martin
Waldseemuller and Mathias Ringmann were working on a new edition
of the Geographia from 1507 (Skelton, p. V). It is therefore
likely that this map was prepared sometime before 1513 and only
found its way to print in 1513. Very Good
Example, especially considering the age of this map. Old
paper on repaired scruff spots on lower left & right of the map.
Old paper reinforcement along a 6 cm. portion of the centerfold.
Attractive original color. |
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