Imagine the
challenge of having to carve a wood stamp (for printing) so large; it needed to
be done in 12 separate blocks. It had to be large because they were preparing
to print a map of the world!! This ancient art form of woodcutting goes back
thousands of years. The method uses a relief technique in which the images are
carved on the surface of a block of wood. Woodblock printing as it is also
called exists today as a unique hobby. When this map was being made, it was
shortly after Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ the new world. Since this map
was created in Europe, it reflected the latest discoveries that were known at
the time (early sixteenth century) by the Europeans. It shows that they knew a
lot about Africa and China but very little of the western hemisphere. This is
the first time that both the Pacific Ocean and America were recognized on a
map. America was named after Amerigo Vespucci. Can you imagine having a whole continent named after you?
There is only one copy of this map left and is the most expensive map in the
world. It is housed at the U.S. Library of Congress. And it was bought for $10,000,000. The map is supposed to
be created using ‘Ptolemy’s projection’. How did the mapmakers figure out where
north was? I think they almost had the shape of America right, if not the size.
I wonder how many flat earthers were around at that time and what they thought
happened when a person arrived at the end of the Pacific Ocean. Did people fall
off? This is an enticing peek into a bygone world. There is no North or South
Pole. Cape of Good Hope seems almost to be an afterthought. How did the
wood cutters match up the different pieces? Where did they get the ideas of the
shape and size of countries from? What was the daily life of the woodcutters
like? How many months did they spend on making this map? Did the project
outlive them? Did they have families? What were their work spaces
like? If only one could travel back to this time of discovery in Europe just
for a day!
Compare this
to the map of the world today!
Anyway here's the formal scoop:
Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map grew out of an ambitious project in St. Dié, near Strasbourg, France, during the first decade of the sixteenth century, to document and update new geographic knowledge derived from the discoveries of the late fifteenth and the first years of the sixteenth centuries. Waldseemüller’s large world map was the most exciting product of that research effort, and included data gathered during Amerigo Vespucci’s voyages of 1501–1502 to the New World. Waldseemüller christened the new lands "America" in recognition of Vespucci ’s understanding that a new continent had been uncovered as a result of the voyages of Columbus and other explorers in the late fifteenth century. This is the only known surviving copy of the first printed edition of the map, which, it is believed, consisted of 1,000 copies. Waldseemüller’s map supported Vespucci’s revolutionary concept by portraying the New World as a separate continent, which until then was unknown to the Europeans. It was the first map, printed or manuscript, to depict clearly a separate Western Hemisphere, with the Pacific as a separate ocean. The map represented a huge leap forward in knowledge, recognizing the newly found American landmass and forever changing the European understanding of a world divided into only three parts—Europe, Asia, and Africa. |
