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Abstract: The world map made by Martin Waldseemtiller and his colleagues in 1507 was the first to call the land newly discovered in the South Atlantic by the name America, but what did they consider this land to be? In contrast to its discoverers, who had declared it to be continental, Waldseemtiller called it an island. This is clear from comparing the inscription describing the newly discovered land on his map with the analogous inscription on his source map, the Cantino. At that time, "continent" had a different meaning to that which it later acquired. It is argued here that Waldseemtiller, like his contemporaries, identified America with the fourth part of the world, the Antipodes.
AMERICA: CONTINENT OR ISLAND?
In St. Die in Loraine, in 1507, Martin Waldseemtiller and his colleagues, calling themselves the Gymnasium Vosagensis (Vosges School), constructed a map of the world they called Universalis Cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem etAmerici Vespucii aliorumque lustrationes (Universal Cosmography according to the tradition of Ptolemy and the discoveries of Amerigo Vespucci and others).1 The title signalled an intention to combine or harmonize in a unified cosmographic depiction the traditional Ptolemaic geography of Europe, Asia and Africa with the new geographical information provided by Amerigo Vespucci and his fellow discoverers of trans-Oceanic lands. This large wall map was complemented by a small globe. An accompanying tract, the Cosmographiae Introductio, explained:
In designing the sheets of our world-map we have not followed Ptolemy in every respect, particularly as regards the new lands ... We have therefore followed, on the plane map, Ptolemy, except for the new lands and some other things, but on the solid globe, which accompanies the plane map, the description of Amerigo that is appended hereto.2
Waldseemiiller's Universalis Cosmographia is known as the first map to use the name "America". The name is placed on the map over what subsequently was referred to as South America, following Gerard Mercator, who on his 1538 world map divided Waldseemtiller's America into northern and southern parts: Americae pars septentrionalis (the northern part of America) and Americae pars meridionalis (the southern part of America). As explained in the Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honour of Amerigo Vespucci:
In the sixth climate toward Antarcticum there are situated the...