Martin Waldseemüller

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Martin Waldseemüller (19th century painting)

Martin Waldseemüller (Latin name Martinus Ilacomilus or Hylacomylus, ca. 1470 - ca. 1521/1522) was a German cartographer. He was born in Radolfzell (or according to the Catholic Encyclopedia Wolfenweiler, near Freiburg, with his mother originating from Radolfzell) and studied at the University of Freiburg.

In 1507, working at Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in Lorraine, he produced a world globe and a large world map (Universalis Cosmographia) bearing the first use of the name "America". The globe and map were accompanied by a book Cosmographiae Introductio, an introduction to cosmography. The book includes a translation to Latin of the Quattuor Americi navigationes (Four Voyages of Amerigo), which is apparently a letter written by Amerigo Vespucci, although some historians consider it to have been a forgery written by its supposed recipient in Italy. The Cosmographiae describes why the name America was used: ab Americo Inventore ...quasi Americi terram sive Americam (from Amerigo the discoverer ...as if it were the land of Americus, thus America). Some hold that the Cosmographiae was written by Matthias Ringmann instead, or that it was a joint effort.

In 1513 Waldseemüller appears to have had second thoughts about the name, probably due to contemporary protests about Vespucci’s role in the discovery and naming of America. In his reworking of the Ptolemy atlas (written with Ringmann) the continent is labelled simply Terra Incognita (unknown land). Despite the revision, 1,000 copies of the world map had since been distributed, and the original suggestion took hold. While North America was still called Indies in documents for some time, it was eventually called America as well.

The map was lost for a long time, but a copy was found in a castle at Wolfegg in southern Germany by Joseph Fischer in 1901. It is still the only copy known to survive, and it was purchased by the Library of Congress in 2001. Four copies of the globe survive in the form of "gores": printed maps that were intended to be cut out and pasted onto a ball. Only one of these lies in the Americas today, residing at the James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota.