Waldseemüller, Martin

Waldseemüller, Martin (mär`tĭn vält'zāmül`ər), Gr. Ilacomilus, 1470?–1522?, German cosmographer. One of a group of humanists known as the Gymnasium Vosagense, he lived at Saint-Dié, Lorraine, during the latter part of his life. He was the first cartographer to call the New World America. He sketched the New World in two maps (the first to show North and South America separate from Asia) that he published in 1507 together with an explanatory treatise, Cosmographiae introductio, and Amerigo Vespucci's account of his voyages to the New World. A first edition of this rare work is in the New York Public Library. Waldseemüller also prepared with his colleagues a new edition of Ptolemy, published in 1513.

Bibliography

See The Cosmographiae Introductio of Martin Waldseemüller in Facsimile (U.S. Catholic Historical Society, 1907, repr. 1969).