Giovanni Matteo Contarini (1452-1507) was a cartographer and likely a member of a prominent Republic of Venice, Venetian family. In 1506, Contarini created a world map that Francesco Rosselli later engraved. The Contarini-Rosselli map is the first world map to have Voyages of Christopher Columbus, Columbus' discoveries incorporated. It was first discovered in 1922 and currently resides in the British Library. On the map, Contarini refers to himself as "famed in the Ptolemaean art" but no other maps by him have surfaced. In a titular inscription describing his map, Contarini called the land later called ''America'' by Martin Waldseemüller the ''Antipodes''. The inscription, placed to the west of this land said:

The world and all its seas on a plane map, Europe, Lybia [i.e., Africa], Asia, and the Antipodes, the poles and zones and sites of places, the parallels for the climes of the mighty globe, lo! Giovanni Matteo Contarini, famed in the Ptolemæan art, has compiled and marked it out. Whither away? Stay, traveller, and behold new nations and a new-found world.“Orbem terrarum in planam et maria omnia mappam Europam Lybiam atque Asiam Antipodesque redegit distinxitque polos zonasque situs locorum atque paralelos ad magna climata mundi Janus Matheus Ptolomaea inclytus arte En Contarenus: Quo pergis? Siste viator Atque novas specta gentes orbemque recentem”; Robert J. King, “The Antipodes on Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 World Map”, ''The Globe,'' no.91, 2022, pp. 43-60.

Contarini father was Marco Contarini of List of Italian exonyms in Dalmatia, San Cassiano.

References

16th-century Italian cartographers 1507 deaths House of Contarini, Giovanni Matteo 1452 births {{Italy-bio-stub