The Johannes Schöner globes are a series of
globe
A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...
s made by
Johannes Schöner
Johannes Schöner (16 January 1477, in Karlstadt am Main – 16 January 1547, in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg) (aka, Johann Schönner, Johann Schoener, Jean Schönner, Joan Schoenerus) was a renowned and respected German polymath. It is ...
(1477–1547), the first being made in 1515. Schöner's globes are some of the oldest still in existence. Some of them are said by some authors to show parts of the world that were not yet known to Europeans, such as the
Magellan Strait
The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pass ...
and the
Antarctic.
Globes
The Johannes Schöner Globe (1515), a printed globe, was made in 1515. Two exemplars survive, one at the
Historisches Museum in Frankfurt and the other at the
Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, at Weimar. There can be little doubt that Schöner was familiar with the globe made in Nuremberg by
Martin Behaim
Martin Behaim (6 October 1459 – 29 July 1507), also known as and by various forms of , was a German textile merchant and cartographer. He served John II of Portugal as an adviser in matters of navigation and participated in a voyage to W ...
in 1492. An inscription across the northern part of ''America'', says: “This part of the island has been discovered by order of the King of Castile”. This is matched by another inscription off ''America’s'' east coast: “The more southerly part of this island was discovered by order of the King of Portugal”; that is, America is called in both an island. A strait between the southern tip of America and the land to the south can be found on Schöner's globe before its "official discovery" by
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the Eas ...
in 1520. The strait is at
53 degrees south. The strait is shown at about
40 degrees south on the 1515 globe. Schöner accompanied his globe with an explanatory treatise, ''Luculentissima quaedam terrae totius descriptio'' (“A Most Lucid Description of All Lands”). It contained a description of America:
America or Amerige, the New World and fourth part of the globe, so called after its discoverer, Americo Vesputius, a wise and astute man, who discovered it in the year 1497. The people there are primitive, tall and of comely build. They live on fish they catch in the sea. They have nor villages with houses nor roofed dwellings, apart from the large tree leaves under which they are protected from the heat of the sun but not from the rain. There are so many different kinds of animals there. They worship the heavens and the stars. In some places they have homes made in the shape of bells. Red parrots and also those of other colours are found there. This island is of marvellous but not yet certainly known size. Both sexes, men and women, are in the habit of going about no otherwise as than their mothers bore them. The people there are called Cannibals, Anthropophages who eat their enemies.
The Johannes Schöner Globe (1520), a manuscript globe, was made in 1520. It bears the following inscription:
This globe, embracing the immeasurable Earth with its parts / And the smooth winding shape of the body of the world / Was made into a sphere by the observant study of a certain two men and the expenditure of one of them, / Johannes Seyler, who bore the cost of all that he considered suitable for its use; / The other, Johannes Schoener, skilled in many arts, / Suitably wound this mass and composed it into rotundity. / And marked upon it everywhere printed shapes, / When from the birth of the Saviour we counted a thousand five hundred years plus four lustra / And the sun passed through the 16th degree of Libra. 9 September 1520
The globe shows the Antarctic continent which had not been explored at that date. On Schöner's 1515 and 1520 globes,
''AMERICA'' is shown as an island, as he explained in the ''Luculentissima'':
"America,
the fourth part of the world, and the other islands belonging to it." And, "In this way it may be known that the Earth is in four parts and that the first three parts are continent, that is, terra firma, but that the fourth is an island, for it is seen to be surrounded everywhere by the sea”.
This is drawn from the ''Cosmographiae Introductio'' of
Martin Waldseemüller
Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – 16 March 1520) was a German cartographer and humanist scholar. Sometimes known by the Latinized form of his name, Hylacomylus, his work was influential among contemporary cartographers. He and his collaborator ...
, which said:
Hitherto he whole earthhas been divided into three parts, Europe, Africa, and Asia… Now, these parts of the earth have been more extensively explored and a fourth part has been discovered by Amerigo Vespucci... Thus the earth is now known to be divided into four parts. The first three parts are continent, while the fourth is an island, inasmuch as it is found to be surrounded on all sides by the sea.
The Johannes Schöner Globe (1523), a printed globe, was made in 1523. It was considered to have been lost until identified by George Nunn in 1927.
The Johannes Schöner's printed Weimar Globe (1533) was made in 1533. It shows North America as part of Asia and also shows Antarctica. He wrote a treatise. the ''Opusculum Geographicum,'' to accompany this globe. In this, he described the cosmographic approach he had used in constructing his globe: “I had to hand marine charts drawn in excellent characters, and news of great price and value which I located to concord, as much as possible, with astronomical positions”. (''Opusc. Geogr.,'' Pt.I, cap.ix).
On Schoener's 1523 and 1533 globes,
''AMERICA'' is shown as a part of Asia, as he explained in the ''Opusculum Geographicum'':
After Ptolemy, many regions to the east beyond 180 degrees were discovered by Marco Polo the Venetian, and others, but now having been discovered by the Genoese Columbus and Americo Vespucci reaching only the coastal parts of those lands from Spain across the Western Ocean, were considered by them to be an island which they called America, the fourth part of the globe. But by the most recent voyages made in the year 1519 after Christ by Magellan leading ships of the Invincible Divine Charles etc. to the Moluccas Islands, which others call Maluquas, situated in the Far East, they have found that land to be the continent of Upper India, which is a part of Asia.
The globe of 1515 owes an obvious debt to the
Waldseemüller map
The Waldseemüller map or ''Universalis Cosmographia'' ("Universal Cosmography") is a printed wall map of the world by German cartography, cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to ...
of 1507, which in turn was derived from the globe constructed in Nuremberg in 1492 by
Martin Behaim
Martin Behaim (6 October 1459 – 29 July 1507), also known as and by various forms of , was a German textile merchant and cartographer. He served John II of Portugal as an adviser in matters of navigation and participated in a voyage to W ...
. Schöner's 1515 globe follows these in representing ''India Superior'' (eastern Asia, called ''India superior sive orientalis'' in the ''Luculentissima'') as extending to around longitude 270° East. Westward from Spain, the discoveries of
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
,
Amerigo Vespucci and the other Spanish and
Portuguese navigators
Portuguese maritime exploration resulted in the numerous territories and maritime routes recorded by the Portuguese as a result of their intensive maritime journeys during the 15th and 16th centuries. Portuguese sailors were at the vanguard of Eu ...
are represented as a long, narrow strip of lands stretching from about latitude 50° North to about 40° South. The western coasts of these lands, ''America'' in the south and ''
Parias
In medieval Spain, ''parias'' (from medieval Latin ''pariāre'', "to make equal n account, i.e. pay) were a form of tribute paid by the ''taifas'' of al-Andalus to the Christian kingdoms of the north. ''Parias'' dominated relations between the ...
'' in the north, are labelled ''Terra ultra incognita'' ("Land beyond unknown") and ''Vlterius incognita terra'' ("Land further beyond unknown"), indicating it was unknown how far westward they extended. The sea to the west of these lands is labelled ''Oceanus orientalis indianus'' (Eastern Indian Ocean), in accordance with the conclusion reached by Columbus after his third voyage of 1496-1498, when he encountered the South American mainland, which he called a ''Nuevo Mundo'' and identified with
Marco Polo’s “greatest island in the world”, ''
Java Major'', lying south west of the ''India Superior'' province of ''Ciamba'' (
Champa). Reflecting this concept, Schöner explained in another of his writings, the ''Opusculum Geographicum'' (cap.xx): “the Genoese Columbus and Americo Vespucci reaching only the coastal parts of those lands from Spain across the Western Ocean, considered them to be an island which they called America”. Or, as
Nicolaus Copernicus
Nicolaus Copernicus (; pl, Mikołaj Kopernik; gml, Niklas Koppernigk, german: Nikolaus Kopernikus; 19 February 1473 – 24 May 1543) was a Renaissance polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon, who formulated ...
put it in ''De Revolutionibus'' (lib.I, cap.iii):
Ptolemy extended the habitable area halfway around the world, leaving beyond it unknown land, where the moderns have added Cathay and very extensive regions as far as 60 degrees of longitude, so that now a greater longitude of land is inhabited than is left for the Ocean. Moreover, to this should be added the great islands discovered in our time under the Princes of Spain and Portugal, especially America, named after the captain of the ship who discovered it and thought because of its yet hidden size to be another world, besides many other islands heretofore unknown, which we do not wonder to regard as being the Antipodes or Antichthones.
Where Schöner departs most conspicuously from Waldseemüller is in his globe's depiction of an Antarctic continent, called by him ''Brasilie Regio''. His continent is based, however tenuously, on the report of an actual voyage: that of the Portuguese merchants Nuno Manuel and
Cristóvão de Haro to the
River Plate, and related in the ''Newe Zeytung auss Presillg Landt'' (“New Tidings from the Land of Brazil”) published in Augsburg in 1514. The ''Zeytung'' described the Portuguese voyagers passing through a strait between the southernmost point of America, or Brazil, and a land to the south west, referred to as ''vndtere Presill'' or ''Brasilia inferior''. This supposed “strait” was in fact the Rio de la Plata (and/or eventually the
San Matias Gulf). By “vndtere Presill”, the ''Zeytung'' meant that part of Brazil in the lower latitudes, but Schöner mistook it to mean the land on the southern side of the “strait”, in higher latitudes, and so gave to it the opposite meaning. On this slender foundation he constructed his circum-Antarctic continent to which, for reasons that he does not explain he gave an annular, or ring shape. In the ''Luculentissima'' he explained:
The Portuguese, thus, sailed around this region, the Brasilie Regio, and discovered the passage very similar to that of our Europe (where we reside) and situated laterally between east and west. From one side the land on the other is visible; and the cape of this region about 60 miles away, much as if one were sailing eastward through the Straits of Gibraltar or Seville and Barbary or Morocco in Africa, as our Globe shows toward the Antarctic Pole. Further, the distance is only moderate from this Region of Brazil to Malacca, where St. Thomas was crowned with martyrdom.
On this scrap of information, united with the concept of the
Antipodes inherited from Graeco-Roman antiquity, Schöner constructed his representation of the southern continent. His strait served as inspiration for
Ferdinand Magellan
Ferdinand Magellan ( or ; pt, Fernão de Magalhães, ; es, link=no, Fernando de Magallanes, ; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the Eas ...
’s expedition to reach the
Moluccas
The Maluku Islands (; Indonesian: ''Kepulauan Maluku'') or the Moluccas () are an archipelago in the east of Indonesia. Tectonically they are located on the Halmahera Plate within the Molucca Sea Collision Zone. Geographically they are located ...
by a westward route. He took Magellan’s discovery of
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla ...
in 1520 as further confirmation of its existence, and on his globes of 1523 and 1533 he described it as
''TERRA AVSTRALIS RECENTER INVENTA SED NONDUM PLENE COGNITA''(“Terra Australis, recently discovered but not yet fully known”). It was taken up by his followers, the French cosmographer
Oronce Fine in his world map of 1531, and the Flemish cartographers
Gerard Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented s ...
in 1538 and
Abraham Ortelius
Abraham Ortelius (; also Ortels, Orthellius, Wortels; 4 or 14 April 152728 June 1598) was a Brabantian cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer, conventionally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the '' Theatrum Orbis Terra ...
in 1570. Schöner's concepts influenced the
Dieppe maps
The Dieppe maps are a series of world maps and atlases produced in Dieppe, France, in the 1540s, 1550s, and 1560s. They are large hand-produced works, commissioned for wealthy and royal patrons, including Henry II of France and Henry VIII of Engla ...
makers, notably in their representation of ''Jave la Grande''.
Robert J. King, “Magellanica: Finding the Antipodeans”, ''The Globe,'' no.88, 2020, pp.1-18.
/ref> Subsequent generations of map-makers and geographic theorists continued to elaborate the image of a vast and wealthy Terra Australis
(Latin: '"Southern Land'") was a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity and which appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Its existence was not based on any survey or direct observation, but rather on the idea that ...
to tempt the cupidity of merchants and statesmen.
See also
* Johannes Schöner
Johannes Schöner (16 January 1477, in Karlstadt am Main – 16 January 1547, in the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg) (aka, Johann Schönner, Johann Schoener, Jean Schönner, Joan Schoenerus) was a renowned and respected German polymath. It is ...
* Erdapfel
__NOTOC__
The (; ) is a terrestrial globe produced by Martin Behaim from 1490–1492. The Erdapfel is the oldest surviving terrestrial globe. It is constructed of a laminated linen ball in two halves, reinforced with wood and overlaid with a ma ...
* Hunt–Lenox Globe
The Hunt–Lenox Globe or Lenox Globe, dating from about 1510, is the third-oldest known terrestrial globe, after the Erdapfel of Martin Behaim dating from 1492 and its identical sibling and apparent prototype, the Ostrich Egg Globe, dating from ...
* Globus Jagellonicus
The Jagiellonian globe, also known as the Globus Jagellonicus, dates from 1510 and is attributed to Jean Coudray, a French clockmaker active in France. It is the oldest extant globe to use the name America. It resembles the 1504 Lenox Globe.
The ...
* Ancient world maps
* World map
A world map is a map of most or all of the surface of Earth. World maps, because of their scale, must deal with the problem of projection. Maps rendered in two dimensions by necessity distort the display of the three-dimensional surface of th ...
* Timeline of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
* Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
Pre-Columbian transoceanic contact theories are speculative theories which propose that possible visits to the Americas, possible interactions with the indigenous peoples of the Americas, or both, were made by people from Africa, Asia, Europe, ...
* Martin Waldseemüller
Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – 16 March 1520) was a German cartographer and humanist scholar. Sometimes known by the Latinized form of his name, Hylacomylus, his work was influential among contemporary cartographers. He and his collaborator ...
* Jave la Grande
La grande isle de Java ("the great island of Java") was, according to Marco Polo, the largest island in the world; his Java Minor was the actual island of Sumatra, which takes its name from the city of Samudera (now Lhokseumawe) situated on its ...
* Guillaume Postel
Guillaume Postel (25 March 1510 – 6 September 1581) was a French linguist, astronomer, Christian Kabbalist, diplomat, polyglot, professor, religious universalist, and writer.
Born in the village of Barenton in Normandy, Postel made his w ...
, a French polymath
References
External links
The Johann Schönner globe of the world of 1520
at Nito Verdera's site.
Luculentissima quaedam terrae totius descriptio: cum multis vtilissimis cosmographiæ iniciis.
Noribergæ, Impressum im excusoria officina I. Stuchssen, 1515. From th
Rare Book and Special Collections Division
at the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Johannes Schoner globe
16th-century maps and globes
Historic maps of the world
1515 works
de:Johannes Schöner