Renaissance Latin
Renaissance Latin is a name given to the distinctive form of Literary Latin style developed during the European Renaissance of the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries, particularly by the Renaissance humanism movement.
Ad fontes
''Ad fontes' ...
for "New and more complete representation of the terrestrial globe properly adapted for use in navigation"). The title shows that
Gerardus Mercator
Gerardus Mercator (; 5 March 1512 – 2 December 1594) was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and Cartography, cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the Mercator 1569 world map, 1569 world map based on ...
aimed to present contemporary knowledge of the geography of the world and at the same time 'correct' the chart to be more useful to sailors. This 'correction', whereby constant bearing sailing courses on the sphere (
rhumb lines
In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north.
Introduction
The effect of following a rhumb li ...
) are mapped to straight lines on the plane map, characterizes the
Mercator projection
The Mercator projection () is a cylindrical map projection presented by Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569. It became the standard map projection for navigation because it is unique in representing north as up and sou ...
. While the map's geography has been superseded by modern knowledge, its projection proved to be one of the most significant advances in the
history of cartography
The history of cartography refers to the development and consequences of cartography, or mapmaking technology, throughout human history. Maps have been one of the most important human inventions for millennia, allowing humans to explain and navig ...
, inspiring map historian Nordenskiöld to write "The master of Rupelmonde stands unsurpassed in the history of cartography since the time of
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
." The projection heralded a new era in the evolution of navigation maps and charts and it is still their basis.
The map is inscribed with a great deal of text. The framed map legends (or
cartouches
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...
) cover a wide variety of topics: a dedication to his patron and a copyright statement; discussions of rhumb lines; great circles and distances; comments on some of the major rivers; accounts of fictitious geography of the north pole and the southern continent. The full Latin texts and English translations of all the legends are given
below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
. Other minor texts are sprinkled about the map. They cover such topics as the magnetic poles, the prime meridian, navigational features, minor geographical details, the voyages of discovery and myths of giants and cannibals. These minor texts are also given
below
Below may refer to:
*Earth
*Ground (disambiguation)
*Soil
*Floor
*Bottom (disambiguation)
Bottom may refer to:
Anatomy and sex
* Bottom (BDSM), the partner in a BDSM who takes the passive, receiving, or obedient role, to that of the top or ...
.
A comparison with world maps before 1569 shows how closely Mercator drew on the work of other cartographers and his own previous works, but he declares ( Legend 3) that he was also greatly indebted to many new charts prepared by Portuguese and Spanish sailors in the
portolan
Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word ''portolan'' comes from the Italian ''portulano'', meaning "related to ports or harbors", and whi ...
tradition. Earlier cartographers of world maps had largely ignored the more accurate practical charts of sailors, and vice versa, but the age of discovery, from the closing decade of the fifteenth century, stimulated the integration of these two mapping traditions: Mercator's world map is one of the earliest fruits of this merger.
Extant copies and facsimiles
Mercator's 1569 map was a large planisphere, i.e. a projection of the spherical Earth onto the plane. It was printed in eighteen separate sheets from copper plates engraved by Mercator himself. Each sheet measures 33×40 cm and, with a border of 2 cm, the complete map measures 202×124 cm. All sheets span a longitude of 60 degrees; the first row of 6 sheets cover latitudes 80°N to 56°N, the second row cover 56°N to 16°S and the third row cover 16°S to 66°S: this latitude division is not symmetric with respect to the equator thus giving rise to the later criticism of a Euro-centric projection.
It is not known how many copies of the map were printed, but it was certainly several hundred. Despite this large print run, by the middle of the nineteenth century there was only one known copy, that at the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France
The Bibliothèque nationale de France (, 'National Library of France'; BnF) is the national library of France, located in Paris on two main sites known respectively as ''Richelieu'' and ''François-Mitterrand''. It is the national repository ...
.
A second copy was discovered in 1889 at the Stadt Bibliothek of Breslau along with maps of Europe and Britain.
These three maps were destroyed by fire in 1945 but fortunately copies had been made before then.Heyer, A. ''Drei Karten–Mercator in der Breslauer Stadt-Bibliotek.'' Zeitschrift fur Wissenschaftliche Geographie herausgegeben von J.I.Kettler, vol VII (1890), pp. 379, 474, 507.
A third copy was found in a map collection ''Mappae Geographiae vetustae'' from the archives of the Amerbach family which had been given to the library of the
University of Basel
The University of Basel (Latin: ''Universitas Basiliensis'', German: ''Universität Basel'') is a university in Basel, Switzerland. Founded on 4 April 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university and among the world's oldest surviving universit ...
.
The only other complete copy was discovered at an auction sale in Luzern in 1932 and is now in the map collection of the
Maritiem Museum Rotterdam
The Maritime Museum Rotterdam is a maritime museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Dedicated to naval history, it was founded in 1874 by Prince Henry of the Netherlands.
Next to the Maritime Museum lies the open-air Maritime Museum Harbour, which ...
.
In addition to the complete copies there is a single page showing the North Atlantic in the Mercator atlas of Europe in the
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...
.
Many paper reproductions of all four maps have been made. Those at full scale, providing access to the detail and the artistry of Mercator's engraving, are listed next. Images of the Basil, Paris, and Rotterdam impressions can be found online.
Basel map
The Basel map is the cleanest of the three extant versions. It is called the 'three strip' version because it is in three separate rows rather than a single assembled sheet. It was photographically reproduced at a reduced scale by Wilhelm Kruecken in 1992; more recently (2011) he has produced a full-scale and full sized (202×124 cm) reproduction of the map along with a five volume account (in German) covering all aspects of Mercator's work.
Medium resolution scans of the separate sheets and a composite of all 18 scans are accessible as follows.
Paris map
The Paris copy is a single combined sheet that came into the possession of the Bibliothèque Nationale from the estate of
Julius Klaproth
Heinrich Julius Klaproth (11 October 1783 – 28 August 1835) was a German linguist, historian, ethnographer, author, orientalist and explorer. As a scholar, he is credited along with Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, with being instrumental in turning ...
(1783–1835).van 't Hoff (1961), page 40. The map is uncoloured, partially borderless and in poor condition due to repeated exhibitions during the nineteenth century. It was reproduced by Edmé-François Jomard (1777–1862) between 1842 and 1862 as part of a collection of 21 facsimile maps. Very few copies of this facsimile are known.
The Bibliothèque Nationale has put a digital image of their copy into the public domain in the form of 13 separate images. The images do not correspond exactly with the 18 original sheets: they are in three rows of different heights with 5, 4, 4 images respectively. The zoomable images permit examination of small sections of the map in very great detail. These are the only online images at a high enough resolution to read the smallest text.
Breslau map
Immediately after its discovery in 1889 the Breslau map was described by Heyer who initiated copies (in multiple sheets) for the Berlin Geographical Society in 1891. Forty years later, in 1931, a further 150 copies were issued by th Hydrographic Bureau
Rotterdam map
This copy in the
Maritiem Museum Rotterdam
The Maritime Museum Rotterdam is a maritime museum in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Dedicated to naval history, it was founded in 1874 by Prince Henry of the Netherlands.
Next to the Maritime Museum lies the open-air Maritime Museum Harbour, which ...
is in the form of an atlas constructed by Mercator for his friend and patron Werner von Gymnich. It was made by Mercator in (or shortly after) 1569 by dissecting and reassembling three copies of his original wall map to create coherent units such as continents or oceans or groups of legends. There are 17 non-blank coloured pages which may be viewed online (and zoomed to a medium resolution, much lower than that of the French copy at the Bibliothèque Nationale).
In 1962 a monochrome facsimile of this atlas was produced jointly by the curators of the Rotterdam museum and the cartographic journal Imago Mundi. The plates are accompanied with comprehensive bibliographic material, a commentary by van 't Hoff and English translations of the Latin text from the Hydrographics Review. More recently, in 2012, the Maritiem Museum Rotterdam produced a facsimile edition of the atlas, with an introduction by Sjoerd de Meer.
World and regional maps before 1569
Principal features of the 1569 Mercator map
Mercator's projection
In Legend 3 Mercator states that his first priority is "to spread on a plane the surface of the sphere in such a way that the positions of places shall correspond on all sides with each other, both in so far as true direction and distance are concerned and as correct longitudes and latitudes." He goes on to point out the deficiencies of previous projections, particularly the distortion caused by the oblique incidence of parallels and meridians which gives rise to incorrect angles and shapes: therefore he adopts parallel meridians and orthogonal parallels. This is also a feature of sixteenth-century plane charts (
equirectangular projection
The equirectangular projection (also called the equidistant cylindrical projection or la carte parallélogrammatique projection), and which includes the special case of the plate carrée projection (also called the geographic projection, lat/lon ...
s) but they also have equally spaced parallels; in Legend 3 Mercator also emphasizes the distortion that this gives rise to. In particular, the straight lines emanating from the compass roses are not rhumb lines so that they do not give a true bearing. Nor was it straightforward to calculate the sailing distances on these charts. Mariners were aware of these problems and had evolved rules of thumb to enhance the accuracy of their navigation.
Mercator presents his remedy for these problems: "We have progressively increased the degrees of latitude towards each pole in proportion to the lengthenings of the parallels with reference to the equator."
The resulting variation of the latitude scale is shown on the meridian at 350°E of his map. Later, Edward Wright and others showed how this statement of Mercator could be turned into a precise mathematical problem whose solution permitted the calculation of the latitude scale, but their methods had not been developed at the time of Mercator.
All these methods hinge on the observation that the circumference of a parallel of latitude is proportional to the cosine of the latitude, which is unity at the equator and zero at the poles. The length of a parallel, and hence the spacing of the parallels, must therefore be increased by a factor equal to the reciprocal of the cosine (i.e. the secant) of the latitude.
Mercator left no explanation of his own methods but, as long ago as 1541, he had demonstrated that he understood how to draw rhumb lines on a globe.
It has been suggested that he drew the rhumbs by using a set of metal templates for the seven principal compass points within each quadrant, as follows. Starting at the equator draw a short straight line segment, at say 67.5° (east by northeast). Continue as far as a meridian separated by only two or three degrees of longitude and mark the crossing point. Move the template to that point and repeat the process. Since the meridians have converged a little the line will bend up a little generating a rhumb which describes a spiral on the sphere. The latitude and longitude of selected points on the rhumb could have then been transferred to the chart and the latitude scale of the chart adjusted so that the rhumb becomes a straight line. There has been no shortage of proposed methods for the construction. For example, Hollander analyzed fourteen such hypotheses and concluded that Mercator ''may'' have used a judicious mix of mechanical transference and numerical interpolations.Hollander, Raymond d'. (2005) ''Loxodromie et projection de Mercator''. Published by the Institut OceÌanographique (Paris). . However he proceeded, Mercator achieved a fairly accurate, but not perfect, latitude scale.
Since the parallels shrink to zero length as they approach the pole they have to be stretched by larger and larger amounts. Correspondingly the parallel spacing must increase by the same ratio. Mercator concludes that "The chart cannot be extended as far as the pole, for the degrees of latitude would finally attain infinity." — Legend 6. (That is, the reciprocal of the cosine of the latitude become infinite). He therefore uses a completely different projection for the inset map of the north polar regions: an
azimuthal equidistant projection
The azimuthal equidistant projection is an azimuthal map projection. It has the useful properties that all points on the map are at proportionally correct distances from the center point, and that all points on the map are at the correct azimut ...
.
It took many years for Mercator's projection to gain wider acceptance. The following gallery shows the first maps in which it was employed. General acceptance only came with the publication of the French sea atlas "Le Neptune Francois" at the end of the seventeenth century: all the maps in this widely disseminated volume were on the Mercator projection.
Distances and the Organum Directorium
In Legend 12 Mercator makes careful distinction between
great circle
In mathematics, a great circle or orthodrome is the circular intersection of a sphere and a plane passing through the sphere's center point.
Any arc of a great circle is a geodesic of the sphere, so that great circles in spherical geomet ...
s (''plaga'') and
rhumb line
In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north.
Introduction
The effect of following a rhumb li ...
s (''directio'') and he points out that the rhumb between two given points is always longer than the great circle distance, the latter being the shortest distance between the points. However, he stresses that over short distances (which he quantifies) the difference may be negligible and a calculation of the rhumb distance may be adequate and more relevant since it is the sailing distance on a constant bearing. He gives the details of such a calculation in a rather cumbersome fashion in Legend 12 but in Legend 10 he says that the same method can be applied more readily with the Organum Directorium (the Diagram of Courses, sheet 18) shown annotated here. Only dividers were used in these constructions but the original maps had a thread attached at the origin of each compass rose. Its use is partially explained in Legend 10.
To illustrate his method take A at (20°N,33°E) and B at (65°N,75°E). Plot the latitude of A on the left hand scale and plot B with the appropriate relative latitude and longitude. Measure the azimuth α, the angle MAB: it can be read off the compass scale by constructing OP parallel to AB; for this example it is 34°. Draw a line OQ through the origin of the compass rose such that the angle between OQ and the equator is equal to the azimuth angle α. Now find the point N on the equator which is such that the number of equatorial degrees in ON is numerically equal to the latitude difference (45° for AM on the unequal scale). Draw the perpendicular through N and let it meet OQ at D. Find the point E such that OE=OD, here approximately 54°. This is a measure of the rhumb line distance between the points on the sphere corresponding to A and B on the spherical Earth. Since each degree on the equator corresponds to 60
nautical mile
A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute ( of a degree) of latitude. Today ...
s the sailing distance is 3,240 nautical miles for this example. If B is in the second quadrant with respect to A then the upper rose is used and if B is west of A then the longitude separation is simply reversed. Mercator also gives a refined method which is useful for small azimuths.
The above method is explained in Legend 12 by using compass roses on the equator and it is only in Legend 10 that he introduces the Organum Directorium and also addresses the inverse problems: given the initial point and the direction and distance of the second find the latitude and longitude of the second.
Mercator's construction is simply an evaluation of the rhumb line distance in terms of the latitude difference and the azimuth as
::
If the latitude difference is expressed in arc minutes then the distance is in nautical miles.
In later life Mercator commented that the principles of his map had not been understood by mariners but he admitted to his friend and biographer, Walter Ghym, that the map lacked a sufficiently clear detailed explanation of its use. The intention expressed in the last sentence of Legend 10, that he would give more information in a future 'Geographia', was never realized.
Prime Meridian
A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great c ...
should be identified with that on which the
magnetic declination
Magnetic declination, or magnetic variation, is the angle on the horizontal plane between magnetic north (the direction the north end of a magnetized compass needle points, corresponding to the direction of the Earth's magnetic field lines) and ...
is zero, namely the meridian through the Cape Verde islands, or alternatively that through the island of Corvo in the Azores. (He cites the varying opinions of the Dieppe mariners). The prime meridian is labelled as 360 and the remainder are labelled every ten degrees eastwards. He further claims that he has used information on the geographical variation of declination to calculate the position of the (single) magnetic pole corresponding to the two possible prime meridians: they are shown on Sheet6 with appropriate
text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including:
**Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred
**Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
.
(For good measure he repeats one of these poles on Sheet 1 to emphasize the overlap of the right and left edges of his map; see
text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including:
**Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred
**Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
).
He does not show a position for a south magnetic pole. The model of the Earth as a magnetic dipole did not arise until the end of the seventeenth century, so between AD 1500 and that era the number of magnetic poles was a matter for speculation, variously 1, 2 or 4. Later, he accepted that magnetic declination changed in time, thus invalidating his position that the prime meridian could be chosen on these grounds.
Geography
In his introduction to the Imago Mundi facsimile edition t' Hoff gives lists of
world maps
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 ...
and regional maps that Mercator may well have seen, or even possessed by the 1560s.
A more complete illustrated list of world maps of that time may be compiled from the comprehensive survey of
Shirley
Shirley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë
* ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film
* ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film
* ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...
. Comparisons with his own map show how freely he borrowed from these maps and from his own 1538 world map and his 1541 globe.
In addition to published maps and manuscripts Mercator declares ( Legend 3) that he was greatly indebted to many new charts prepared by Portuguese and Spanish sailors in the
portolan
Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word ''portolan'' comes from the Italian ''portulano'', meaning "related to ports or harbors", and whi ...
traditions. "It is from an equitable conciliation of all these documents that the dimensions and situations of the land are given here as accurately as possible." Earlier cartographers of world maps had largely ignored the more accurate practical charts of sailors, and vice versa, but the age of discovery, from the closing decades of the fifteenth century, brought together these two traditions in the person of Mercator.
There are great discrepancies with the modern atlas.
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, the coast of
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
and the eastern coast of the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World.
Along with th ...
are relatively well covered but beyond that the anomalies increase with distance. For example, the spectacular bulge on the western coast of
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...
adapted from Ruscelli's 1561 ''Orbis Descriptio'' replaced the more accurate representation of earlier maps. That mistake disappears for good with the
Blaeu Blaeu is the name of
* Willem Blaeu (1571–1638), Dutch cartographer and father of Joan Blaeu
* Joan Blaeu (1596–1673), Dutch cartographer and son of Willem Blaeu
* '' Blaeu Atlas of Scotland'', by Joan Blaeu, published in 1654
* ''Atlas Blaeu'' ...
map of 1606.
The
Mediterranean basin
In biogeography, the Mediterranean Basin (; also known as the Mediterranean Region or sometimes Mediterranea) is the region of lands around the Mediterranean Sea that have mostly a Mediterranean climate, with mild to cool, rainy winters and w ...
shows errors similar to those found in contemporary maps. For example, the latitude of the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
is several degrees too high, like in the maps made by
Diogo Ribeiro
Diogo Ribeiro (d. 16 August 1533) was a Portuguese cartographer and explorer who worked most of his life in Spain where he was known as Diego Ribero. He worked on the official maps of the ''Padrón Real'' (or ''Padrón General'') from 1518 to 1 ...
in
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
in the 1520s. However, in Mercator's map the longitude of the entire basin is exaggerated by about 25%, contrary to the very accurate shape depicted by Ribeiro.
The
phantom island
A phantom island is a purported island which was included on maps for a period of time, but was later found not to exist. They usually originate from the reports of early sailors exploring new regions, and are commonly the result of navigati ...
s of
Frisland
Frisland, also called Frischlant, Friesland, Frislanda, Frislandia, or Fixland, is a phantom island that appeared on virtually all of the maps of the North Atlantic from the 1560s through the 1660s.
History
Frisland appears to have bee ...
and
Brasil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area an ...
in the North Atlantic persist in the maps of the period even though they were in waters readily accessed by European sailors. He does show a
Strait of Anian
A strait is an Ocean, oceanic landform connecting two Sea, seas or two other large areas of water. The surface water generally flows at the same elevation on both sides and through the strait in either direction. Most commonly, it is a narrow ...
between Asia and the Americas as well as NW and NE passages to the spice islands of the East: this he justifies on his studies of the ancient texts detailed in Legend 3 for as yet these were unexplored regions.
The bizarre representation of the geography of the north polar regions in the inset
is discussed in detail in Legend 6 and in the minor texts of sheet 13. Mercator uses as his reference a fourteenth-century English friar and mathematician who used an astrolabe to survey the septentrional regions. The four channels carry the sea ''towards'' the pole where it disappears into an abyss with great force.
Mercator accepted current beliefs in the existence of a large Southern continent (
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 ...
) — beliefs which would prevail until the discovery of the open seas south of
Cape Horn
Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...
and the circumnavigation of Australia. His biographer, Walter Ghim, explained that even though Mercator was not ignorant that the Austral continent still lay hidden and unknown, he believed it could be "demonstrated and proved by solid reasons and arguments to yield in its geometric proportions, size and weight, and importance to neither of the other two, nor possibly to be lesser or smaller, otherwise the constitution of the world could not hold together at its centre".
Beyond Europe the interiors of the continents were unknown but Mercator struggled to combine the scattered data at his disposal into a harmonious whole in the map legends which speculate on the Asian
Prester John
Prester John ( la, Presbyter Ioannes) was a legendary Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost a ...
and the courses of the
Ganges
The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
,
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...
and
Niger
)
, official_languages =
, languages_type = National languagesLegends 3, 4, 8, 11, 14) classic authors such as
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
,
Pomponius Mela
Pomponius Mela, who wrote around AD 43, was the earliest Roman geographer. He was born in Tingentera (now Algeciras) and died AD 45.
His short work (''De situ orbis libri III.'') remained in use nearly to the year 1500. It occupies less ...
,
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; grc-gre, Πτολεμαῖος, ; la, Claudius Ptolemaeus; AD) was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist, who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were of importanc ...
, and earlier travellers such as
Marco Polo
Marco Polo (, , ; 8 January 1324) was a Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295. His travels are recorded in ''The Travels of Marco Polo'' (also known as ''Book of the Marv ...
but, as the principal geographer of his time, he would have undoubtedly have been in touch with contemporary travellers.
Navigational inaccuracy
Mercator was not a navigator himself and, while he was obviously aware of the concept of
rhumb line
In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north.
Introduction
The effect of following a rhumb li ...
, he missed several key practical aspects of navigation. As a result, his world map "was useless for navigation at the time it was created because navigation was something very different from his idealized concept."
Mercator had to work from the geographic information contained in his source maps, which of course was not always accurate, but he may have also introduced errors of his own by misinterpreting the mathematical structure of the Portuguese and Spanish charts of his time. In addition, even if his sources had been perfect, Mercator's map would have still been of little practical use for navigators due to lack of reliable data on
magnetic declination
Magnetic declination, or magnetic variation, is the angle on the horizontal plane between magnetic north (the direction the north end of a magnetized compass needle points, corresponding to the direction of the Earth's magnetic field lines) and ...
and to the difficulty of determining
longitude
Longitude (, ) is a geographic coordinate that specifies the east–west position of a point on the surface of the Earth, or another celestial body. It is an angular measurement, usually expressed in degrees and denoted by the Greek letter l ...
accurately at sea.
These technical reasons explain why Mercator's projection was not widely adopted for marine charts until the 18th century.
Decorative features
The ornate border of the map shows the 3 points of the compass The cardinal appoints appear in various forms: west is ''Zephyrus, Occides, West, Ponente, Oeste;'' east is ''Subsola, Oriens, Oost, Levante, Este;'' south is ''Auster, Meridio, Zuya Ostre, Sid''; north is ''Boreas, Septentrio, Nord, tramontana.'' All of the other 28 points are written only in Dutch, confirming Mercator's wish that his map would be put to practical use by mariners.
Within the map Mercator embellishes the open seas with fleets of ships, sea creatures, of which one is a
dolphin
A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the ...
, and a striking god-like figure which may be
Triton
Triton commonly refers to:
* Triton (mythology), a Greek god
* Triton (moon), a satellite of Neptune
Triton may also refer to:
Biology
* Triton cockatoo, a parrot
* Triton (gastropod), a group of sea snails
* ''Triton'', a synonym of ''Triturus' ...
.
The unknown continental interiors are remarkably devoid of creatures and Mercator is for the most part content to create speculative mountain ranges, rivers and cities. The only land animal, in South America, is shown as "... having under the belly a receptacle in which it keeps its young warm and takes them out but to suckle them." ( (40°S,295°E) with
text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including:
**Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred
**Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
.) He also shows
cannibals
Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is well documented, bo ...
but this may have been true. The giants shown in
Patagonia
Patagonia () refers to a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and gl ...
may also be founded in truth: the reaction of Spanish sailors of slight stature on confronting a tribe of natives who were well over six foot in height. These images of South Americans are almost direct copies of similar figures on the #World and regional maps before 1569 map of Diego Gutierrez.
There are three other images of figures:
Prester John in Ethiopia (10°N,60°E);
a tiny vignette of two 'flute' players (72°N,170°E) (see
text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including:
**Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred
**Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
);
the Zolotaia baba at (60°N,110°E). (Zolotaia baba also may be found on the Mercator map of the North Pole near the right border at mid-height).
The italic script used on the map was largely developed by Mercator himself. He was a great advocate of its use, insisting that it was much clearer than any other. He published an influential book, ''Literarum latinorum'', showing how the italic hand should be executed.van 't Hoff p.40 The latin text and an English translation may be found in Osley.
Texts of the map
Summary of the legends
* Legend 1 The dedication to his patron, the Duke of Cleves.
* Legend 2 A eulogy, in Latin hexameters, expressing his good fortune at living in Cleves after having fled from persecution by the Inquisition.
* Legend 3 Inspectori Salutem: greetings to the reader. Mercator sets forth three motivations for his map: (1) an accurate representation of locations and distances corrected for the use of sailors by the adoption of a new projection; (2) an accurate representation of countries and their shapes; (3) to stay true to the understanding of ancient writers.
* Legend 4 The Asian
Prester John
Prester John ( la, Presbyter Ioannes) was a legendary Christian patriarch, presbyter, and king. Stories popular in Europe in the 12th to the 17th centuries told of a Nestorian patriarch and king who was said to rule over a Christian nation lost a ...
and the origin of the
Tartars
Tartary ( la, Tartaria, french: Tartarie, german: Tartarei, russian: Тартария, Tartariya) or Tatary (russian: Татария, Tatariya) was a blanket term used in Western European literature and cartography for a vast part of Asia bounde ...
.
* Legend 5 The prime meridian and how a logical choice could be made on the basis of a study of magnetic declination.
* Legend 6 The north polar (septentrional) regions.
* Legend 7 Magellan's circumnavigation of the world.
* Legend 8 The Niger and Nile rivers and their possible linkage.
* Legend 9 Vasco de Gama.
* Legend 10 The use of the Organum Directorium, the Diagram of courses, for the measurement of
rhumb line
In navigation, a rhumb line, rhumb (), or loxodrome is an arc crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, that is, a path with constant bearing as measured relative to true north.
Introduction
The effect of following a rhumb li ...
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 ...
and its relation to
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
.
* Legend 12 The distinction between great circles and rhumb lines and the measurement of the latter.
* Legend 13 The 1493 papal Bull arbitrating on the division between Spanish and Portuguese spheres of influence.
* Legend 14 The
Ganges
The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...
and the geography of
south-east Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
The following literal translations are taken, with permission of the International Hydrographics Board, from the ''Hydrographics Review''. The Latin text differs from that of Mercator in using modern spelling. Punctuation has been modified or added. Paragraph breaks have been added where required.
Minor texts
Bibliography
*.
*Published jointly by the
Royal Library of Belgium
The Royal Library of Belgium (french: Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Bibliotheek van België, abbreviated ''KBR'' and sometimes nicknamed in French or in Dutch) is the national library of Belgium. The library has a history t ...
(
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
),
Plantin-Moretus Museum
The Plantin-Moretus Museum ( nl, Plantin-Moretusmuseum) is a printing museum in Antwerp, Belgium which focuses on the work of the 16th-century printers Christophe Plantin and Jan Moretus. It is located in their former residence and printing establ ...
(
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,
), Musée Mercator (
Sint-Niklaas
Sint-Niklaas (; french: Saint-Nicolas, ) is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province of East Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Sint-Niklaas proper and the towns of Belsele, Nieuwkerken-Waas, and .
Sint-Nikl ...
) on the occasion of the opening of the Musée Mercator de Sint-Niklaas and the exhibition "Le cartographe Gérard Mercator, 1512–1594" at the Royal Library.
*
*
* Translated in Osley. (Surname also spelled as Ghim)
*Se Mercator Fonds *
*
*
*
*
*
*
* This book is an expanded version of the following article, and similar articles, in The History of Cartography.
*Snyder J.P. ''Cartography in the Renaissance'' in The History of Cartography, Volume 3, part I, p365.
*
*
*
*.
*
Map bibliography
This bibliography gives lists of world and regional maps, on various projections, that Mercator may have used in the preparation of his world map. In addition there are examples of maps of the succeeding decades which did or did not use the Mercator projection. Where possible references are given to printed or online reproductions.
Atlases and map collections
*
*
*. There are two online versions in the British Library: the 'Turning the pages' version a and an annotated accessible copy a
*
*
*
*. The maps of the Codex Lat V F.32, a 15th-century manuscript in the National Library, Naples.
Shirley
Shirley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë
* ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film
* ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film
* ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...
plate 79 (entries 74 and 91).
*
Shirley
Shirley may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Shirley'' (novel), an 1849 novel by Charlotte Brontë
* ''Shirley'' (1922 film), a British silent film
* ''Shirley'' (2020 film), an American film
* ''Shirley'' (album), a 1961 album by Shirley Bas ...
World maps using the Mercator projection after 1569
*
*
*
*. Printed in
New Worlds
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz (South Korean band), The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* New (album), ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartn ...