Abstract
Henricus Martellus was a German cartographer active in Florence from about 1459–1496. His German descent is clear from his signature on the Yale Martellus map, Opus Henrici Martelli Germani, and also in other of his works. In earlier literature it is stated that “Henricus Martellus” is the Latinized form of “Heinrich Hammer,” but there is no documentary evidence to show that the cartographer ever used the latter name. Recently Lorenz Böninger as part of his studies of the fifteenth-century German community in Florence has argued that Henricus Martellus Germanus is to be identified as Arrigo di Federico Martello, an employee of the Martelli family of Florence, who were loyal to the Medici and were significant patrons of the arts. However, Luisa Rubini Messerli has disproven this identification with an impressive marshaling of paleographical evidence, and we are left without any knowledge of who Martellus was. The chances are good, though, that Martellus came to Florence from Nuremberg, which was the center of the German Renaissance in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and his work as a cartographer shows the influence of Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, who produced manuscripts of Ptolemy’s Geography in three different recensions, some of which included tabulae modernae or new, non-Ptolemaic maps, and who also in 1477 made one terrestrial and one celestial globe for the newly established Vatican Library.
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Notes
- 1.
To give just one example, Max Kratochwill, “Henricus Martellus Germanus (Heinrich Hammer),” in Robert Auty et al., eds., Lexikon des Mittelalters (Munich and Zurich: Artemis-Verlag, 1977–1998), vol. 4, p. 2138. Other brief encyclopedia articles on Martellus include Franz Wawrik, “Martellus Germanus,” in Ingrid Kretschmer, Johannes Dörflinger, and Franz Wawrik, eds., Lexikon zur Geschichte der Kartographie von den Anfängen bis zum ersten Weltkrieg (Vienna: F. Deuticke, 1986), vol. 1, pp. 467–468; and Alfredo Pinheiro Marques, “Martellus, Henricus,” in Silvio A. Bedini, ed., The Christopher Columbus Encyclopedia (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992), vol. 2, pp. 452–454.
- 2.
Lorenz Böninger, “Arrigho di Federigho ‘Martello’: Bürgerknecht, Übersetzer und Kartograph,” in his Die deutsche Einwanderung nach Florenz im Spätmittelalter (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 313–348; and Klaus Arnold, “ARIGO - Heinrich Schlüsselfelder aus Nürnberg? Arrigho di Federigho della Magna/Heinricus Martellus in Florenz?” Pirckheimer-Jahrbuch für Renaissance- und Humanismusforschung 21 (2006), pp. 161–168.
- 3.
See Allesandra Civai, Dipinti e sculture in casa Martelli: storia di una collezione patrizia fiorentina dal Quattrocento all’Ottocento (Florence: Opus Libri, 1990).
- 4.
Luisa Rubini Messerli, Boccaccio deutsch: Die Dekameron-Rezeption in der deutschen Literatur (15.–17. Jahrhundert) (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2012), pp. 163–357, esp. 176–214.
- 5.
On the connection between Nicolaus Germanus and Martellus, see Böninger, “Arrigho di Federigho ‘Martello’” (see note 2 in Chap. 1), pp. 334–348. On Nicolaus Germanus’s cartographic output see Joseph Fischer, Entdeckungen der Normannen in Amerika: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der kartographischen Darstellungen (Freiburg: Herder, 1902), pp. 75–90 and 115–121, translated into English as The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America, with Special Relation to their Early Cartographical Representation, trans. Basil H. Soulsby (London: H. Stevens, Son & Stiles; St. Louis: B. Herder, 1903), pp. 72–86 and 110–118; Wilhelm Bonacker and Ernst Anliker, “Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, sein Kartennetz, seine Ptolomäus-Rezensionen und -Ausgaben,” Schweizerisches Gutenbergmuseum 18 (1932), pp. 19–48 and 99–144; Józef Babicz, “Donnus Nicolaus Germanus-Probleme seiner Biographie und sein Platz in der Rezeption der ptolemäischen Geographie,” in Cornelis Koeman, ed., Land- und Seekarten im Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (Munich: Kraus International Publications, 1980) (= Wolfenbütteler Forschung 7), pp. 9–42; and Robert W. Karrow, Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps: Bio-Bibliographies of the Cartographers of Abraham Ortelius, 1570 (Chicago: Speculum Orbis Press, 1993), pp. 255–265. On the globes made by Nicolaus Germanus see Józef Babicz, “The Celestial and Terrestrial Globes of the Vatican Library, Dating from 1477, and their Maker Donnus Nicolaus Germanus (ca 1420–ca 1490),” Der Globusfreund 35–37 (1987), pp. 155–168.
- 6.
Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter). There is also a brief survey of his cartographic work in Messerli, Boccaccio deutsch (see note 4 in Chap. 1), pp. 197–214.
- 7.
Evelyn Edson, The World Map, 1300–1492: The Persistence of Tradition and Transformation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), p. 215.
- 8.
See Joseph Fischer, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographiae, Codex Vrbinas Graecvs 82 (Leiden: Brill, and Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1932), vol. 1.1, pp. 219, 405–408, 489, and 546, and two maps from the manuscript are reproduced in vol. 1.2, plate L35. There is also a brief account of the manuscript in Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter), pp. 290–291, and a brief but good description of the manuscript and a color reproduction of the world map in Marco Buonocore, ed., Vedere i classici: l’illustrazione libraria dei testi antichi dall’età romana al tardo Medioevo (Rome: Fratelli Palombi and Rose, 1996), p. 457. Also see Sebastiano Gentile, ed., Firenze e la scoperta dell’America: umanesimo e geografia nel ‘400 fiorentino (Florence: L. S. Olschki, 1992), pp. 242–243 and 247.
- 9.
On Iacopo Angeli da Scarperia and his translation of Ptolemy’s Geography see Roberto Weiss, “Jacopo Angeli da Scarperia (c. 1360–1410/11),” in Medioevo e Rinascimento: Studi in onore di Bruno Nardi (Florence: Sansoni, 1955), vol. 2, pp. 801–827; reprinted in Weiss’s Medieval and Humanist Greek: Collected Essays (Padua: Antenore, 1977), pp. 255–277.
- 10.
For a brief discussion of the history of adding Tabulae modernae to manuscripts and printed editions of Ptolemy, see James R. Akerman “From Books with Maps to Books as Maps: The Editor in the Creation of the Atlas Idea,” in Joan Winearls, ed., Editing Early and Historical Atlases (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 3–48, esp. 8–13; for a more detailed discussion see Akerman’s “On the Shoulders of a Titan: Viewing the World of the Past in Atlas Structure,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1991, pp. 228–253.
- 11.
For discussion of the Magliabechiano manuscript, see Enrico Narducci, “Opere geografiche esistenti nelle principali biblioteche governative dell’Italia,” in Studj bibliografici e biografici sulla storia della geografia in Italia (Rome: Tip. Elzeviriana, 1875), pp. 391–470, esp. 404–406; Joseph Fischer, Claudii Ptolemaei Geographiae (see note 8 in Chap. 1), vol. 1.1, pp. 219 and 398–404, and two maps from the manuscript are reproduced in vol. 1.2, plate L36; Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter), pp. 291; Sebastiano Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’America (see note 8 in Chap. 1), pp. 240–243 with plates 47–48, including a good list of the tabulae modernae and bibliography; Guglielmo Cavallo, ed., Cristoforo Colombo e l’apertura degli spazi: mostra storico-cartografica (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, Libreria dello Stato, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 517–521, with a good color reproduction of the world map on pp. 518–519; and Lorenz Böninger, “Zur Ptolemäus-Renaissance bei Henricus Martellus,” in Werner Kreuer, ed., Monumenta cartographica: Tabulae modernae: kartographische Denkmäler, ein Triumph über die Zeit: Essener Bearbeitung von sechs Tafeln der historischen Kartographie mit sechs vollfaksimilierungen aus: Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florenz (Tafeln 1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, München (Tafel 6) (Ludwigsburg: Edition Libri Illustri, 2001–2003), pp. 11–15. The manuscript has been published in facsimile as Ptolomei cosmographia (Florence: Vallecchi, 2004), with studies by Sebastiano Gentile and Angelo Cattaneo. The “Introduzione” by Cattaneo, pp. 23–53, is a valuable description and analysis of the manuscript and its maps.
- 12.
For discussion see Cattaneo’s “Introduzione” (see note 11 in Chap. 1).
- 13.
- 14.
The map of Germany or Central Europe, which also appears in the Florence manuscript of Martellus’s Insularium, is thought to derive from a map by Nicholas of Cusa, on which see Joseph Fischer, Die Karte des Nicolaus von Cusa (vor 1490) die älteste Karte von Mitteleuropa (Prague: Kommissionsverlag K. André-Staatsdruckerei, 1930) = Kartographische Denkmaeler der Sudetenländer 1 (4 pp.); Joseph Fischer, Die zur Cusanus-Karte gehörige Descriptio Germaniae Modernae (Prague: Geographisches Institut der Deutschen Universität, 1936) = Kartographische Denkmaeler der Sudetenländer 10 (7 pp.); Dana Bennett Durand, The Vienna-Klosterneuburg Map Corpus of the Fifteenth Century: A Study in the Transition from Medieval to Modern Science (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1952), pp. 256–259 and plate 22; and Peter Meurer, Corpus der älteren Germania-Karten: ein annotierter Katalog der gedruckten Gesamtkarten des deutschen Raumes von den Anfängen bis um 1650 (Alphen aan den Rijn: Canaletto Uitgeverij, Repro-Holland, 2001), pp. 78–84.
- 15.
There is some discussion of the tabulae modernae in the Magliabechiano manuscript in Johannes Werner Kreuer, “Die kartographische Wende von Schedel zu Martellus: Descriptio und Karte,” in Dagmar Unverhau, ed., Geschichtsdeutung auf alten Karten: Archäologie und Geschichte (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003), pp. 129–146; also see Cattaneo’s “Introduzione” (see note 11 in Chap. 1).
- 16.
On the manuscripts of Ptolemy with maps by Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, see above, note 5 in Chap. 1.
- 17.
On the manuscripts of Ptolemy with maps by Pietro del Massaio, see Germaine Aujac, “Le peintre florentin Piero del Massaio et la ‘Cosmographia’ de Ptolémée,” Geographia Antiqua 3–4 (1994–1995), pp. 187–204; and Louis Duval-Arnould, “Les manuscrits de la Géographie de Ptolémée issus de l’atelier de Piero del Massaio (Florence, 1469 - vers 1478),” in Didier Marcotte, ed., Humanisme et culture géographique à l’époque du Concile de Constance autour de Guillaume Fillastre: Actes du Colloque de l’Université de Reims, 18–19 novembre 1999 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 227–244.
- 18.
See Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’America (see note 8 in Chap. 1), p. 243.
- 19.
For discussion of this work of Piccolini’s, see Nicola Casella, “Pio II tra geografia e storia: La ‘Cosmografia’,” Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria 95 (1972), pp. 35–112.
- 20.
- 21.
Eltjo Buringh, “Losses of Medieval Manuscripts,” in his Medieval Manuscript Production in the Latin West: Explorations with a Global Database (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 179–251, esp. 231–232.
- 22.
On the classical precedents of the isolario, see Paola Ceccarelli, “I Nesiotika”, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, classe di lettere e filosofia 19.3 (1989), pp. 903–935; for general discussion of the genre, see George Tolias, “Isolarii, Fifteenth to Seventeenth Century,” in The History of Cartography, Volume 3, Cartography in the European Renaissance, ed. David Woodward (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), part 1, pp. 263–284.
- 23.
Domenico Silvestri, De insulis et earum proprietatibus, ed. C. Pecoraro = Atti della Accademia di scienze, lettere e arti di Palermo 14.2 (1954), pp. 1–319; Marica Milanesi, “Il De Insulis et earum proprietatibus di Domenico Silvestri (1385–1406),” Geographia Antiqua 2 (1993), pp. 133–146; José Manuel Montesdeoca, Los islarios de la época del humanismo: el ‘De Insulis’ de Domenico Silvestri, edición y traducción (La Laguna: Servicio de Publicaciones, Universidad de La Laguna, 2004) (CD-ROM edition).
- 24.
For discussion of Buondelmonti’s Liber, see Hilary Turner, “Christopher Buondelmonti and the Rise of the Isolario,” Terrae Incognitae 19 (1988), pp. 11–28; and Giuseppe Ragone, “Il Liber insularum Arcipelagi di Cristoforo dei Buondelmonti: filologia del testo, filologia dell’immagine,” in Didier Marcotte, ed., Humanisme et culture géographique à l’époque du Concile de Constance. Autour de Guillaume Fillastre. Actes du Colloque de l’Université de Reims, 18–19 novembre 1999 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), pp. 177–217.
- 25.
For discussion of Sonetti’s isolario, see Wouter Bracke, “Une note sur l’Isolario de Bartolomeo da li Sonetti dans le manuscrit de Bruxelles, BR, CP, 17874 (7379),” Imago Mundi 53 (2001), pp. 125–129; and Massimo Donattini, “Bartolomeo da li Sonetti, il suo Isolario e un viaggio di Giovanni Bembo (1525–1530),” Geographia Antiqua 3–4 (1994–1995), pp. 211–236. There are two facsimile editions of Sonetti’s book: Bartolommeo dalli Sonetti, Isolario (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Ltd., 1972); and Bartolomeo dalli Sonetti, Isolario (Valencia: Vicent García, 2006), the latter of a hand-colored copy of the work.
- 26.
For discussion of Martellus’s map of Japan in the Florence manuscript of his isolario, see Almagià, “I mappamondi” (see note 4 in Front Matter), pp. 298–299, with a reproduction on p. 303; and George Kish, “Two Fifteenth-Century Maps of ‘Zipangu’: Notes on the Early Cartography of Japan,” The Yale University Library Gazette 40.4 (1966), pp. 206–214.
- 27.
There is one manuscript of Buondelmonti’s Liber that contains a world map, namely, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS Hamilton 108, f. 81r, probably made about 1470; for discussion see Anna-Dorothee von den Brincken, Fines terrae: die Enden der Erde und der vierte Kontinent auf mittelalterlichen Weltkarten (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1992), pp. 143–145 with plate 47; and my article “Benedetto Cotrugli’s Lost Mappamundi Found—Three Times,” Imago Mundi 65.1 (2013), pp. 1–14.
- 28.
For discussion of isolarii as part of the development of the atlas, but without specific reference to Martellus’s works, see James Richard Akerman, “On the Shoulders of a Titan: Viewing the World of the Past in Atlas Structure,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, 1991, pp. 173–181; also see the very brief reference in Akerman’s “From Books with Maps to Books as Maps: The Editor in the Creation of the Atlas Idea,” in Joan Winearls, ed., Editing Early and Historical Atlases (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), pp. 3–48, esp. 8. For general discussion of Martellus’s isolario focusing on the manuscript in the James Ford Bell Library, see Rushika February Hage, “The Island Book of Henricus Martellus,” The Portolan 56 (2003), pp. 7–23; Nathalie Bouloux, “L’Insularium Illustratum d’Henricus Martellus,” The Historical Review—La revue historique 9 (2012), pp. 77–94, focuses on the manuscript in the Musée Condé in Chantilly.
- 29.
In the opening of the Minneapolis manuscript, James Ford Bell Library, MS B 1475 fMA, f. [1r], Martellus seems to say that he worked for six years, seeing and touching things himself, in order make sure his book was accurate: see Evelyn Edson, Cristoforo Buondelmonti: Description of the Aegean and Other Islands, Copied, with Supplementary Material, by Henricus Martellus Germanus ; (New York: Italica Press, 2018), pp. 19 and 95. But in fact this statement is paraphrased from Christoforo Buondelmonti’s isolario, and thus does not reflect Martellus’s own efforts. See Christofo Buondelmonti, Description des îles de l’Archipel grec: version grecque du ‘Liber insularum Archipelagi’ c. 1420 (Paris: Leroux, 1897), pp. 1 and 157.
- 30.
The map of Britain is on f. [43v] of the Minneapolis manuscript of Martellus’s Insularium, and the text is transcribed, not quite correctly, by Hage, “The Island Book of Henricus Martellus” (see note 28 in Chap. 1), p. 15.
- 31.
For descriptions of the Florence manuscript, see Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter), pp. 295–298, with a comparative chart of some of the maps in the manuscript and other manuscripts of the work on p. 299; and Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’America (see note 8 in Chap. 1), pp. 237–240.
- 32.
Almagià, “I mappamondi,” p. 298. Images of all of the folios of the manuscript are available via http://teca.bmlonline.it/TecaRicerca/index.jsp by searching for the signature “Plut.29.25.”
- 33.
For discussion of the identification of this toponym, see E. H. L. Schwarz, “Bartholomieu Dias’s Furthest East,” South African Journal of Science 9 (1912), pp. 103–107.
- 34.
On Bartolomeu Dias and the ilha de fonti, see Eric Axelson, “The Dias Voyage, 1487–1488: Toponymy and Padrões,” Revista da Universidade de Coimbra 34 (1988), pp. 29–55; also published as an offprint by the Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga, Serie Separatas, no. 189 (1988), esp. pp. 43–44; and W. G. L. Randles, Bartolomeu Dias and the Discovery of the South-East Passage Linking the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean (1488), Revista da Universidade de Coimbra 34 (1988), pp. 19–28, also published as an offprint by the Centro de Estudos de História e Cartografia Antiga, Série separatas 188 (1988), esp. pp. 25–26; and reprinted in W. G. L. Randles, Geography, Cartography and Nautical Science in the Renaissance:
The Impact of the Great Discoveries (Aldershot, Hampshire, Great Britain; and Burlington, VT: Ashgate/Variorum, 2000).
- 35.
For descriptions of the Minneapolis manuscript, see Christopher U. Faye and William H. Bond, Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1962), p. 299, no. 4; and Paul Oskar Kristeller, Iter Italicum: A Finding List of Uncatalogued or Incompletely Catalogued Humanistic Manuscripts of the Renaissance in Italian and Other Libraries (London: Warburg Institute, 1963–1997), vol. 5, p. 274b. This manuscript was not known to Almagià and thus is not included in his survey of Martellus’s works cited above; the fullest but somewhat general account of the manuscript is Rushika February Hage, “The Island Book of Henricus Martellus,” The Portolan 56 (2003), pp. 7–23, but unfortunately her transcriptions and translations of selections of the Latin text are not all accurate. Evelyn Edson has now published an edition and translation of the text of the Minneapolis manuscript, titled Cristoforo Buondelmonti: Description of the Aegean and Other Islands, Copied, with Supplementary Material, by Henricus Martellus Germanus (New York: Italica Press, 2018).
- 36.
For descriptions of the Leiden manuscript, see Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter), pp. 291–292, with a comparative chart of some of the maps in the manuscript on p. 299; K. A. de Meyïer and P. F. J. Obbema, Codices Vossiani Latini (Leiden: Universitaire pers. Leiden, 1973–1984) (= Bibliotheca Universitatis Leidensis. Codices manuscripti. XIII–XVI), vol. 1, pp. 47–49.
- 37.
The world map in the Leiden manuscript is discussed by K. A. Kalkwiek, “Three MappaeMundi from the University Library in Leyden,” Janus 62.1–3, (1975), pp. 17–41, esp. 34–39.
- 38.
Although in his 1940 article “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter), Almagià argued that the Florence manuscript was that in which Martellus first put together his Insularium, and the world map in that manuscript was clearly revised by Martellus, in a later article he asserts, without offering any supporting argument, that the map in the Leiden manuscript is the oldest: see Roberto Almagià, “L’evoluzione delle conoscenze sulla figura dell’Africa e sull’Oceano Indiano secondo alcune carte italiane dei secoli XV e XVI,” in Comptes Rendus du Congrès International de Géographie, Lisbonne 1949 (Lisbon: Union Géographique International, 1950–1952), vol. 4, pp. 219–224, at 221. Perhaps this suggestion was based on the incomplete coastline of southern Africa in the Leiden world map; in any case, I do not see any strong reason to think that the Leiden world map is earlier than the Florence one.
- 39.
Descriptions of the manuscript include Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter), pp. 294–295, with a comparative chart of some of the maps in the manuscript on p. 299; Jacques Meurgey de Tupigny, Les principaux manuscrits à peintures du Musée Condé à Chantilly (Paris: Pour les membres de la Société Française de Reproductions de Manuscrits à Peintures, 1930), pp. 192–194 and plate 129; and Albinia de la Mare, “The Florentine Scribes of Cardinal Giovanni of Aragon,” in Cesare Questa and Renato Raffaelli, eds., Il Libro e il testo: atti del convegno internazionale, Urbino, 20–23 settembre 1982 (Urbino: Università degli studi di Urbino, 1984), pp. 243–293, esp. 278, no. 37. For a more detailed account, see Bouloux, “L’Insularium Illustratum d’Henricus Martellus” (see note 28 in Chap. 1).
- 40.
Meurgey de Tupigny, Les principaux manuscrits (see note 39 in Chap. 1), pp. 193–194, transcribes the phrase: ...usque ad tempora illustrissimi regis Anglorum Henrici avi tui, princeps sacratissime, qui primis, expulsis obsenis Hiberniensibus gentibus, terram Anglis possidendam [f]oedis militaribus distinxit....
- 41.
See Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor, ed. and trans. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), pp. 308 (Latin) and 309 (English).
- 42.
There is a very brief description of BL Add. MS 15760 in Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts in the British Museum in the Years MDCCCXLVI-MDCCCXLVII (London: Printed by Order of the Trustees, 1864), p. 26; for more detailed descriptions, see John Holmes and Frederic Madden, Catalogue of the Manuscript Maps, Charts, and Plans, and of the Topographical Drawings in the British Museum (London: Printed by Order of the Trustees, 1844), vol. 3, pp. 32–34, which includes lists of the maps in the manuscript (this same information may be found in the BL’s online catalogue); and Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter), p. 292, with a comparative chart of some of the maps in the manuscript on p. 299, and discussion of the world map on pp. 304–306. The best reproductions of the world map are those in Kenneth Nebenzahl, Atlas of Columbus and the Great Discoveries (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1990), pp. 15–17; and Guglielmo Cavallo, ed., Cristoforo Colombo e l’apertura degli spazi: Mostra storico-cartografica (Rome: Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 420–421.
- 43.
For discussion of Martellus’s revision of the shape of Africa, see Francesc Relaño, The Shaping of Africa: Cosmographic Discourse and Cartographic Science in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), pp. 165–168; Armando Cortesão, History of Portuguese Cartography (Lisbon: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar, 1969–1971), vol. 2, p. 204; and Randles, “Bartolomeu Dias and the Discovery of the South-East Passage” (see note 34 in Chap. 1), p. 24. Incidentally Martellus’s criticism of Ptolemy, though implicit, is still substantially more aggressive than the very deferential attitude of Donnus Nicolaus Germanus, with whom Martellus had worked, toward revising Ptolemy, as expressed in the dedication that appears in some manuscripts of Ptolemy that Nicolaus made. This dedication is edited in Joseph Fischer, The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America: With Special Relation to their Early Cartographical Representation (London: Henry Stevens, Son & Stiles; St. Louis: B. Herder, 1903), pp. 112–118, esp. 112–113, and is translated into English in Geography of Claudius Ptolemy, trans. Edward Luther Stevenson (New York: New York Public Library, 1932), pp. 19–24, esp. 19–20.
- 44.
There has been considerable debate about whether the phrase et hic moritur refers to the death of Diogo Cão; this is certainly the literal meaning of the Latin. For discussion see Augusto César da Silva Castro Júnior, “Diogo Cão e a legenda de Henrique Martelo,” Actas do Congresso Internacional de História dos Descobrimentos (Lisbon: Comissão Executiva das Comemorações do V Centenário da Morte do Infante D. Henrique, 1961), vol. 2, pp. 85–109; and Américo da Costa Ramalho, “Sobre a data da morte de Diogo Cão,” in his Estudos sobre a época do Renascimento (Coimbra: Instituto de Alta Cultura, 1969; Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian and Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Technológica, 1997), pp. 2–8. One possibility would be to emend “moritur” to “moratur,” indicating that the fleet stayed at the location of the column for a time. W. G. L. Randles in “The Atlantic in European Cartography and Culture from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance,” in Geography, Cartography and Nautical Science in the Renaissance: The Impact of the Great Discoveries (Aldershot, Hampshire, Great Britain, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate/Variorum, 2000), p. 18, takes the fleet as the subject of “moritur” and translates the verb as “went no further,” but this is to stretch the meaning of the Latin too far.
- 45.
For discussion of Cão’s second voyage, see E. G. Ravenstein, “The Voyages of Diogo Cão and Bartholomeu Dias, 1482–1488,” Geographical Journal 16.6 (1900), pp. 625–655, esp. 633–638.
- 46.
On the discovery of the padrão, see Luciano Cordeiro, “O ultimo padrão de Diogo Cão,” Boletim da Sociedade de Geografia de Lisboa 14.11 (1895), pp. 885–894. For other discussions of this legend on the world map in the London manuscript of Martellus’s Insularium, see Cortesão, History of Portuguese Cartography (see note 43 in Chap. 1), vol. 2, p. 204; Axelson, “The Dias Voyage” (see note 34 in Chap. 1), p. 32; and Randles, “Bartolomeu Dias and the Discovery of the South-East Passage” (see note 34 in Chap. 1), p. 22.
- 47.
I thank Renate Burri for her help with this manuscript.
- 48.
I thank Ilya Dines and Maddalena Signorini for their help with the paleographic analysis.
- 49.
The shelf mark of this volume of the Bible is Lisbon, Arquivos Nacionais da Torre do Tombo, MS 161/7, the final “7” indicating volume 7. For discussion of the Bíblia dos Jerónimos see Annarosa Garzelli, ed., Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento 1440–1525: un primo censimento (Florence: Giunta regionale toscana and La Nuova Italia, 1985), vol. 1, pp. 233–235, and vol. 2, Figs. 821–834 and 917–919; Jonathan J. G. Alexander, ed., The Painted Page: Italian Renaissance Book Illumination, 1450–1550 (Munich and New York: Prestel, 1994), pp. 49–51; Albinia C. de la Mare, “Notes on Portuguese Patrons of the Florentine Book Trade in the Fifteenth Century,” in Katherine J. P. Lowe, ed., Cultural Links between Portugal and Italy in the Renaissance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 167–181; Martim de Albuquerque and Arnaldo Pinto Cardoso, A Bíblia dos Jerónimos (Lisbon: Bertrand Editora, 2004); and Arnaldo Pinto Cardoso, “The Bíblia dos Jerónimos: From Florence to Lisbon,” photography by Massimo Listri, trans. Judith Landry, FMR 10 (Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006), pp. 43–72.
- 50.
The contract for the painting of the manuscript, which is dated April 23, 1494, still survives. The text of the contract is supplied by Gaetano Milanesi, Nuovi documenti per la storia dell’arte Toscana dal XII al XV secolo (Florence: G. Dotti, 1901; Soest: Davaco Publishers, 1973), pp. 164–166; reprinted in Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval Illuminators and their Methods of Work (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), pp. 181–182; and there is an English translation by Dario Tessicini in Carol M. Richardson, “The Contract Between Attavante and a Florentine Merchant for an Illuminated Manuscript,” in Carol M. Richardson, Kim W. Woods and Michael W. Franklin, eds., Renaissance Art Reconsidered: An Anthology of Primary Sources (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007), pp. 329–332.
- 51.
For a more detailed discussion of this map, see Chet Van Duzer, “Graphic Record of a Lost Wall Map of the World (c. 1490) by Henricus Martellus,” Peregrinations: Journal of Medieval Art & Architecture 5.2 (2015), pp. 48–64.
- 52.
See the discussion of bannona insula septentrionalis on the Yale Martellus map below.
- 53.
On Rosselli’s work as an engraver and manuscript painter, see Mirella Levi d’Ancona, “Francesco Rosselli,” Commentari 16 (1965), pp. 56–76; Annarosa Garzelli, “Il contributo di Francesco Rosselli al codice miniato,” in Miniatura fiorentina del rinascimento, 1440–1525: un primo censimento (Florence: Giunta Regionale Toscana e La Nuova Italia, 1985), vol. 1, pp. 173–188; Suzanne Boorsch, “Francesco Rosselli,” in Arthur R. Blumenthal, ed., Cosimo Rosselli, Painter of the Sistine Chapel (Winter Park, Florida: Cornell Fine Arts Museum, Rollins College, 2001), pp. 208–244; and Suzanne Boorsch, “The Case for Francesco Rosselli as the Engraver of Berlinghieri’s Geographia,” Imago Mundi 56.2 (2004), pp. 152–169.
- 54.
On Rosselli’s work as a cartographer, see Sebastiano Crinò, “I planisferi di Francesco Rosselli dell’epoca delle grandi scoperte geografiche,” La Bibliofilía 41 (1939), pp. 381–405, esp. 393–401 on the map under discussion here; Roberto Almagià, “On the Cartographic Work of Francesco Rosselli,” Imago Mundi 8 (1951), p. 27–34, esp. 31–32; and Tony Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, 1472–1500 (London: British Library, 1987), pp. 70–78, esp. 72–74. The Martellus-Rosselli planisphere is also discussed and illustrated in Cavallo, Cristoforo Colombo e l’apertura degli spazi (see note 42 in Chap. 1), vol. 1, pp. 521–524; and in Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World: Early Printed World Maps, 1472–1700 (London: Holland Press, 1983), #18, pp. 16–17.
- 55.
There are some brief remarks about the wind heads on the Martellus-Rosselli map in Chet Van Duzer, “A Newly Discovered Fourth Exemplar of Francesco Rosselli’s Oval Planisphere of c.1508,” Imago Mundi 60.2 (2008), pp. 195–201, esp. 198–199.
- 56.
The English translation is based on that by Edson, The World Map, 1300–1492 (see note 7 in Chap. 1), p. 220.
- 57.
On this padrão see Eric Axelson, “Discovery of the Farthest Pillar Erected by Bartholomew Dias,” South African Journal of Science 35 (1938), pp. 417–429; and Axelson, “The Dias Voyage” (see note 34 in Chap. 1), pp. 47–48.
- 58.
- 59.
Crinò, “I planisferi di Francesco Rosselli” (see note 54 in Chap. 1), p. 394, says that the date 1498 is correct and asserts that the map was made between 1498 and 1500, but we have no other evidence of Martellus’s cartographic work that late in the fifteenth century. Almagià, “On the Cartographic Work” (see note 54 in Chap. 1), p. 31, insists that the correct reading of the date is 1488, and that this is the date of the map, rather than the date of Bartolomeo Dias’s voyage. But to me the reading of 1498 is quite clear, and 1488 would be impossible as a date for the map, as Dias returned to Lisbon in December of 1488.
- 60.
Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps (see note 54 in Chap. 1), pp. x, 70, and 74.
- 61.
R. A. Skelton in his description of the map in Destombes’s Mappemondes, p. 229, mistakenly read the signature as Opus Henricus Martellus Germanus, and this mistaken reading has been repeated by several authors.
- 62.
On the display of medieval and Renaissance maps in noble settings, see Mark S. Rosen, “Maps as Decoration in Medieval Europe” and “Maps as Decoration in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries” in his “The Cosmos in the Palace: The Palazzo Vecchio Guardaroba and the Culture of Cartography in Early Modern Florence, 1563–1589,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California at Berkeley, 2004, pp. 57–69 and 90–122, respectively. When the Yale Martellus map was made, the market for maps in Italy was about to be immensely broadened, so that smaller maps became common decorative pieces in more humble houses: see Federica Ambrosini, “‘Descrittioni del mondo’ nelle case venete dei secoli XVI e XVII,” Archivio Veneto, series 5, vol. 117, no. 152 (1981), pp. 67–79; Genevieve Carlton, “Making an Impression: The Display of Maps in Sixteenth-Century Venetian Homes,” Imago Mundi 64.1 (2012), pp. 28–40; and Genevieve Carlton, Worldly Consumers: The Demand for Maps in Renaissance Italy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015).
- 63.
On the Renaissance reception of Strabo, see Milton Vasil Anastos, “Pletho, Strabo, and Columbus,” Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie ed. d’Histoire Orientales et Slaves 12 (1952), pp. 1–18 = Mélanges Henri Grégoire, vol. 4 (Brussels: Secrétariat des éditions de l’Institut, 1953); reprinted in Milton V. Anastos, Studies in Byzantine Intellectual History (London: Variorum reprints, 1979), article XVII.
- 64.
See Strabo 2.5.10, translated into English in The Geography of Strabo, trans. Hans Claude Hamilton and William Falconer (London and New York: G. Bell & Sons, 1903), vol. 1, p. 176: “Any one who is able will certainly do well to obtain such a globe. But it should have a diameter of not less than ten feet: those who cannot obtain a globe of this size, or one nearly as large, had better draw their chart on a plane surface, of not less than seven feet.”
- 65.
For measurements of the foot in various German cities, see Fritz Verdenhalven, Alte Mess- und Währungssysteme aus dem deutschen Sprachgebiet: was familien- und Lokalgeschichtsforscher suchen (Neustadt an der Aisch, Germany: Degener, 1993), pp. 19–20; some of the cities whose foot were very close to 28.37 cm are Arnstadt, 28.25 cm; Dresden, 28.333 cm; Erfurt, 23.326 cm; Fulda, 28.288 cm; Gera, 28.319 cm; Leipzig, 28.25 cm; Reuß ältere Linie, 28.32 cm; and Sachsen, 28.311.
- 66.
R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne: Supplementary Report,” June, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 2, revising his statement that the map was on nine sheets in R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne,” January 10–17, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 2. A diagram of the 12-sheet configuration is attached to the copy of Skelton’s original report at the Beinecke, while a diagram of the initially proposed 9-sheet configuration is attached to the copy of Skelton’s report that is at the James Ford Bell Library.
- 67.
R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne: Supplementary Report,” June, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 1.
- 68.
This inventory, which is dated February 14, 1527, was published by Jodoco del Badia, “La bottega di Alessandro di Francesco Rosselli merciaio e stampatore (1525),” Miscellanea fiorentina di erudizione e di storia 2.14 (1894), pp. 24–30, and subsequently in Giuseppe Boffito and Attilio Mori, Firenze nelle vedute e piante: studio storico topografico cartografico (Florence: Tipografia Giuntina, 1926; Rome: Multigrafica, 1973), pp. 146–150; Christian Hülsen, “Die alte Ansicht von Florenz im Kgl. Kupferstichkabinett und ihr Vorbild,” Jahrbuch der Königlich preussischen Kunstsammlungen 35 (1914), pp. 90–102, esp. 98–102; and Arthur M. Hind, Early Italian Engraving: A Critical Catalogue with Complete Reproduction of All the Prints Described (London: B. Quaritch, 1938–48; Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 304–309. For discussion of the maps listed in the inventory, see Roberto Almagià, “On the Cartographic Work of Francesco Rosselli,” Imago Mundi 8 (1951), pp. 27–34. Another, possibly earlier version of the inventory has been found in the Archivio di Stato in Florence: see Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’America (see note 8 in Chap. 1), pp. 247–250.
- 69.
R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne,” January 10–17, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 8, citing Konrad Haebler, Handbuch der Inkunabelkunde (Leipzig: Verlag Karl W. Hiersemann, 1925), p. 39.
- 70.
On the acanthus border of the Yale Martellus map, see R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne,” January 10–17, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), pp. 2 and 3. Skelton suggests that the border of the Martellus map is quite similar to that on a late sixteenth-century-printed Ptolemaic world map that may be a reprint of an earlier map, citing George H. Beans, “Some Notes from the Tall Tree Library,” Imago Mundi 14 (1959), pp. 112–113, where the map is illustrated opposite p. 113, but unfortunately this does not seem to me to shed much light on the question of the source of the border.
- 71.
On the influence of Martellus on Behaim, see the references in note 3 in Front Matter. Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps (see note 54 in Chap. 1), p. 213, notes that the Yale Martellus map is appropriate as a model for Behaim’s globe as it is “the only non-Ptolemaic fifteenth-century world map to be graduated, like the globe, with degrees of longitude and latitude,” but sees differences between the treatments of southern Africa in Behaim’s globe and the Yale Martellus map, and on p. 217 concludes that the Yale Martellus map is purely manuscript—but does not indicate his reasons for this conclusion.
- 72.
The German text is supplied by Johann Petz, “Urkundliche Beiträge zur Geschichte der Bücherei des Nürnberger Rates, 1429–1538,” Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 6 (1886), pp. 123–174, at 169: “Item so zalt ich her Merten Beham vmb ein getruckte mapa mundy, da die gantz weit ina wegriffen ist, die da wol dint zu dem apffel vnd in die kantzley gehenckt wirtt, kost 1 fl. 3 lb.; mer kost sie zu maln 1 fl.; mer zu fütern vnd leima 5 lb. 10 dn.; mer dem schreiner in ram vnd zwue taffel gemacht 1 fl.; mer dem Starch maller von disen hulzen tafeln zu maln, 4 lb. 6 dn.; facit...... fl. 4. lb. 4. dn. 6.” This text is also supplied by Ernst Georg Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe (London: G. Philip & Son, Ltd., 1908), pp. 111–112, with an English translation, but Ravenstein mistakenly suggests that Behaim made the map in question. Ravenstein’s translation of the whole passage is cited by Edward Luther Stevenson, Terrestrial and Celestial Globes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1921), vol. 1, pp. 56–57. This passage is discussed by R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne,” January 10–17, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 11.
- 73.
See A. Wilhelm Lang, “Traces of Lost North European Sea Charts of the fifteenth Century,” Imago Mundi 12 (1955), pp. 31–44, at 41.
- 74.
See Carlos Sanz, “Un mapa del mundo verdaderamente importante en la famosa Universidad de Yale,” Boletín de la Real Sociedad Geográfica 102 (1966), pp. 7–46, esp. 15–19.
- 75.
R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne,” January 10–17, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 3, suggests that the acanthus border is very similar to that in a printed Ptolemaic world map probably designed in the late fifteenth century that survives in two exemplars: Chicago, Newberry Library, Novacco 4F 3 and Providence, Rhode Island, John Carter Brown Library, Case 12b A480 1. For discussion of this map, see Tony Campbell, The Earliest Printed Maps, 1472–1500 (London: British Library, 1987), pp. 27–30 with plate 37; and Chet Van Duzer, “Ptolemy from Manuscript to Print: New York Public Library’s Codex Ebnerianus (MS MA 97),” Imago Mundi 67.1 (2015), pp. 1–11. I do not find the similarity between the acanthus borders of the Yale Martellus map and those of this Ptolemaic world map particularly compelling.
- 76.
These editions of Ptolemy’s Geography use maps made by Laurent Fries which were based on maps in Waldseemüller’s 1513 edition of Ptolemy. For descriptions of these editions of Ptolemy, see Wilberforce Eames, A List of Editions of Ptolemy’s Geography 1475–1730 (New York, 1886) (reprinted from Joseph Sabin’s Bibliotheca Americana), pp. 15–17, 17–18, 18–19, and 20–21; and Carlos Sanz, La Geographia de Ptolomeo, ampliada con los primeros mapas impresos de América, desde 1507 (Madrid: Librería General V. Suárez, 1959), pp. 150–155, 156–164, 169–179, and 187–188. In the 1522 edition, the initials “I H” appear in the decorations in the decoration at the beginning of the text for the eighth map of Europe, the second map of Africa, the second map of Asia, the eighth map of Asia, the twelfth map of Asia, the modern map of England, and the modern map of southern Africa.
- 77.
Charles Schmidt, Répertoire bibliographique Strasbourgeois jusque vers 1530 (Baden-Baden: Heitz, 1963), p. 80, suggests that I. H. may be Jean (Hans) Herbst or Herbster, but Hans Koegler in Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, eds., Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig: W. Engelmann, 1907–1950), vol. 16, p. 451, rejects that suggestion, and François Ritter, Histoire de l’imprimerie alsacienne aux XVe et XVIe siècles (Strasbourg: Le Roux, 1955), p. 98, mentions Jerome Hopferd of Augsberg as a possibility. There is some discussion of the initials in Hildegard Binder Johnson, Carta marina: World Geography in Strassburg, 1525 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1963), pp. 44 and 133.
- 78.
R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne,” January 10–17, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 4, indicates that it coves 270° of latitude, and the easternmost marker in the graduation of latitude along the southern edge of the map is “270,” but there are 10° of latitude beyond 0° (marked “360” and “355”) at the western edge of the map.
- 79.
Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello” (see note 4 in Front Matter), p. 306, estimates the width of the Martellus-Rosselli map at 220°, but he did not have the Yale Martellus map to use for comparison, as it was not discovered until after his article was published in 1940.
- 80.
See Józef Babicz, “The Celestial and Terrestrial Globes of the Vatican Library, Dating from 1477, and their Maker Donnus Nicolaus Germanus (ca 1420–ca 1490),” Der Globusfreund 35–37 (1987), pp. 155–168; and Patrick Gautier Dalché, “Avant Behaim: les globes terrestres au XVe siècle,” Médiévales 58 (2010), pp. 43–61.
- 81.
For references on the projection that Martellus used, see note 15 in Front Matter.
- 82.
The unique surviving exemplar of Contarini’s map is in the British Library, Maps C.2.cc.4. It is well reproduced in Nebenzahl, Atlas of Columbus (see note 42 in Chap. 1), pp. 45–47, and there is a good brief discussion of the map with an illustration in Shirley, The Mapping of the World (see note 54 in Chap. 1), pp. 23–25; there is also a facsimile published as Giovanni Matteo Contarini, A Map of the World, Designed by Gio. Matteo Contarini, engraved by Fran. Roselli 1506 (London: Printed by order of the Trustees, sold at the British Museum, 1924); for discussion of the map, see Edward Heawood, “A Hitherto Unknown World Map of A. D. 1506,” Geographical Journal 62.4 (1923), pp. 279–293.
- 83.
See Ricardo Cerezo Martínez, La cartografía náutica española en los siglos XIV, XV y XVI (Madrid: C.S.I.C., 1994), p. 105.
- 84.
For discussion and a reproduction of the Albertin de Virga world map, see Destombes, Mappemondes (see note 10 in Front Matter), pp. 205–207 and plate 28; the current location of the map is unknown, but it was reproduced in facsimile in Franz von Wieser, Die Weltkarte des Albertin de Virga ausdem Anfange des XV. Jahrhunderts in der Sammlung Figdom in Wien (Innsbruck: Heinrich Schurick, 1912), and in Youssouf Kamal, Monumenta cartographica Africae et Aegypti (Cairo, 1926–1951), vol. 4, fasc. 3, f. 1377.
- 85.
Piero Falchetta, Fra Mauro’s World Map, trans. Jeremy Scott (Turnhout: Brepols, and Venice: Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, 2006), pp. 434–435, *1334.
- 86.
The map of Japan in the Florence manuscript is illustrated in Roberto Almagià, “I mappamondi di Enrico Martello e alcuni concetti geografici di Cristoforo Columbo,” La Bibliofilia 42 (1940), pp. 288–311, esp. 303, and Gentile, Firenze e la scoperta dell’America (see note 8 in Chap. 1), plate 46. For discussion see George Kish, “Two Fifteenth-Century Maps of ‘Zipangu’: Notes on the Early Cartography of Japan,” The Yale University Library Gazette 40.4 (1966), pp. 206–214.
- 87.
For discussion of the evolution of Waldseemüller’s preference for nautical charts over Ptolemy as a cartographic model, see my introduction to Waldseemüller’s Carta marina in John W. Hessler and Chet Van Duzer, Seeing the World Anew: The Radical Vision of Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 & 1516 World Maps (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, and Delray Beach, FL: Levenger Press, 2012), pp. 49–68.
- 88.
On the “Tiger-Leg” or “Cattigara” peninsula, see note 16 in Front Matter.
- 89.
On the Ptolemaic land bridge joining Africa and Asia, see Ptolemy Geography 7.5, translated in A. Jones and J. L. Berggren, eds., Ptolemy’s Geography: An Annotated Translation of the Theoretical Chapters (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), pp. 108–110; and Wilcomb E. Washburn, “A Proposed Explanation of the Closed Indian Ocean on Some Ptolemaic Maps of the 12th–15th Centuries,” Revista da Universidade de Coimbra 32 (1986), pp. 431–441.
- 90.
The editio princeps of Marco Polo is Hie hebt sich an das puch des edel[e]n Ritters vn[d] landtfarers Marcho Polo (Nuremberg: Friedrich Creussner, 1477); for discussion of this edition, see Marco Polo, The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian: Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, transl. and ed. Henry Yule (3rd edn., London: J. Murray, 1903), vol. 2, pp. 554–556.
- 91.
The first Latin edition of Marco Polo is De consuetudinibus et condicionibus Orientalium regionum (Gouda: Gerard Leeu, c. 1483–1485). This edition has been reproduced in facsimile twice, first as Itinerarium, Antverpiae, 1485 (Tokyo: [s.n.], 1949); the second facsimile is of the copy annotated by Christopher Columbus, Libro de las maravillas del mundo: facsímil del que, usado por Cristóbal Colón, se encuentra depositado en la Biblioteca Capitular y Colombina del Cabildo Catedral de Sevilla (Madrid: Testimonio, 1986), with two volumes of transcription, translation, and commentary by Juan Gil under the titles El libro de Marco Polo and The Book of Marco Polo. For discussion of this edition, see Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo (see note 90 in Chap. 1), vol. 2, pp. 558–559; Lotte Hellinga, “Marco Polo’s Description of the Far East and the Edition Printed by Gheraert Leeu,” in Elly Cockx-Indestege, ed., E codicibus impressisque: opstellen over het boek in de Lage Landen voor Elly Cockx-Indestege (Louvain: Peeters, 2004), vol. 1, pp. 309–328, revised version published as “The Travels of Marco Polo and Gheraert Leeu,” in Texts in Transit: Manuscript to Proof and Print in the Fifteenth Century (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014), pp. 278–303.
- 92.
On the survival rates of medieval manuscripts, see John L. Cisne, “How Science Survived: Medieval Manuscripts’ ‘Demography’ and Classic Texts’ Extinction,” Science 307.5713 (February 25, 2005), pp. 1305–1307, with criticism in Georges Declercq, “Comment on ‘How Science Survived: Medieval Manuscripts’ ‘Demography’ and Classic Texts’ Extinction,” Science 310.5754 (December 9, 2005), p. 1618b; and Eltjo Buringh, “Losses of Medieval Manuscripts,” in his Medieval Manuscript Production in the Latin West: Explorations with a Global Database (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 179–251, esp. 231–232. Cisne indicates a manuscript survival rate of one in seven from some ninth-century Carolingian workshops, but this number is implausibly high, and Buringh’s figure of one in 16.6 for fifteenth-century manuscripts seems much better founded.
- 93.
For a description of the Naples manuscript, see Consuelo Wager Dutschke, “Francesco Pipino and the Manuscripts of Marco Polo’s Travels,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles, 1993, pp. 788–794. The text of this manuscript is edited in Marco Polo, Marka Pavlova z Benátek, Milion: Dle jediného rukopisu spolu s prilusnym zakladem latinskym, ed. Justin Václav Prásek (Prague: Nákl. Ceské akademie císare Frantiska Iozefa, 1902).
- 94.
This legend is legible in natural light, and is mentioned by Roberto Almagià, “Worldmap by Henricus Martellus at Berne,” June 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 2; R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne: Supplementary Report,” June 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 3; Destombes, Mappemondes (see note 10 in Front Matter), p. 230; copied by Sanz, “Un mapa del mundo verdaderamente importante” (see note 3 in Front Matter), p. 10.
- 95.
The Caverio chart is in Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cartes et plans, SH archives 1. The chart is well reproduced in Kenneth Nebenzahl, Atlas of Columbus (see note 42 in Chap. 1), pp. 41–43 and at a larger scale in the 11-sheet black-and-white facsimile that accompanies Edward L. Stevenson’s study of the map, Marine World Chart of Nicolo de Caneiro Januensis 1502 (circa) (New York: American Geographical Society and the Hispanic Society of America, 1908). There is also a color facsimile: Planisphère nautique sur vélin du Génois Nicolao de Caverio (Paris: Bibliothèque nationale, 1992) but on a much smaller scale than the original. For discussion of Waldseemüller’s use of the Caverio map as a source, see Fischer and von Wieser, Die älteste Karte mit dem Namen Amerika (see note 14 in Front Matter), pp. 26–29.
- 96.
For discussion of the history of adding Tabulae modernae to manuscripts and printed editions of Ptolemy, see the references in note 10 in Chap. 1.
- 97.
Earlier maps that show Africa to be circumnavigable include Albertin de Virga’s world map of c. 1411–1415 (see note 84 in Chap. 1), the world map in the so-called Medici Atlas (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Gaddi 9, ff. 2v-3r), which was perhaps first made c. 1351 but probably retouched in the fifteenth century: for a reproduction see Theobald Fischer, Raccolta di mappamondi e carte nautiche del XIII al XVI secolo (Venice: F. Ongania, 1881), and for discussion see George H. T. Kimble, “The Laurentian World Map with Special Reference to Its Portrayal of Africa,” Imago Mundi 1 (1935), pp. 29–33, with a fuller discussion in G. H. Kimble, “The Mapping of West Africa in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries as Illustrative of the Development of Geographical Ideas,” MA thesis, University of London, 1931, summarized in Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 9 (1931–1932), p. 190–193; and more recently Relaño, The Shaping of Africa (see note 43 in Chap. 1), p. 124. The other important map that shows Africa to be circumnavigable before Martellus is Fra Mauro’s world map of c. 1460, and Fra Mauro discusses this issue in one of his legends: see Falchetta, Fra Mauro’s World Map (see note 85 in Chap. 1), pp. 192–192, *53.
- 98.
R. A. Skelton, “World Map by Henricus Martellus Germanus, c. 1489, at Berne,” January 10–17, 1960 (see note 2 in Front Matter), p. 6
- 99.
I first noted Martellus’s use of the Hortus Sanitatis in my lecture “Evidence for a Lost Map Used by Waldseemüller in his Depiction of Eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean,” delivered May 15, 2009, at the conference “Exploring Waldseemüller’s World,” May 14–15, 2009, at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. A video of that talk is available at http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=4569, where it is the third talk in the panel.
- 100.
The Hortus Sanitatis “major,” which is the work that interests us here, is to be distinguished from the Hortus Sanitatis “minor,” which is a Latin translation of the German herbal often titled Gart der Gesundheit, first published by P. Schoeffer, Mainz, 1485. The herbal published in 1485 has 435 chapters, while the Hortus Sanitatis “major” of 1491 has 1066 chapters. There is some very brief discussion of the different editions of each work in J. Christian Bay, “Hortus sanitatis,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 11.2 (1917), pp. 57–60, but his paper is in essence a call for further research; details about and discussion of the early editions of the Hortus Sanitatis are provided by Arnold C. Klebs, “Herbals of fifteenth Century,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 11 (1917), pp. 75–92, and 12 (1918), pp. 41–57, esp. pp. 48–51 and 54–57. There is a more detailed discussion in Joseph Frank Payne, “On the ‘Herbarius’ and ‘Hortus sanitatis’,” Transactions of the Bibliographical Society 6.1 (1901), pp. 63–126, esp. pp. 105–124. The first edition of the work was published in Mainz by Jacob Meydenbach, June 23, 1491. For a recent discussion of the book, but with emphasis on the section on plants, see Brigitte Baumann and Helmut Baumann, Die Mainzer Kräuterbuch-Inkunabeln ‘Herbarius Moguntinus’ (1484), ‘Gart der Gesundheit’ (1485), ‘Hortus sanitatis’ (1491): wissenschaftshistorische Untersuchung der drei Prototypen botanisch-medizinischer Literatur des Spätmittelalters (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2010), pp. 177–222. PDFs of copies of the Hortus sanitatis published in 1491 are available from several libraries, including the US National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, and the Bibliothèque Municipale in Montpelier. The part of the Hortus Sanitatis devoted to sea creatures has recently been edited and translated into French in Catherine Jacquemard, Brigitte Gauvin, and Marie-Agnès Lucas-Avenel, eds., Hortus sanitatis: Livre IV, Les poisons (Caen: Presses universitaires de Caen, 2013), and this edition is available on the internet at http://www.unicaen.fr/puc/sources/depiscibus/accueil.
- 101.
Here is the text from Isidore 12.6.50: Murex cochlea est maris, dicta ab acumine et asperitate, quae alio nomine conchilium nominatur, propter quod circumcisa ferro lacrimas purpurei coloris emittat, ex quibus purpura tingitur: et inde ostrum appellatum quod haec tinctura ex testae humore elicitor; and an English translation from Isidore of Seville, The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, trans. Stephen A. Barney, W. J. Lewis, J. A. Beach, and Oliver Berghof (Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 262: “The purple-fish (murex) is a shellfish of the sea, named for its sharpness and roughness. It is called by another name, conchilium (also meaning ‘a purple dye’), because when it is cut round with a blade, it sheds tears of a purple color, with which things are dyed purple. And from this ostrum (i.e. purple dye) is named, because this dye is drawn out from the liquid of the shell.”
- 102.
See Willene B. Clark, A Medieval Book of Beasts: The Second-Family Bestiary: Commentary, Art, Text and Translation (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), p. 213; and Ilya Dines, “A Critical Edition of the Bestiaries of the Third Family,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2008, Chapter 108; both bestiary families merely quote Isidore here.
- 103.
Thomas of Cantimpré, Liber de natura rerum, ed. H. Boese (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1973), p. 267: Murices, sicut dicit Plinius, conche marine sunt, que latent contra Canis ortum, exeuntque statuo tempore. Pretiosum etiam liquorem tingendis vestibus utilem habent. Sed muricibus color in sola vena candida reperitur: reliquum corpus sterile est. Vivis hic color exprimitur, quia cum vita seccum evomunt. There is an English translation of the longer version of this passage in the Granada manuscript of Thomas in Luis García Ballester, ed., De natura rerum (lib. IV-XII) (Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1973–1974), vol. 2, p. 304.
- 104.
Here is the text from the Hortus Sanitatis: Murix. Isido. Murix est cochlea maris ab acumine et asperitate dicta. que alio nomine conchilium dicitur: eo quod circumcisa ferro lachrymas purpurei coloris emittat. ex quibus purpura tingitur. et inde ostrum appellatum est. quod hec tinctura ex humore teste elicitur.
- 105.
On later editions and translations of the Hortus Sanitatis, see Payne, “On the ‘Herbarius’ and ‘Hortus sanitatis’” (see note 100 in Chap. 1), pp. 115–124; Payne was not aware of the English translation of c. 1527, which is The noble lyfe a[nd] natures of man of bestes, serpentys, fowles a[nd] fisshes [that] be moste knoweu [sic] (Antwerp: Emprented by me Ioh[a]n of Doesborowe, 1527?); this edition has been published in facsimile by Noel Hudson, An Early English Version of Hortus Sanitatis (London: B. Quaritch, 1954).
- 106.
So Payne, “On the ‘Herbarius’ and ‘Hortus sanitatis’” (see note 100 in Chap. 1), p. 115; on p. 114 he quotes Meydenbach’s epilog and colophon describing the work, in which he claims all of the credit for the book for himself.
- 107.
Waldseemüller also records René II’s enthusiastic reception of his 1507 map and other works in the dedicatory letter in Ringmann’s Instrvctio manvdvctionem prestans in Cartam itinerariam (Strasbourg: Grüninger, 1511): this passage is quoted and translated into French by M. d’Avezac, Martin Hylacomylus Waltzemüller, ses ouvrages et ses collaborateurs (Paris: Challamel âiné, 1867), pp. 136–137, and into English by Toby Lester, The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America its Name (New York: Free Press, 2009), p. 373.
- 108.
On Ringmann see Charles Schmidt, “Mathias Ringmann, humaniste alsacien et lorrain,” Mémoires de la Société d’Archéologie Lorraine 25 (1875) pp. 165–233; and Charles Schmidt, Histoire littéraire de l’Alsace à la fin du XVe siècle (Paris: Sandoz and Fischbacher, 1879–1880), vol. 2, pp. 87–131.
- 109.
Ringmann’s 1505 journey to Italy is alluded to in the introductory epistle of the 1513 edition of Ptolemy’s Geography; for discussion of the journey, see Charles Schmidt, Histoire littéraire de l’Alsace, vol. 2, pp. 96–99. For the suggestion that Ringmann brought charts back with him on this trip, see Toby Lester, The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map that Gave America its Name (New York: Free Press, 2009), p. 352. Incidentally Ringmann made another trip to Italy in 1508: see Schmidt, Histoire littéraire, vol. 2, pp. 117–118 and Karl A. E. Enenkel, “The Making of Sixteenth-Century Mythography: Giraldi’s Syntagma de Musis (1507–1511 and 1539), De deis gentium historia (ca 1500–1548) and Julien de Havrech’s De cognominibus deorum gentilium (1541),” Humanistica Lovaniensia 51 (2002), pp. 9–53, esp. 43–45.
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Van Duzer, C. (2019). Henricus Martellus and His Works. In: Henricus Martellus’s World Map at Yale (c. 1491). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76840-3_1
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