The Waldseemüller Map Mysteries: Why the 1507 Map is More than it Seems
by Gunnar Thomspon 

This is an attempt to place the 1507 Waldseemüller Map into a broader historical context and to explain the principal anomalies that appear on the document. For example, the 1507 Map includes a reasonably accurate portrayal of Florida nearly a decade before the "official" discovery by Ponce de Leon in 1513. As John Hebert and others have pointed out, the Map also shows an incredibly accurate schematic representation of the West Coast of South America before it could have been mapped by any known European explorer. Often overlooked is the fact that the map shows the Labrador-Newfoundland-Nova Scotia Region as a separate island when in fact it was integral to the East Coast of North America. These are not the only anomalies. There are actually two Floridas shown on the Map; there are two Pacific Oceans and two South Americas.

It would be tempting to suggest that the 1516 Carta Marina by Waldseemüller is the "key" to understanding the complexities of this 1507 Map and its short ascendance in European cartography. However, we must go back to Roman Times to really get a clear picture of what happened in Early Renaissance Cartography; and we must consider a number of pertinent documents and historical figures. Due to the nature of this brief overview, my comments will only scratch the surface of an intriguing subject that involved the distortions caused by Church dogma, the deceptions that resulted from the deadly espionage game that was played by Venice/Portugal against Genoa/Spain, and it will touch upon the vital (yet seemingly peripheral) contributions made by Marco Polo, Yuan and Ming Chinese explorers, and the often overlooked influences of the Arab astronomers and explorers. It's all on the Waldseemüller Map; or should I say "Puzzle?"

Florida and the Gulf of Mexico first appear in recognizable form on the Macrobius Map (c. 440) which is presently in the collection of the Huntington Library. This map shows Asia directly west of Europe; but the coast of Asia has the outline of a distinctive southeastern peninsula (Florida) and a huge gulf (the Gulf of Mexico) that actually reflect the East Coast of North America. On this map, South America appears as a schematic "Southern Continent" that is called the Antipodes. Roman knowledge of the Americas is confirmed by archeology: heaps of Roman amphoras have been found in the seabed off the coast of Central America; the American tobacco plant was identified in a Roman pipe that was excavated in ancient ruins near London; and a second-century Roman ceramic bust was removed from beneath a cement pavement in a Mexican pyramid. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that many of the Classical writers (such as Seneca, Averoes, and Aristotle) wrote that the western mainland was only a short distance across the Atlantic by sailing ship. This conclusion of the nearness of the Western Land, which was repeated in the later writings of Roger Bacon and Cardinal Pierre de Ailly, was advanced by Columbus in support of the feasibility of a voyage west to Asia. The essential problem was that most Medieval Europeans failed to realize that there was a "New Continent" and not Asia directly west of Europe. Church Dogma (concerning only three continents mentioned in the Bible) assured that this critical realization would be delayed for a considerable time. Seneca, by the way, called it "a New World." In any case, the ancient Europeans sailed across the Atlantic to the New Land; and they sailed often leaving behind bags of coins, wheels, horses, Roman arches, and Old World plants. Some natives even sculpted the faces of the bearded ancient visitors.

A map by Claudius Ptolemy (c. 150) indicated that the distance in degrees from the coast of Europe to the coast of Asia was approximately 180-degrees. He indicated that a "Great Gulf" was situated directly east of Asia; and on the opposite shore, there was an enormous peninsula extending southwards to the Antarctic Region. Along the coast was a city called "Cattigara." On a map by Bartholomew Colon, this City was indicated along the west coast of the "Mundus Novus" or in the region of modern-day Peru. A 1st-century map by Pomponius Mela indicated that the northern region of the Southern Continent (i.e., the Antipodes) was called "Paria" which is a Phoenician-Roman word for woodcutter; and it is probably a reference to the brasilwood (or dyewood) that was cut in Brazil. A Roman designation for the Antipodes was "Other World;" and we find this same name used by Vespucci, Columbus, and probably Marco Polo for South America. Columbus said that Paria was situated along the coast of Venezuela; Vespucci placed "Parias" along the coast of Central America in 1497 and that is where it appears on the Vespucci/Waldseemüller Map of 1507. So, there are cartographic clues that connect the ancient Roman maps to land areas on the Waldseemüller; however the picture is somewhat confused by Church dogma, double-naming, and espionage. The "Great Gulf" (or Sinus Magnus) of Ptolemy was identified by Magellan as the Pacific Ocean. The Waldseemüller Map has both the Sinus Magnus and a separate Pacific Ocean.

In 1428, Prince Pedro of Portugal returned to Lisbon bringing copies of maps and a gift from the Venetian Senate: a copy of Marco Polo's Book of Travels. As this trip follows the return of Niccolo da Conti from the Orient, a number of writers have suggested that he also had copies of recent Ming maps of the world. In 1436, a Portuguese map by Andrea Bianco has a reasonably accurate portrayal of the Peninsula of Florida attached to the schematic, rectangular island of Antillia (or "The Island of Seven Cities") in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean west of Portugal. Another map by Bianco in 1448 shows the coast of Brazil (un-named) in the right location southwest of Cape Verde, Africa. Cryptic Portuguese documents suggest that Goncalo Cabral was in the Newfoundland Region by 1431, that he was followed by Jao Vaz Cortereal in 1445, and that Affonso de Estreito, Fernao Dulmo, and Martin Behaim explored and charted the East Coast of the New World between 1486 and 1490. We see two representations of the East Coast on the 1507 Map. The larger of the two (with a big gap in Central America) can be attributed to the Portuguese survey by Martin Behaim; the inset Vespucci Map indicates a modified map that Amerigo produced "largely from Portuguese sources" between 1497 and 1505.

Probably, the Albert Cantino Map of 1502 was unknown to Waldseemüller in 1507. However, by 1516, he saw a similar map which he recognized as the most up-to-date version of the Portuguese cartography that was being circulated among discreet scientists. His edition of the Carta Marina in 1516 recognizes the primacy of the Portuguese explorers, such as Behaim-Estreito-Dulmo; and it includes for the very first time the critical longitudes for the entire world. I don't think that the German cartographer had any intention of demoting Vespucci as the "Discoverer of a New Continent" because it was Vespucci's "New World" Letter that first proclaimed the valuable commercial potential of a new land and a new way of thinking about the future. However, the German did intend to credit the Portuguese for explorations in the New Land during the years from 1486-1490, that is before Columbus sailed to the Caribbean. It was because of the explorations of this secret Portuguese team that King John was able to tell Columbus in 1493 that there was a "new mainland or continent" directly south of Hispaniola. And Columbus confirmed the accuracy of this statement in his voyage to Venezuela in 1498.

We have, in this brief scenario, another reason why the 1,000 copies of the 1507 Map did not survive the passage of time: they were all judged to be grossly inaccurate. It was clear from the Carta Marina that the 1507 Map had duplicated the Southern Continent and the Pacific Ocean. Even the 1516 Map would be judged inadequate by 1524, at which time Giovanni Verrazano's voyage along the East Coast finally tied together Florida (or Antillia) with Nova Scotia and Labrador.

It was not until my presentation to the Library of Congress in May of 2005, at the Zheng He Symposium, that the source for the Southern Continent on the 1507 Map was revealed for the first time. It was the Ming Map called "Shanhai Yudi Quantu" (c. 1425) that was found by the Jesuits in China circa 1600 and then used in a comparison of the best map of the Mings to the more up-to-date map by Ortelius (c. 1570).

Thus, the Waldseemüller Map of 1507 is not just America's Birth Certificate. It is a composite of the effects of Medieval Church Dogma, ancient Roman and Ming explorations, and the desperate efforts of the Portuguese government to conceal vital geographical secrets.

Gunnar Thompson, Ph.D., Director

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