Honter Universalis Cosmographia 1546 UTA

This tiny world map dating from 1546 reflects the extraordinary influence of Martin Waldseemüller's now-famous 1507 cordiform (heart-shaped) wall map of the world Universails Cosmographia Secundum Ptholomaei Traditionem et Americi Vespucii Alioru m que Lustrationes… in which Waldseemüller first coined the name "America" for a continent. The little map's creator, Johannes Honter (1498-1549) was born in Kronstadt (today Brasov, Romania) and later worked in Vienna, Regensburg, Krakow, Nuremberg, Basel, and Kronstadt, where with his liberal humanist education he became a respected educator, evangelical pastor, town magistrate, and councilor. While in Regensburg, Bavaria, Honter visited nearby Ingolstadt, where he became friends with humanist, mathematician, astronomer, and cartographer Peter Apian (1495-1552), who in 1520 had created the first copy of Waldseemüller's wall map to appear in a book. The original woodcut for Honter's map was made in Zurich (hence the Latin "Tiguri" seen in the bottom left corner by the initials of the map’s engraver Heinrich Vogtherr the Elder) "at great cost" according to the accompanying text of Rudimenta Cosmographica.

Date

1546

Archive

Wikimedia Commons

Type

map

Original size

1,200 × 921 pixels

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