[MR] "America" Fwd: [Explorator] Digest Number 514

[David Chessler]

According to some reports, this map shows some 
information that was not actually (or 
documentedly) known at the time, and was 
contradicted in later maps (particularly with 
respect to the west coast of the Americas)

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/lewis_clark/novus_orbis2.html

Of course, the new world was known before 
columbus. The vikings had had a colony, and the 
portugese had summer fishing campa in Labrador
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2002/bnlpr072902a.htm

At 11:16 AM 12/3/2007, SNSpies at aol.com wrote:
>
>Apparently the Library of Congress has obtained the last surviving copy of
>the 1507 map on which the name "America" was first used.
>
>
>On  Amerigo's map:

Actually, map was drawn by Martin Waldseemüller 
in St. Die (Now France; then Holy Roman Empire). 
He used the name America in that edition, but not 
in later editions. It's not clear why.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/h?ammem/gmd:@field(NUMBER+@band(g3200+ct000725C))
Also, it has longitude approximately right for 
the west coast of America. In 1507 the longitude 
problem had not been solved (so far as is known), 
and documented explorations cover only the EAST 
coast of North America and parts of South America.

But, of course, no one knows what the portuguese 
had been doing under Prince Henry the 
Navigator--we know about the voyages around 
Africa to India (1498), but not about any voyages 
down the coast of Brazil to the Cape Horn 
(Straits of Magellan, first documented to have 
been traveled in 1520, a Portuguese sailing for Spain)


>_http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02wwln-lede-t.html_
>(http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/magazine/02wwln-lede-t.html)

--

Davitt il Bigollo da Pisa
Procurator parumper aurifex in Portus Liburni
Officina pro Moghul terra
Curalium quod Smaragdi ex Indicum quod Serenus