Europa

Title

Europa

Description

Map shows total Europe

ca. 1620

Artist

Mercator (1512-1594)

Gerardus Mercator (1512 - 1594). He was a cartographer, philosopher and mathematician. He is best known for his work in cartography, in particular the world map of 1569 based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing as straight lines. He is renowned to the present day as the cartographer who created a world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing as straight lines. In his own day he was the world's most famous geographer but in addition he had interests in theology, philosophy, history, mathematics and magnetism as well as being an accomplished engraver, calligrapher and maker of globes and scientific instruments. He wrote few books but much of his knowledge is to be found in the copious legends on his wall maps and the prefaces that he composed for his atlas ,the first in which the term "atlas" appears and the sections within it.

Historical Description

Especially the Greek culture, the Roman Empire and Christianity left their mark until today. In ancient times, the Roman Empire at the time of Augustus united for the first time the entire southern Europe together with the other coastal countries of the Mediterranean in one great empire. In the Roman Empire, the new religion of Christianity was able to spread rapidly. In the early Middle Ages, the Paderborn Epic declared the ruler of the Frankish Empire, Charlemagne, to be the "Father of Europe." The Middle Ages were marked, among other things, by competition between the new Roman emperor in the West and the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, in the East, to whose two spheres of influence the later deepened division into a Western and Eastern Europe can be traced. Since the 15th century, European nations (especially Spain, Portugal, Russia, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) built colonial empires with large possessions on all other continents. Europe is the continent that has influenced the other continents the most, for example, through Christian missionary work, colonies, slave trade, exchange of goods and culture. n the 18th century, the Enlightenment movement set new directions and demanded tolerance, respect for human dignity, equality and freedom. In France, the French Revolution brought the bourgeoisie to power in 1789. In the early 19th century, half of Europe had to conform to the will of Napoleon, the French emperor who came to power after the revolutionary period, until he suffered a fiasco in Russia in 1812. The conservative victorious powers then tried to restore pre-revolutionary conditions at the Congress of Vienna, which succeeded only temporarily. Industrialization began in parts of Europe in the 18th century and rapidly changed the everyday lives of broad sections of the population.