Octava Europe Tabula

Title

Octava Europe Tabula

Description

Map shows the european part of Russia and the Baltic Regions, from Scandinavia to the black sea with the peninsula Krim

ca. 1513

Artist

Ptolemy/Waldseemüller- Johann Schott (1477-1550)

Johann Schott (1477-1550). He reissued maps after Martin Waldessemueller. Schott was well known for his atlas : Tabula Moderna Germanie, reussued the Martin Waldseemueller maps from 1482 including 20 detailed region maps which makes the atlas of Johann Schott one oft he most important works of those days. Schott is also well known for his atlases: "Alexandri Magni"and "Margarita philosophica". Martin Waldseemüller was born some time in the 1470's in Radolfzell, Württemberg, in Germany. He began his education at the University of Freiburg in 1490. In 1507, he moved to Saint-Dié in Lorraine, France. Here, according to Hébert, Waldseemüller became a member of a small intellectual circle called Gymnasium Vosagense. He died in France in 1522. He was the author of the wall map of 1507, which named America for the first time. In that same year it is believed he completed the maps for an edition of Ptolemy's 'Geography'. It was not until 1513 though that it was published. Martin Waldseemüller, a highly accomplished scholar of geography, merged the science of mapmaking and the art of printing in this 1513 atlas, one of the most groundbreaking documents in the history of cartography. He intended this atlas as a new edition of Ptolemy's Geographia. In the group of Ptolemaic atlases this one is very important because it incorporates 20 modern maps which were not based upon the tradition of Ptolemy. Waldseemüller's use of a quadratic plane projection, was also a noteworthy advance. Johannes Schott was the printer, and the drawings were done by Martin Waldseemülller. The editors of the text were Jacobus Aeschler and Goeorge Uebel. Rene Duke of Lorraine, an art and science patron of the Renaissance period, made it possible for Waldseemüller to draw new maps in addition to copying those of Ptolemy. Waldseemueller abandoned Ptolemy's projection in favor of one based on rectilinear meridians and parallels. Although these newly drawn maps were completed in 1507, Waldseemüller's patron died in 1508, and it was not until 1512 the work could be printed. In addition to the twenty-six classical Ptolemaic maps, this atlas was accompanied by a supplement of twenty new maps that was published as a separate volume. In a forward written by Äschler and Uebel, we are told that that the map of the New World was drawn according to the newest and most reliable information, the source of which is identified as The Admiral. Researchers today believe that The Admiral is Columbus and for that reason call this atlas the Admiral Atlas. This atlas was printed using the same woodcut maps but with a few minor text corrections on the Schott press in Augsburg with uebel acting as editor. Claudius Ptolemy Geographia, gives a list of geographic coordinates of spherical longitude and latitude of almost ten thousand point locations on the earth surface, as they were known at his times. The list is organized in Tabulae which cor- respond to specific regions of the three known continents at that time, Africa, Asia and Europe. Research on Ptolemy’s Geographia has started at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, in the eighties, focused mainly, but not exclusively, on data re- lated to territories which are now under the sovereignty of the modern Greek state. The World of Ptolemy (arround 100- 160 a.C.) is classified in Regions, since each Chapter is referred to one of them, giving by this way the concept of Atlas as it is understood today. Most maps have a watermark of a triple pointed crown.