Title: Hemisphere Maps
Date: 1512
Author: Johannes de Stobnicza
Description: In the rare book Introductio in Ptolemei Cosmographiam . . .Impressum Cracovie
per Florianum Ungleriam MDXII (from which the maps are often missing) are two leaves
containing the East and West Hemispheres taken directly from the two smaller inset
maps at the top of Martin Waldseemüller’s large world map of 1507 (#310). The Polish
savant Johannes de Stobnicza has constructed somewhat of a partial and sub-spherical
projection truncated at the poles; and, according to the historian Henry Harrisse, may be
considered imitating or foreboding the invention of Mercator’s projection.
This mappamundi is roughly engraved on wood measuring 38 by 27 cm for the two hemispheres, and belonging to the Introductio in Ptholomei Cosmographiam of the Polish savant Johannes de Stobnicza, first printed at Cracow in 1512.
The map is constructed after a partial and subspherical projection truncated at the poles; and may be considered as imitating or foreboding the invention of Mercator; but it is not, as certain critics believe, the first map which represents the world on two hemispheres. Jaume Ferrer sent one of that sort to Ferdinand and Isabella, so far back as 1495; unfortunately it is lost.
The New World exhibits a continuous coastline from its 50° north to its 40° south latitude, just as in Waldseermüller’s later Tabula Terre Nove (#320); except that it ascribes the peninsular form to the southern regions, and separates the new continent entirely from Asia. This shape, however according to Harrisse, must not be interpreted as if it were a geographical expression altogether, but, in some respects, as a technical necessity in the early construction of globes. From the moment that a complete form had to be imparted to the southern continent, it is natural that cosmographers should have adopted the pyramidal one, as, judging from the representations of Africa and India then current, they were convinced that it was the necessary southern end of every continental region.
The names inscribed on that map proceed evidently from a prototype akin to Waldseermüller’s, or belonging to the Lusitano - Germanic cartography altogether. They are:
Cabo de bona ventura Arcay [Arcaybacoa] Caput de stado [deseado]
Gorffo spemoso [fremoso] Caput S. crucis Monte fregoso
Abba[tia omnium Sanctorum] Allapego [Pagus S. pauli]
Those names we have already seen either in Cantino (#306), Canerio (#307), or in the Kunstmann maps (#307.2, #309. #309.1). We notice on the western borders Terra incognita, which shows that Stobnicza, like all the Lusitano-Cerrnanic cartographers, possessed only hypothetical reasons for delineating the Pacific coast.
Locations: Bodleian B.1.c.12, Oxford (UK)
John Carter Brown Library, Providence, R.I.
Size: 27 x 38 cm
References:
*Harrisse, H., The Discovery of North America, pp. 279, 472-473, #92.
*Nordenskiöld, A.E., Facsimile Atlas, Plate XXXIVI.
*Shirley, R.W., The Mapping of the World, #33, p.35, Plate 36.
*Winsor, J., Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. II, pp. 116-117.
*illustrated
Last Updated: 26 October 2014
