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TERRA DE CVBA ∙ ASIE PARTIS
The land of Cuba, part of Asia.

On his 1507 world map Waldseemüller famously depicted the New World as separated from Asia by water, in accordance with Vespucci’s suggestion that it was an island, but on his Carta marina he reverts to a Columbian conception of the New World as part of Asia.1 There is an ample bibliography tracing the history of the idea that the newly discovered lands in the West were connected with Asia, and the cartographic expression of that idea, so there is no need to review the matter in more
detail here.2

2.1a Latin / 2.1b Translation / 2.1c Commentary

2.1a Hec Terra Corterati inuenta est ex mandato regis Portugallie per Casparum Corterati capitaneum duorum nauium anno domini .1501. quam ob sui magnitudinem litoris plusquam 600. milliarium protendentis firmam esse opinabatur. habet hec pluralitatem magnorum fluminum et enim populosa gens que huius. habet domos ex maximis lignis constructis. quarum tectona ex coriamentis piscium compacta. vestes eorum sunt de pellibus ferarum quarum in estate pilos ab extra, in hieme vero ab intra vertentes portant. Sunt signati facie: tamquam indi. carent ferro et loco illius: lapideis instrumentis vutuntur. Magnam habent copiam lignorum de genere pini etiam multos pisces Salmones Aleca and Strumulos.

2.1b This land of the Corte-Reals was discovered by order of the King of Portugal by Gaspar Corte-Real, the captain of two ships, in the year 1501. Because of the size of its shore, which extends more than six hundred miles, it was thought to be part of a continent. It has many large rivers and its people are numerous. They have houses made from very large logs, whose roofs are made from the skins of fish. Their clothes are the furs of wild beasts, which in the summer they wear with the fur on the outside, and in the winter with the fur turned inward. Their faces are painted, like those of people in India. They have no iron, and in its place they use stone tools. They have a great abundance of pine wood and many fish, including salmon, herring, and stockfish.

2.1c There is no corresponding legend on the Caverio chart or on Waldseemüller’s 1507 map, but there is one on the earlier Cantino chart, albeit shorter than the one on the Carta marina.5 The source of Waldseemüller’s legend is a letter from Pietro Pasqualigo to his brothers, dated October 19, 1501, which was published Paesi novamente retrovati, Book 6, Chap. 126.6 The island is thought to represent Labrador and Newfoundland.7 The prominent trees on the island on both the Cantino map (where the legend does not mention trees) and the Caverio map (where there is no legend) indicate that the depiction on the Cantino map was made by a cartographer who had access to Pietro Pasqualigo’s letter, which mentions the trees. Waldseemüller used the past tense, the land was thought to be [terram] firmam, that is, part of a continent,8 to contrast with his depiction of it as an island. Again, Waldseemüller’s placing of a Spanish flag on the island (visible on sheet 1) is a strange mistake, as his legend says that Gaspar Corte-Real was sailing for the king of Portugal; there is a Portuguese flag just south of the island, but it is not clear what land it is supposed to be marking.

5 The legend on the Cantino chart is transcribed and translated by Armando Cortesão and Avelino Teixeira da Mota, Portugaliae monumenta cartographica (Lisbon: Comissão Executiva das Comemorações do Quinto Centenário da Morte do Infante D. Henrique, 1960–62), vol. 1, p. 11: Esta terra he descoberta per mandado do muy alto  exçelentissimo principe Rey dom manuell Rey de portuguall a qual descobrio gaspar de corte Real cavalleiro na cassa do dito Rey, o quall quãdo a descobrio mandou hũ naujo com çertos omes e molheres que achou na dita terra e elle ficou com outro náujo e nũca mais veo e crese que he perdido e aquj ha muitos mastos; “This land is discovered by order of the very high, most excellent prince King Dom Manuel, King of Portugal, which was discovered by Gaspar de Corte Real, a knight in the house of the said King, and when he discovered it he send a ship with certain men and women whom he found in said land, and he remained with another ship and never more returned, and it is believed that he is lost, and there are here many masts.”  x

6 The letter from Pietro Pasqualigo is reprinted in Henry Harrisse, Les Corte-Real et leurs voyages au Nouveau-monde d’après des documents nouveaux ou peu connus (Paris: E. Leroux, 1883), pp. 211–212; and is translated into English in Arthur James Weise, The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1884), pp. 209–211, and better by James A. Williamson, ed., The Voyages of the Cabots and the English Discovery of North America under Henry VII and Henry VIII (London: The Argonaut Press, 1929), pp. 40–41; Williamson’s translation is reprinted in David B. Quinn, ed., America from Concept to Discovery: Early Exploration of North America (New York: Arno Press, 1979), vol. 1, pp. 149–151.

7 For discussion of the cartographic history of this island see Heinrich Winter, “The Pseudo-Labrador and the Oblique Meridian,” Imago Mundi 2
(1937), pp. 61–73.

8 On the meaning of terre ferme in the sixteenth century see Wilcomb E. Washburn, “The Meaning of ‘Discovery’ in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” The American Historical Review 68.1 (1962), pp. 1–21.

Source: Chet Van Duzer

2.2a Latin / 2.2b Translation / 2.2c Commentary

2.2a TOTAM SEPTENTRIONALEM PLAGAM, CUM SUIS CONDITIONIBUS, LATIUS DESCRIBERE PLACUIT
HUCUSQUE DIFFERRE AD PARTICULARE NOStrum ob variorum lustratorum controuersiam. Spero tamen in
breui hec eliminare juxta verum

2.2b It has seemed good to postpone fully depicting the entire northern region and its characteristics till I can make a special map because of the controversies of various explorers. However, in a short time I hope to eliminate these [controversies] according to the truth.

2.2c This text was transcribed but not translated by Fischer and Björnbo9; Fischer rightly remarks that Waldseemüller apparently never did draw a new map of the northern regions, but Waldseemüller’s remark here indicates both his interest in the area and continuing ambition to create more maps.

 

Source: Chet Van Duzer

2.3a Latin / 2.3b Translation / 2.3c Commentary

2.3a Morsus animal ingens quantitate Elephantis huius dentes longos duos et quadrangulares carensque iuncturis in pedibus. reperitur in promontoriis septentrionalibus Norbegie incedit gregatim agmine ducentorum animalium.

2.3b The walrus is a huge animal, the size of an elephant, and it has two long teeth which are quadrangular, and lacks joints in its legs. It is found in the northern promontories of Norway, and they travel together in groups of two hundred animals. 

2.3c This legend was discussed above in the introduction; it certainly indicates Waldseemüller’s access to a recent source from Scandinavia, but we do not know what that source was: it was not any of the books that he lists in the long text block on sheet 9 of the Carta marina (see Legend 9.3). In 1519, a few years after the Carta marina was printed, the Norwegian archbishop Erik Walkendorf sent Pope Leo X the salted head of a walrus, and it was displayed in the city hall in Strasbourg;
a sketch of a whole walrus was made based on this head in 1519, and in 1521 Albrecht Dürer sketched the head of a walrus using an unknown model.10 Despite the availability—at least in some circles—of these quite accurate renderings of walruses, Waldseemüller’s elephant-like depiction was copied on a number of later maps, including the 1522 (Strasbourg), 1525 (Strasbourg), 1535 (Lyon), and 1541 (Vienna) editions of Ptolemy’s Geography, Lorenz Fries’s Carta marina, Olaus Magnus’s Carta marina of 1539,11 the Vallard Atlas of c. 1547,12 and Pierre Desceliers’s world map of 1550.13

Source: Chet Van Duzer

2.4a Latin / 2.4b Translation / 2.4c Commentary

2.4a Regiones iste pellium preciosorum feracissime sunt que portantur ad partes occidental[es]. 

2.4b These regions produce many valuable furs, which are transported to the west.

2.4c This legend represents one of the few pieces of information that Waldseemüller retained from his 1507 map, where there is a legend that reads: 

hinc portantur pelles ferarum ad partes occidentales christianorum et qui habitant has regiones que longa est .10. dietarum habent regem de stirpe magni cham sunt idolatre et aliqui adorant natigas. 

From here the pelts of wild beasts are carried to Christian regions in the West, and those who live in this region,
which is a ten day’s journey long, have a king who descends from the Great Khan. They are idolaters, and some worship Natigas [a Mongolian divinity]. 9See

Waldseemüller took this information from one of the most important sources for his 1507 map, a large world map by
Henricus Martellus very similar to that now at Yale, where there is a damaged legend in the same position that addresses the same subject.14 However, I have not been able to find the source of this material on Martellus’s map: it does not come from Marco Polo or John of Plano Carpini, for example.15 The long-standing fur trade from Russia to Flanders had been under the control of the Hanseatic League, but around 1480 Russia began to win back trading rights in the West.16 There is a legend about the flow of furs from Russia to Flanders on a nautical chart by Ottomano Freducci made in 1529 (British Library, Add. MS 11548),17 but unfortunately it does not shed light on the possible sources of Waldseemüller’s or Martellus’s legend. Compare Legend 3.6 below.

Source: Chet Van Duzer

2.5a Latin / 2.5b Translation / 2.5c Commentary

2.5a Regio hec mutua ditione Magni principis Russie et regis datie obtemperatur. Habitatores sunt homines inculti
habentes facies adinstar Simearum

2.5b This region is under the joint control of the great prince of Russia and the king of Denmark. The inhabitants are wild and have faces similar to those of apes.

2.5c This legend relates to Lappia, i.e. Lapland. I have not been able to find the source of either of the two parts of this legend. The 1326 Treaty of Novgorod specified which of the Sami in Finmark would pay tribute to Novgorod, and which to Norway. Following the union of Norway and Denmark in 1380, Norway’s rights went to the King of Denmark, and with the Grand Duchy of Moscow’s annexation of Novgorod in 1478, Novgorod’s right to collect tribute from the Sami went to Moscow,18 but I do not know a source earlier than 1516 that describes the situation in terms similar to Waldseemüller’s.19 With regard to the comparison with apes, Paolo Giovio, in his Libellus de legatione Basilii Magni Principis Moschouiae adClemente. VII, Pont. Max., first published in Rome in 1525, says that beyond the Lapps in the darkness of the far north there are pygmies who are a fearful race of men, who speak by chattering and seem to be as close to apes as they are far from human beings of normal height in terms of their stature and intelligence.20 Incidentally, this passage from Giovio is borrowed by Baron Sigismund von Herberstein in his Notes upon Russia, first published in 1549.21 But it is not at all clear that Giovio and Waldseemüller were using the same source. Waldseemüller had access to an unknown source for this legend and a few others on sheet 3 (see Legends 3.1, 3.2, and 3.3) that relate to Russia and northwestern Asia; I have consulted all of the candidate sources that I can find, but I have not discovered the source that Waldseemüller was using.22 Some fifty years ago Leo Bagrow briefly examined the geography of Waldseemüller’s depiction of Russia on the Carta marina, focusing on the fact that the toponyms indicate that the data had been supplied in a series of itineraries to Moscow. Unfortunately he ignored the descriptive texts, thus omitting from his analysis an essential element of the map.23

Source: Chet Van Duzer

Van Duzer described this gruesome scene in his talk.

A variety of fantastical beings are shown here.

Exotic royalty...an offering of a limb?

South America was often portrayed as the land of the cannibals. Sebastian Muenster also has maps showing cannibals.

An exotic looking Rhinoceros...is it related to a rhinoceros drawn by Alfred Durer?

Wikipedia - Durer's Rhinoceros

I believe this is Moses at Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments.

Appears to be island of Zanzibar and i'm not sure what the pac-man-like shape with dots around it is.

The 1507 map portrayed the oceans as a place of danger, or at least an unknown place, while the 1516 map portrayed the oceans as places that could be controlled by humans. This is especially evident in an image of King Manuel of Portugal riding a sea monster indicating Portugal's control of the route around Africa to India.

Naked royalty.

Something gruesome happening here.

Waldseemüller labels North America as "Terra de Cuba, Asie Partis." What he had previously described as the "new world" is now considered part of Asia.

The 1507 map portrayed the oceans as a place of danger, or at least an unknown place, while the 1516 map portrayed the oceans as places that could be controlled by humans. This is especially evident in an image of King Manuel of Portugal riding a sea monster indicating Portugal's control of the route around Africa to India.

Columbus and Vespucci both named here...can also see Ptolemy two rows below.

When Columbus made landfall in 1492, he thought he had discovered the eastern part of Asia or the East Indies. He continued to believe this until his death in 1506. The explorer Amerigo Vespucci participated in at least two voyages between 1494 and 1504, to both North and South America. He contended that the land that was discovered was a new continent and not Asia. In 1503 and 1505, two widely read books were published by Vespucci, stating his claim that the "new world" was indeed new and not Asia. Seen in that light, it would make sense that Waldseemüller, just two years later, in 1507, would thank Vespucci for his discovery of the "new world."

When Columbus made landfall in 1492, he thought he had discovered the eastern part of Asia or the East Indies. He continued to believe this until his death in 1506. The explorer Amerigo Vespucci participated in at least two voyages between 1494 and 1504, to both North and South America. He contended that the land that was discovered was a new continent and not Asia. In 1503 and 1505, two widely read books were published by Vespucci, stating his claim that the "new world" was indeed new and not Asia. Seen in that light, it would make sense that Waldseemüller, just two years later, in 1507, would thank Vespucci for his discovery of the "new world."

This is Ptolemy, who lived from 100 to 170AD and whose work became the foundation of modern day cartography, beginning in the late 15th century.

Wikipedia - Ptolemy

The lines on this chart are rhumb lines, which means they could be used for navigation because they represent a constant bearing line relative to magnetic north.

Wikipedia - Rhumb line

Wikipedia - Portolan chart

Septentrio is north in the classical compass winds.

Wikipedia - Classical compass winds

Wikipedia - Compass rose

Tom Paper research on Compass Map Winds