World map by Andreas Walsperger
The world map by Andreas Walsperger , Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana , Pal. lat. 1362 B, is a Christian shaped medieval map of the world . With the so-called Zeitz world map, it is one of the few original mappae mundi from the German-speaking area and is considered a milestone in historical cartography.
Creator
Andreas Walsperger was born in Radkersburg around 1415 as the son of a carpenter . In 1434 he became a Benedictine monk in St. Peter in Salzburg , but he left the monastery in 1442. Other stations and the year of his death are not known, apart from the fact that he made the world map in Konstanz in 1448 .
map
The bike map on parchment is 73.5 cm high × 59.5 cm. The map shows the round of the earth, which is oriented south - so that the north is below. The holy city of Jerusalem is roughly in the center and the ocean surrounds the entire globe to where Africa extends to the spheres. It is thus a contemporary conventional representation of the world.
The earth is surrounded by the seven spheres of the celestial sphere according to Ptolemy . The map is based on the earth as the center of creation, which is surrounded by heavenly spheres and crowned by a "sky made of crystal". In the outer sphere the names of the heavenly hosts are mentioned, inwardly the spheres of the fixed stars , the planets and the sun follow ; in between the names of the signs of the zodiac and the winds are noted.
Legend
There is a legend below the map . In it geometric accuracy of the representation is claimed. The author, Andreas Walperger, names himself, the year and the place of creation in a colophon . He also gives the card user information:
"Item in hac presenti figura continetur mappa mundi siue descriptio orbis geometrica, facta ex cosmographya ptholomey proportioabiliter secundum longitudines et latitudines Et cum uera et in // tegra cartha nauigationis marium. Ita quod quilibet clare in ea potest videre quod miliaribus una regio uel prouincia ab ali sit situata, uel ad quam plagam, siad orientem, occidente, austru vel aquilinem extensa.//Terra etenim est alba, maria viridis coloris, flumina dulescia lasurri, mont varii item. Rubra puncta sunt christianorum civitates. Nigra uero infidelium in terra marique existentium //
Volens igitur scire in hac presenti figura quot miliribus una regio sew civitas ab alia sit situata, accipe circulum et pone pedem eius ad medietatem puncte cum nomini alicuius ciutatis in presenti figura signati. Et extende alium // pedem ad punctum alterius ciutatis ad placitum. Et tunc circulum sic extensum pone super scalam latam: metrum hic inseruit per puncta diuisa et quilibet punctus in pratacta scala cuisvis sit coloris dat decem miliaria thevtunica Et // nota quod unum miliare theutunicum continet in se decem milia passuum et unus passus duos pedes. Facta est hec mappa per manus fratris Andree Walsperger ordinis sancti bendicti de saltzburga. Anno domini 1448 In constancia.// "
In translation:
“ This figure contains the world map or geometric description of the earth, drawn up according to the cosmography of Ptolemaeus according to the longitudes , latitudes and climatic subdivisions. And with a truthful and complete map of navigation on the seas. So everyone here can see exactly how many miles one area or province is from another or what area it covers from east to west and from south to north. The earth is white, the sea green, the freshwater streams are blue, the mountains are different colors. And the red dots denote the Christian cities, the black dots the cities of the unbelievers on land and in the sea.
So if you want to use this drawing to measure how many miles one area or city is from another, take a pair of compasses and place one of its points in the middle of the point indicated by the name of a city and the other point the point of the other chosen city. Then he put the open circle on the scale below; On this scale, each line, regardless of its color, corresponds to ten German miles. Note that one German mile contains ten thousand paces and one step contains two feet. "
history
The map was found by Konrad Kretschmer around 1890 when he was working on the atlas of Petrus Vesconte ( Portulanus de navigatione ) in the library of the Vatican. Andreas Walsperger's world map was enclosed with this atlas without originally being part of it. It was then subsequently given the signature Pal. lat. 1362B of the Vatican Library.
The atlas in which the map was found was in the possession of the Fuggers in the 16th century , was then given to the Bibliotheca Palatina and, together with the Bibliotheca Palatina, went to Maximilian I of Bavaria as Bavarian war booty , who handed it to Pope Gregory XV in 1623 . gave away. It is not certain whether this also represents the ownership history of the Walsperger map enclosed with the atlas in the 19th century.
literature
Prints
- Konrad Miller : Mappae mundi. Issue 3. The smaller world maps. Stuttgart 1895 digitized
- World map by Andreas Walsperger ( facsimile ) = Belser editions from the Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana. Belser, Zurich 1981.
Secondary literature
- Walter Berschin : The Palatina in the Vaticana. A German library in Rome . Belser, Stuttgart 1992. ISBN 3-7630-2087-X , pp. 110-112.
- Dana Bennett Durand: The Vienna-Klosterneuburg Map Corpus of the Fiteenth Century. A Study in the Transition from Mediaeval Science . Leiden 1952, pp. 209-213, plate XV.
- Paul Gallez: Walsperger and His Knowledge of the Patagonian Giants, 1448 . In: Imago Mundi. The international journal for the history of cartography . Thaylor & Francis, London 1981 (vol. 33), pp. 91-93.
- Dorothea Hauck: Andreas Walsperger's world map is based on medieval monastic tradition . In: Bibliotheca Palatina. Catalog for the exhibition from July 8 to November 2, 1986. Heiliggeistkirche Heidelberg. Text tape. Heidelberg 1986. ISBN 3-921524-88-1 , pp. 358f.
- Konrad Kretschmer : A New Medieval World Map of the Vatican Library . In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin 26 (1891), pp. 371–406.
- Karl-Heinz Meine: On the world map by Andreas Walsperger, Constance 1448 . In: Wolfgang Scharfe u. a. (Ed.): Kartenhistorisches Colloquium Bayreuth '82. Lectures and reports . Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin, 1983, ISBN 3-496-00692-7
Web links
- Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal. lat. 1362 B
- Homepage of the city of Bad Radkersburg : Famous personalities: Andreas Walsberger .
Remarks
- ↑ Pal. lat. 1362 A of the Vatican Apostolic Library.
Individual evidence
- ^ Homepage of the city of Bad Radkersburg.
- ↑ According to the author himself on the map (Kretschmer: A new medieval world map , p. 372).
- ^ Kretschmer: A new medieval world map , p. 376f.
- ^ Konrad Kretschmer: Marino Sanuto d. Ä. and the cards of Petrus Vesconte . In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin 26 (1891), pp. 352-370.
- ^ Kretschmer: A new medieval world map , p. 371.
- ↑ Ludwig Schuba: The Quadrivium manuscripts of the Codices Palatini Latini in the Vatican Library . Wiesbaden, 1992, p. 46. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Cod. Pal. lat. 1915, fol. 551r ( copy of the catalog of the Fugger library ).