Young Professor Ringmann found at Saint-Die a select and distinguished company of scholars, composed of Martin Waldseemueller, professor of geography; Jean Basin de Sendacour, canon and Latinist; Walter Lud, secretary to Duke Rene, patron of literature, and especially of the college of Saint-Die, which was to him as the apple of his eye. He was the reigning Duke of Lorraine, and titular "King of Sicily and Jerusalem," but had never strayed far from his own picturesque province, though he had won a great victory over Charles the Bold in 1477. He is, no doubt, worthy an extended biographical sketch, but in this connection can only be referred to as the patron of these great teachers in Saint-Die, who, soon after the appearance of Ringmann among them, conceived the plan of printing a new edition of _Ptolemy_. One of them, Walter Lud, was blessed with riches, and as he had introduced a printing-press, about the year 1500, the college was amply equipped. So many discoveries had been made since the last editions of _Ptolemy_ had appeared, that the Saint-Die coterie felt the need of new works on the subject, and sent Ringmann to Italy hunting for the same. He, it is thought, brought back, among other "finds" of great value, the letter written by Vespucci to Soderini from Lisbon, in September, 1504, a certified manuscript copy of which was made in February, 1505, and printed at Florence before midsummer, 1506. No extended explanation is needed now to elucidate the scheme by which Vespucci's letters were incorporated in the treatise published by those wise men of Saint-Die, entitled _Cosmographie Introductio_, or "Rudiments of Geography," and taken from the press on April 25, 1507. It was a small pamphlet, with engravings of the crudest sort, but it made a stir in the world such as has been caused by but few books since. But one copy of this first edition is said to be extant, and that is in the Lenox Library, New York City. It caused a flutter in cosmographical circles, not alone at the time of its issue, but for centuries thereafter, for in it first occurs in print the suggestion that the "fourth part of the world," discovered by Amerigo Vespucci, should be called AMERICA.[15] Professor Martin Waldseemueller was the culprit, and not Amerigo Vespucci, for he says, in Latin, which herewith find turned into English: "But now these parts have been more extensively explored and _another fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespucius_ (as will appear in what follows): _wherefore I do not see what is rightly to hinder us from calling it Amerige, or America--i.e., the land of Americus, after its discoverer, Americus, a man of sagacious mind_, since both Europe and Asia have got their names from women. Its situation and the manners and customs of its people will be clearly understood from the twice two voyages of Americus, which follow."