Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2 (of 8): Spanish Explorations and Settlements in America from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2 (of 8): Spanish Explorations and Settlements in America from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
typi cosmographici_, Ratisbon, 1522. The map was again used in the
first complete edition of Peter Martyr’s _Decades_, when the date was
changed to “M.D.XXX” (Carter-Brown, i. 94; _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 154;
Kunstmann, _Entdeckung Amerikas_, p. 134; Kohl, _Die beiden ältesten
General-Karten von Amerika_, p. 33; Uricoechea, _Mapoteca Colombiana_,
no. 4). Vadianus meanwhile had quarrelled with Camers, and had returned
to St. Gall, and now re-edited his _Mela_, and published it at Basle in
1522 (_Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 112; Murphy, no. 2,004**; Carter-Brown,
i. 590; Leclerc, no. 459).
In 1524 Apianus published the first edition of his cosmographical
studies,—a book that for near a century, under various revisions,
maintained a high reputation. The _Cosmographicus liber_ was published
at Landshut in 1524,—a thin quarto with two diagrams showing the New
World, in one of which the designation is “Ameri” for an island; in the
other, “America.” Bibliographers differ as to collation, some giving
fifty-two, and others sixty leaves; and there are evidently different
editions of the same year. The book is usually priced at £5 or £6.
Cf. Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, p. 174; _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no.
127, and _Additions_, p. 87; Carter-Brown, i. 78; Huth, i. 39; Murphy,
no. 93; Sabin, no. 1,738. There is an account of Apianus (born 1495;
died 1551 or 1552) in Clement’s _Bibliographie curieuse_ (Göttingen,
1750-1760). It is in chapter iv. of part ii. of the _Cosmographicus
liber_ that America is mentioned; but there is no intimation of
Columbus having discovered it. Where “Isabella aut Cuba” is spoken of,
is an early instance of conferring the latter name on that island,
after La Cosa’s use of it.
[Illustration: PART OF APIANUS’S MAP, 1520.
There are fac-similes of the entire map in the _Carter-Brown
Catalogue_, i. 69, and in Santarem’s _Atlas_; and on a much
reduced scale in Daly’s _Early Cartography_. Cf. Varnhagen’s _Jo.
Schöner e P. Apianus: Influencia de um e outro e de varios de seus
contemporaneos na adopçăo do nome America; primeiros globos e primeiros
mappas-mundi com este nome; globo de Waltzeemüller, e plaquette
acerca do de Schöner_, Vienna, 1872, privately printed, 61 pp., 100
copies (_Murphy Catalogue_, no. 2,231; Quaritch prices it at about
£1). A recent account of the history of the Vienna presses, _Wiens
Buchdruckergeschichte_ (1883), by Anton Mayer, refers to the edition of
Solinus of 1520 (vol. i. pp. 38, 41), and to the editions of Pomponius
Mela, edited by Vadianus, giving a fac-simile of the title (p. 39) in
one case.
Santarem gives twenty-five editions of Ptolemy between 1511 and 1584
which do not bear the name of America, and three (1522, 1541, and 1552)
which have it. Cf. _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris_
(1837), vol. viii.]
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