Renaissance German Cosmographers and the Naming of America*

Abstract

The name ‘America’ was modestly introduced to the world in 1507 by the Gymnasium Vosagense, a group of humanists in St-Dié, a small town in the territory of Duke René of Lorraine. The name first appeared in three separate, but related, works: a wall map of the world in twelve sheets; globe gores for a small sphere; and the Cosmographiae introductio, a textbook on cosmography that included as an appendix the Four Voyages of a certain Amerigo (Americus) Vespucci. The world map, drawn by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, depicts Europe, Africa and Asia on the right-hand side, stretching out over three-quarters of the map (see Plate 1). To their left, across the Atlantic, it shows two tall and narrow land masses, separated from each other and from Asia. The label ‘america’ appears at the lower end of the larger, southern land mass1 (see Plate 2). The small globe gores display similar land configurations, although with much less detail. The word ‘America’ is printed again on the long, narrow southern Atlantic land mass.2 The Cosmographiae introductio explains the reasoning behind this neologism: ‘as I do not see why anyone could justly object to naming it Amerigen, after Americus its discoverer (a man of keen talents), the land of Americus as it were, or America, since Europe and Asia received their names from women’.3