Martin Waldseemüller

Martin Waldseemüller (1470?-1522?), German cartographer, born in Radolfzell. In 1507 Waldseemüller produced a large map of the world, a small globe, and an accompanying treatise, Cosmographiae introductio (Introduction to Cosmography). The treatise contains an account of the voyages of the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci, and in the three works the name America was applied for the first time to the newly explored lands. His Carta Marina (1516) is another large map of the world and contains important corrections and improvements. Both maps had been lost until in 1901 a single copy of each was discovered in a castle in Württemberg.