Martin Waldseemüller in the context of "Naming of the Americas"

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⭐ Core Definition: Martin Waldseemüller

Martin Waldseemüller (c. 1470 – 16 March 1520) was a German cartographer and humanist scholar. Sometimes known by the Hellenized form of his name, Hylacomylus, his work was influential among contemporary cartographers. His collaborator Matthias Ringmann and he are credited with the first recorded usage of the word America to name a portion of the New World in honour of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci in a world map they delineated in 1507. The same map was the first to show the Americas as a distinct landmass clearly separated from Asia by the Pacific Ocean. Waldseemüller was also the first to produce a printed globe and the first to create a printed wall map of Europe. A set of his maps printed as an appendix to the 1513 edition of Ptolemy's Geography is considered to be the first example of a modern atlas.

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👉 Martin Waldseemüller in the context of Naming of the Americas

The naming of the Americas occurred shortly after Christopher Columbus's death in 1506. The earliest known use of the name America dates to April 25, 1507, when it was applied to what is now known as South America by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller. It is generally accepted that he derived the "America" nomenclature from the name of Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer, who explored the two continents on behalf of Spain and Portugal. Vespucci was at the time a popular author about his explorations of what he called the "New World". However, some have suggested other explanations, including being named after the Amerrisque mountain range in Nicaragua, or after Richard Amerike, a merchant from Bristol, England.

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