>> From the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC.
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>> Barbara Tenenbaum: I'm Barbara Tenenbaum.  I'm the Mexican specialist at the -- in the Hispanic Division.  And I'm also the Curator of the [inaudible] collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division.  And today I have the marvelous honor of introducing our speaker.  But before we get into that, I -- I need to make two -- two minor announcements.  One is please turn off the ringtone on your cell phone, so that the speaker will not be interrupted by what I'm sure will be a lovely sound, but nevertheless inappropriate during a talk.  And second, this talk is being cybercast, and therefore should you ask a question, please identify yourself for the cybercast.  Now let me say a few words about our speaker today, Chet Van Duzer.  He holds a double bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and math and English literature, which probably meant that he did extraordinarily well on his SATs.  He has -- he's had a very interesting career, in that he published a book -- Duality and Structure in the Iliad and Odyssey, in 1996.  But then in 9 -- 1997 he had an epiphany -- these seem to be more frequent as you go along talking to people.  He was in the Vatican Museum, and a Ptolemaic was on display, open to folio with a 1530 map.  And Van Duzer noticed that Ptolemaic's construction of the map had an unusual southern consonant.  And from that moment forward, he has devoted his life to maps, for which we are all deeply grateful.  He has published two books subsequent to the one on the Iliad and the Odyssey, one in 2004 -- Floating Islands, a Global Bibliography, with an addition and translation of a work by GC [inaudible], which I will not try to read since it's in Latin.  And then in -- in 2010 he published Johannes Schooner's Globe of 1515, transcription and study.  Today, he's going to talk to us about Martin Waldseemuller, and the title of his talk will be Portraying the World Anew, Martin Waldseemuller's Carta Marina, 1516.  So please give a warm welcome to Chet Van Duzer.
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[ Applause ]
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>> Chet Van Duzer: Thank you, Barbara, and thank you very much all of you for coming this afternoon.  My project during my [inaudible] fellowship has been to study one of the large world maps on permanent display upstairs in the Early America's exhibition, namely the Carta Marina of Martin Waldseemuller, which was made in 1516, and donated to the Library of Congress by JI Kislak.  I would like to begin by thanking Mister Kislak, both for donating the map to the library, thus making it readily available to scholars, and for the fellowship that has enabled me to devote my time and energy to the map, and also enjoy the resources and camaraderie at the Kluge Center.  The Carta Marina was printed on 12 sheets that were designed to be assembled into a wall map, and that measures about 4 by 7 and a half feet.  Its author, Martin Waldseemuller, lived and worked in Saint Die, a small town in what is now eastern France.  The map is on display beside another product of the same cartographer, Waldseemuller's World Map of 1507.  That map is also printed on 12 sheets, that form a wall map of the same dimensions as the Carta Marina.  These two maps are the most important of the early renaissance, and each of them is the only copy that survived.  I will talk about the Carta Marina by comparing it and contrasting it with Waldseemuller's 1507 map, and by comparing and contrasting the sources of the two maps.  This is the best way to appreciate the nature of the Carta Marina, and what a radical change it represented from Waldseemuller's earlier map.  In addition, it is an excellent way to learn about the cartographer himself, about whom we have little in the way of documentation.  By looking at his sources, we can learn what was on his bookshelf, which is so important in understanding any scholar, and by seeing how he used his sources, we gain insight into his methods and character.  In addition, by seeing how his cartographic thought changed, we can come to appreciate his intellectual openness and flexibility.  I will begin by providing some background about two types of medieval and renaissance maps.  The first are the maps that appear in manuscripts of Ptolemaic's geography.  The geography which was written in Alexandria in the second century AD is a set of instructions for making a world map and regional maps, together with a list of thousands of place names, and their latitudes and longitudes.  And it is by latitude and longitude that space is organized in the maps of the geography.  We see here the scales of latitude and longitude at the edges of a Ptolemaic map of Italy.  Here is a typical world map in a manuscript of Ptolemaic's geography, with the decorative wind heads in the margins, and the scales of latitude and longitude also in the margins of the map.  One of the striking features of the map to modern eyes is the land bridge that joins southern Africa to southern Asia.  Of course this land bridge does not exist, but Ptolemaic thought it did.  If it did exist, of course it would render sailing from Europe around the southern tip of Africa to Asia impossible.  And here is a Ptolemaic world map in which the grid of latitude and longitude is particularly clear.  The second type of medieval map that I want to discuss are nautical charts.  Here is the area shown on a typical nautical chart, and here is an example of one of those charts.  In essence, they are practical tools of navigation, usually hand-drawn on parchment.  In this detail, we can see the most important characteristics of nautical charts.  The emphasis is on coastal features and place names.  Rather than being marked with latitude and longitude, they have a system of run lines that radiate out in the standard compass directions -- or the directions of the traditional winds -- from points organized in one or two large circles.  In what follows, I will show that Waldseemuller's 1507 map is based on Ptolemaic, and his 1516 map is based on nautical charts.  And here is Martin Waldseemuller's 1507 map.  Like the Carta Marina, it measures about 4 by 7 and a half feet, it is a richly detailed image of the earth, with graphic indications of mountain ranges and rivers, and many place names.  It is the map's depiction of the new world that has attracted the most attention.  There are earlier maps that depict the newly -- that depict the newly discovered lands, but Waldseemuller shows an ocean to the west of the new world, and this is the first map to show the Pacific as a separate body of water, well before its discovery by Balboa in 1513.  The map is particularly famous for being the first to apply the name America to the new world.  Waldseemuller clearly proclaims his debt to Ptolemaic.  The title of the map is A Map of the Whole World According to the Tradition of Ptolemaic, and the Explorations of Amerigo Vespucci, and Others.  The debt to Ptolemaic is also indicated in a large portrait of that geographer at the top of the map.  What I hope to show is that Waldseemuller's debt was particularly large to a specific world map based on Ptolemaic, namely the so-called Yale Martellus map.  It was made by Henricus Martellus, the German cartographer who worked in Florence in the late 15th century.  The map is now at Yale University.  It is impressively large -- 4 by 6 and a half feet, and is designed using a pseudo-cordiform projection, a modification of Ptolemaic's second projection.  The map was made in about 1491.  Most of the text on this important map are extremely faded, and almost illegible, and as a result, the map has remained all but unstudied for the past 50 years.  I recently had the opportunity to study the map using new images of it, including high resolution natural light, and also ultraviolet images.  My goal was to read the text on the map that had not been read before, and determine the nature of its relationship with Waldseemuller's 1507 map.  When we compare the two maps, we see that Martellus' map obviously served as an inspiration for Waldseemuller in terms of overall layout, and he used the same projection as Martellus -- the pseudo-cordiform projection.
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The maps use the same style for indicating latitude in the margins, they both have the decorative wind heads in the margins as well.  Both cartographers take advantage of the wide margins around the map proper to place large text blocks in the lower corners.  The shape of Africa is very similar on the two maps, it comes straight from Ptolemaic.  And it's particularly striking the shape of eastern Asia on the two maps is -- is extremely similar with its huge peninsula jutting southwest into the Indian Ocean.  And one very striking detail is the similarity of Japan on the two maps.  In both cases not only is the shape of the islands the same, but they're also at the very eastern edge of the map.  The general similarity of the maps has been noted previously, but as the legends on the Martellus map were thought to be illegible, the closeness of the maps' relationship had not been investigated.  If we look now at the western Indian Ocean on the two map, we see a particular arrangement of cartusias on Martellus' map, and exactly the same arrangement on Waldseemuller's map.  This suggests that the text in those cartusias might be the same.  That is, it suggests a very close relationship between the two maps.  I've been able to read the text in one of these cartusias on Martellus' map, and it is indeed extremely similar to the corresponding legend on Waldseemuller's. They both talk about a sea -- the seashell called the murex, from which a red dye is obtained.  If we compare some other legends on the two map, we're going to see striking similarities.  Looking now at a legend in northern Asia, I've placed the text of Martellus on the left and Waldseemuller on the right.  He's talking about the inhabitants of the region, and the fact that for example they ride reindeer.  The text on the two maps is -- is very, very similar.  Looking now at a legend in southern Asia, again, Martellus on the left, Waldseemuller on the right, their legends are identical aside from the first word.  In one case he says -- Martellus says here, Waldseemuller says there.  But [inaudible] saying that the -- the animals in the two regions are different from our animals.  Looking now at a legend in the central Africa, this one in natural light is illegible, but with ultraviolet light it suddenly jumps off the map.  And again, the legend on Martellus and Waldseemuller are extremely similar.  There's one extra word in Martellus', there's differences of spelling.  He's talking about a -- a particular serpent in Africa that causes the ground to smoke.  I could supply other examples of legends that are essentially the same on the two map, but I think these suffice to show that Waldseemuller had access to Martellus' map, and was using it as a source, both for the layout and projection of his map, and for the text.  At the same time, it is important to emphasize that Waldseemuller did not merely copy or slavishly follow Martellus in the entire map.  In many cases he used what he found on Martellus' map for inspiration, but created something different.  In other cases he simply ignored what he found on Martellus' map.  We look now at the text in the lower left-hand corner of the two maps.
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Waldseemuller is talking about something different than Martellus, and this legend is much longer.  He's talking about the discovery of the new world, which hadn't occurred yet when Martellus made his map.  But despite that, Waldseemuller copies a substantial phrase from the end of Martellus' text.  So even when he was talking about a different subject, he continued to look to Martellus for inspiration.  Looking at the legends in the lower right-hand corners, here the borrowing is mostly at the end, where the two cartographers asked the viewer of the map is he or she does not know much about cartography or geography to refrain from criticizing it too harshly.
[ Laughter ]
Looking now at another legend in the Indian Ocean, we saw before that Waldseemuller copied several in that region from Martellus.  This one talks about a -- a fish that if you touch it makes you numb in your whole body.  And Waldseemuller, for whatever reason, chose not to copy that one.  And looking now on the -- the northwestern corner of the map, we see the -- the decoration of the wind heads is very similar, but Martellus has for each wind head the descriptive text that talks about the characteristics of that particular wind, and again, Waldseemuller, for whatever reason, chose not to copy that.  So to -- to reiterate, although the Martellus map was a very important source for him, Waldseemuller did not slavishly follow it, but pondered the map he had before him, accepting some parts, rejecting others, and adding the new world and other elements in the process of creating his own work.  I will close this introduction to the 1507 map by showing the evolution that Ptolemaic's map underwent to become Waldseemuller's map.  If we compare Martellus' map with the Ptolemaic map, we see similarities in their general shapes, and both have decorative wind heads in their borders.  In addition, both have the scales of latitude and longitude at their edges.  It is also clear though that Martellus has modified the Ptolemaic model quite a bit.  He has modified the projection to accommodate a greater west to east extension, he shows Africa as being circumnavigable, he shows much more of the northern part of the world all the way to the North Pole, and he shows much, much more of Asia, including not only the eastern coast of the continent, but also Japan.  Thus he has added great swass [phonetic] of the earth's surface to what Ptolemaic depicts.  If we then compare the maps of Martellus and Waldseemuller, we see that Waldseemuller has gone a step further -- he's added the new world to what he found in Martellus.  Ptolemaic's map covers 180 degrees of longitude, or west to east extension, Martellus' covers 280 degrees, and Waldseemuller boldly shows all 360 degrees of the earth's circumference.  So there's a progression from Ptolemaic to Martellus to Waldseemuller.  I'll just move on to the other cartographic masterpiece housed in the Jefferson Building -- Waldseemuller's Carta Marina of 1516.  This map has tended to live in the shadw of its older brother -- the 1507 map, less famous and less studied.  The 1507 map of course is the first to apply the name America to the new world, and it boldly represents all 360 degrees of longitude at the time when the interior and western reaches of the new world was unknown, as well as all the Pacific.  But I would argue that the Carta Marina is in some important ways more interesting than the 1507 map.  It is more original, more detailed, and has a far richer iconographic program.  Moreover, the Carta Marina is the fruit of a remarkable cartographic audacity.  In it, Waldseemuller discarded almost all of the research he had done for the earlier map, and undertook the laborious process of creating an entirely new and detailed monumental image of the world, based on a new cartographic model using new sources.  The map is a striking testament both to the cartographer's determination to show the true form of the world, and to the dynamism of early 16th century cartography.  The 1516 map, like the 1507, is printed on 12 sheets that were designed to be assembled into a wall map, measuring about 50 by 92 inches.  But while they share these physical characteristics, in most other respects, the two maps are very different, and the differences are reflected in their titles.  As we saw before, the title of the 1507 map is A Map of the Whole World According to the Tradition of Ptolemaic, and the Explorations of Amerigo Vespucci and Others.  Waldseemuller's use of both Ptolemaic and Vespucci as sources of both ancient and modern sources is indicated in the portraits at the top of the 1507 map.  The title of the 1516 map indicates a radical repudiation of ancient authorities.  A nautical chart that comprehensively shows the Portuguese voyages and the shape of the whole known world, its regions and its limits, as they have been determined in our times, and how they differ from the tradition of the ancients, and also areas not mentioned by the ancients.  The change from Waldseemuller following Ptolemaic to repudiating them is dramatic.  In a long introductory text in the lower left corner of the Carta Marina, Waldseemuller discusses his earlier map, and his reasons for creating a new one.  He concedes that a map of ancient place names, like the 1507 map, is of limited utility, since it is difficult to recognize modern places according to their ancient names.  He also remarks that recent explorers have detected various errors in the geographical writings of the ancient, particularly in Ptolemaic's geography.  He then writes, moved by these considerations, I have added the second image of my world to the first, so that while in the first one there is an image of the whole world, land and sea, according to ancient authors, in this one it would shine forth not just the new and present face of the world, but also the things added in the intervening times.
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Therefore, it seemed good to call this image inscription of the whole world a Carta Marina, in which, as far as the depictions of the oceans, I have followed the common and tried and true indications of nautical charts.  Although his 1507 map shows the new world, Waldseemuller here describes his earlier work as an image of the earth according to the ancients, no doubt to increase the attractiveness of his new map, which is based on the most recent information available.  In this text, Waldseemuller eludes to his use of a new cartographic model in his new map.  His 1507 map is based on Ptolemaic's geography, not only on Ptolemaic's geographical data regarding the locations of cities and other features, but also on his system for representing geographical space using a grid of latitude and longitude.  More specifically, as I've just showed, Waldseemuller's used for his 1507 map Martellus' map as a model.  And Martellus' map uses -- is based on the Ptolemaic model -- the projection -- Ptolemaic projection, and uses Ptolemaic's system of latitude and longitude for depicting space.  In his Carta Marina, Waldseemuller abandons the Ptolemaic model, and instead adopts the model of nautical charts, or [inaudible] line charts.  In fact, we know the specific map that he used -- the nautical chart by Nicalo De Caberio [phonetic] of Genoa, made in circa 1503.  We know this because the close similarities, not only between the coastal place names on Caberio's chart and Waldseemuller's map, but also their striking similarity of layout.  They have the same west to east extension, and looking at some details now, the location of Greenland on the two maps is identical, location of the so-called island of Pseudo Labrador is the same, the eastern coast of South America is the same, of course both have Africa at their centers, they both have these two very large peninsulas in Asia jutting southward into the Indian Ocean, and the nodes of the run line network on the two maps are in exactly the same locations.  In addition to the change of cartographic model -- that is from Ptolemaic to nautical charts, there's another important change between the 1507 and 1516 maps, which -- specifically with regard to which explorer was credited with -- with the discovery of the new world, and the adoption of that explorer's conception of the newly discovered lands.  The 1507 map proclaims Amerigo Vespucci as the discoverer of the new world.  Vespucci's portrait is at the top of the map, as we saw, and the southern part of the new world bears the name America, which Waldseemuller and his colleague, Matthias Ringmann, created from the name Amerigo.  Moreover, in their book Cosmografei Introductio [phonetic], which was published to accompany the 1507 map, the book includes accounts of Vespucci's four voyages.  On the 1507 map itself, Waldseemuller famously shows water to the west of the newly discovered lands.  That is he indicates that the newly discovered lands are separate from Asia.  He also explicitly states in the Cosmografei Introductio that the new world is an island, thus the depiction of the new world on the 1507 map is in line with Vespucci's claim that the newly discovered lands were unknown to the ancients.  On the Carta Marina, it is clear that Waldseemuller has realized the precedence of Columbus as discoverer.  First, and most significantly, the name America does not appear on the map.  In addition, in his list of sources in the lower left corner of the map, Waldseemuller lists Columbus, but not Vespucci.  Also, a legend in the South Atlantic specifically names Columbus as the first discoverer of the new lands, Cabral as the second, and Vespucci as the third.  Moreover, in the Carta Marina, Waldseemuller adopted a Columbian conception of the new world.  Columbus had been seeking a route to Asia by staying west, and during all his four voyages, and also to the end of his life, he believed that he had been in Asia, albeit in some outlying reaches of the continent.  This is the view of the new world that Waldseemuller adopts in the Carta Marina.  This is particularly clear in the legend in a northern part of the newly discovered lands, which reads the land of Cuba, part of Asia.  Further, Waldseemuller does not show the western coasts of the newly discovered lands, and thus suggests that they are connected with Asia.  Other evidence for this view is a legend describing Hispaniola in the Caribbean, which begins Hispaniola, which is also called Ocea [phonetic], identifying the island with the region mentioned in the bible from which gold and other riches were brought to King Solomon.  Columbus had shown great interested in the location of Ocea, and had himself asserted Hispaniola was to be identified with that region.  Thus in the Carta Marina, Waldseemuller has adopted a Columbian view of the new world.  On the 1507 map, Ptolemaic and Vespucci were prominently displayed, representing two of the cartographer's most important sources.  On the Carta Marina, however, Waldseemuller has abandoned the Ptolemaic cartographic model in favor of the nautical chart model, and also abandoned Vespucci as principle discoverer of the new world in favor of Columbus.  The fact that these two figureheads have both fallen by the wayside by 1516 is a powerful testament to the rapid development of Waldseemuller's cartographic thought, and his willingness to change his ideas in the light of new information.  Waldseemuller's willingness to discard almost all of the work he had invested in the 1507 map is all the more impressive, as that map was evidently well received.  It was not the demands of customers, but rather his own determination to find the best method for representing the world that led him to undertake the creation of an entirely new map than the Carta Marina.  On the 1507 map, Waldseemuller had depicted all 360 degrees of longitude, even though about a third of that area was unknown.  He also depicted the northern part of the world all the way to the North Pole.  In making his Carta Marina, Waldseemuller clearly decided to be less venturous in depicting little known or unknown regions.  He emitted some 128 degrees of longitude on the CArta Marina, specifically the western parts of the new world, and most of what we think of as Pacific.  In addition, he -- he depicts much less of the northern polar regions, the Carta Marina only goes to about 70 degrees north.  The Carta Marina does include several more degrees of latitude in the southern ocean, but overall the map shows much less of the earth's surface than the 1507 map.  In addition, the boarder of the 1516 map is much narrower than that on the 1507 model.  As a result, Waldseemuller had much more space to work with in effect on the 1516 map.  He could devote more space to each region of the world, so he could show more detail in each of the regions he does depict.  Thus in comparison with the 1507 map, the 1516 map is -- offers a zoomed in view of the known parts of the world.  Thus for example, in Arabia on the 1507 map there was room only for place names from Ptolemaic, and indications of mountains and rivers.  But on the Carta Marina there are images of Mecca and Medina, as well as long legends about the cities and the features of the region.  Waldseemuller took full advantage of this zoomed in view of the world on the Carta Marina, not just in Arabia, but almost everywhere, to offer a rich array of both descriptive text and images.  We have seen the Carta Marina's greater level of detail in comparison with his 1507 map, and it is also instructive to see the difference with regard to Waldseemuller's cartographic model, the Caberio chart.  On the Caberio chart, the Hinterlands are almost empty of geographical detail, and showing now exactly the same region on the Carta Marina, we can see that Waldseemuller obviously wanted to surpass this model, and offer a new level -- level of detail, information, and images.  In adding these many images about politics, animal life, trade, and the sources of exotic goods, Waldseemuller did extensive research in the most recent travel literature on Asia, Africa, and the new world, carefully selecting passages for his legends, and choosing interesting images.  One of Waldseemuller's important sources was a book called [inaudible], or Newly Discovered Countries, a collection of travel narratives that was first published in Italy in 1507.  In other words, the travel narrative of Balthazar Springer, a German businessman who had sailed the Portuguese -- from Portugal to India in 1505.
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The first edition of Springer's narrative, which was published in German in 1509, was illustrated by Hans Bergmer [phonetic].  A third source was the travel narrative of [inaudible], an Italian who traveled in the east from 1502 to 1507, and whose narrative was published in an illustrated edition in German in 1515, just a year before the Carta Marina.  The depiction of Asia on the 1507 map is based on Ptolemaic and Marco Polo, that is on information from the second century and the 13th century.  Thus when Waldseemuller used one of his new sources in making the Carta Marina, he was giving his viewers information that was at least 200 years newer, and in many cases more than 1,200 years newer.  We can imagine that it was very exciting for Waldseemuller to be able to offer the viewers of his map this more recent information, and a thoroughly updated image of the world.  A good example of this updating can be seen in the case of the island of Taprobane in the Indian Ocean.  On the 1507 map, the image of the island is purely Ptolemaic.  On the other hand, here is the island of Taprobane on the Carta Marina -- I'm sorry, on the Caberio chart. And we can see that on the Carta Marina, Waldseemuller copies his position closely, thus availing himself of much more recent data.  But Waldseemuller does more.  He gives the island a new name -- Samotra [phonetic], that is Sumatra, and he explains in the legend that the ancient island of Taprobane is best identified with Sumatra.  In identifying the island with Sumatra, Waldseemuller is following either the [inaudible] or the narrative of Arfema [phonetic], both works published shortly before the Carta Marina.  To show another example, on the 1507 map, the depiction of Persia is straight out of Ptolemaic, that is the data is more than 1,200 years old.  On the Carta Marina, in addition to modern city names, there is an image and -- of and a legend about King Sophy [phonetic], who is said to have gained control over Persia, and divided it into eight kingdoms.  Sophy is -- is -- as Soophy [phonetic], the founder of the [inaudible] dynasty, gained control of Persia in about the year 1500.  The information about Sophy again, comes from Arfema.  This information was very recent indeed, compared with that on the 1507 map, and is also much more detailed, as it does not merely list place names, but also reveals the current political situation.  In addition to using the most recent texts as sources for his 1516 map, Waldseemuller used the most recent images to create a multimedia source of geographical information.  In South America for example, Waldseemuller supplies the earliest surviving European image of an opossum.  This animal was the first marsupial that Europeans had seen, and so it naturally incited considerable curiosity.  It is likely that Waldseemuller drew this -- him image on the basis of an earlier drawing or print, but that earlier work does not survive.   In Africa, his image of the rhinoceros comes from a print made in 1515 by Hans Bergmer [phonetic], just one year before the Carta Marina was published.  This demonstrates that Waldseemuller continued to keep his eye out for new sources until close to its date of publication.  The image of Mecca on the map comes from the 1515 edition of Our Famous Travels.  Curiously, Waldseemuller borrowed his image of Medina from the book, and used it for Mecca, perhaps out of a desire to use a more distinctive image for the better known city.  The image of a king in India is borrowed from an illustration in the 1509 edition of Springer's Travels.  The clothing of the two kings is essentially the same, except that Waldseemuller has added a crown at the top of the turban, and the pipes that the kings hold are very similar, except that Waldseemuller did not draw the full length of the handle.  Also in India, Waldseemuller has an image of Sati, the Hindu practice whereby a widow burned herself to death on the funeral pyre -- on the funeral pyre of her husband.  In this case, the widow has leapt into the hole where the funeral pyre has been made, and a man stands over her, and is about to strike her with something in his hand, no doubt so that she will die sooner.  On the right, a horned demon stands looking on.  This scene was clearly inspired by the image in the 1515 edition of Our Famous Travels, and Arfema mentions the presence of demons in his narrative.  I also want to talk about the image on the flyer that was used to lure you here, which shows King Manuel of Portugal riding a sea monster.  This image has an interesting derivation, and it is particularly revealing as far as Waldseemuller's new thinking about the world in the Carta Marina.  Following Vasco de Gama's successful return from his voyage from Portugal to India by sailing around Africa, King Manual adopted a new title -- Lord of the Conquest and Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India.  The use of this title is recorded in two of the sources that Waldseemuller consulted.  I would suggest that Waldseemuller, in seeking a way to express this title graphically, saw [inaudible] matte view of Venice, specifically the depiction of the god Neptune riding a sea monster, a powerful image of the protection that Venice enjoyed from the god of the sea.  Waldseemuller's recasting of this image is still more powerful.  He's replaced the classical god Neptune with a contemporary king, almost thus affecting an apotheosis of Manual, and rather than indicating the protection passively enjoyed by Venice, the new image illustrates Portugal's active ability to navigate around the tip of Africa to India.  But the real significance of Waldseemuller's image is best appreciated by contrasting the handling of sea monsters on his two large maps.  On the 1507 map, half a dozen legends describe the sea monsters in the Indian Ocean, such as this one off the eastern coast of Africa.  Here we're seeing the leviathan or sea dragon, which frequently fights against the whale.  Most of the sea monsters on the 1507 map are dangerous, and thus would discourage navigation, while the image on the Carta Marina boldly proclaims human control over the dangers of the sea, and by extension, dominion over the oceans themselves.  The ocean is thus no longer so much a place of danger, as an element that can be conquered by humans, and across which trade can be conducted.  In the short space of nine years, Waldseemuller had set aside an essentially medieval view of the ocean, and adopted a much more modern conception.  Waldseemuller's goal for the Carta Marina seems to have been off -- seems to have been to offer a more practical, useful, and engaged -- and engaging map than his 1507, and is based on a cartographic model that was used by mariners in their voyages.  It shows only the parts of the world that were known, and it is filled with current information about geography, politics, and trade, and has many attractive illustrations.  As a note of institutional interest, we should remark that in the lower right-hand corner of the map there is a long list of the prices and sources of spices and other goods in Calico, India.  This list, and many other pieces of information on the map, comes from the [inaudible] -- the collection of travel narratives published in 1507.  It is a remarkable demonstration of the richness of the holdings of the Library of Congress that the best manuscript of that book -- in fact the manuscript from which the printed edition was prepared resides in the library's Rare Book Division.  Thus the arrival of the Carta Marina at the Library of Congress brought the map under the same roof as one of its most important sources.  At the beginning of this talk, I suggested that by looking at Waldseemuller's use of his sources, we would be able to learn something about the cartographer's character.  What have we learned?  One thing we have learned is that he was comfortable working from a cartographic model, but was never satisfied with that model.  He added many things to make the final product richer and more complete.  For his 1507 map, he used the Yale Martellus map as a model, and added the new world and various details.  For his 1516 map, he used the Caberio chart as a model, and added many legends and images from a variety of sources.  These maps are the products of a cartographer with a great creative vision, and great ambition to disseminate the latest cartographic knowledge throughout -- to scholars throughout Europe.  The fact that he and his colleagues were able to gather in the small town of San Die, the diverse sources necessary to produce these maps testifies to a remarkable drive and experience in research.  And Waldseemuller's willingness to cast aside all of the work that had gone into his 1507 map, and to create less than a decade later a new world map based on a new cartographic philosophy, and almost entirely new sources, demonstrate a wonderful open-mindedness, energy, and thirst for knowledge.  His Carta Marina represents the culmination of more than a decade of thought about how the world should be mapped, and much painstaking research into the latest text and images that could be used to create a rich and detailed picture of the world.  Thank you.
^M00:39:51
[ Applause ]
^M00:40:05
I'm happy to take questions.  [Inaudible].  Yes.
^M00:40:13
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:40:37
>> Chet Van Duzer: The question is about the -- the market for the maps, and where they were distributed.  So, I wish we had more evidence about that.  There's the -- the long text block on the Carta Marina says that there were 1,000 copies of the 1507 map produced.  Some doubt has been expressed about that claim, but there -- there is clear evidence of the distribution of the 1507 map.  It has been claimed that the 1516 map was never actually published and distributed, that what we have is basically a proof copy.  But that turns out to be false.  There -- we can be absolutely certain that at least one copy of the map made it to France, because there's some details on a manuscript nautical atlas made in France in about 1547 that clearly come from Waldseemuller's Carta Marina.  So I -- I wish I could give a -- a more complete answer though about how the maps were used.  They were certainly designed for display on a wall.  And one advantage of books over large maps is books have this built in system of self-protection.  And -- and large sheet maps don't have that, so they tend to be quite perishable.  And partly as a result, I think we don't have much evidence to answer your question.  But thank you.
^M00:42:02
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:42:09
>> Chet Van Duzer: Can you repeat the question?
^M00:42:10
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:42:14
>> Chat Van Duzer:  The question is what knowledge of the western coast of the new world was there in 1507.  And the simple answer is basically none.  There's a lot of speculation about voyages that may have taken place, with, you know, no documentation, but maybe pieces of evidence that appear on maps, but I've never really seen any convincing discussion of that.
>> [Inaudible].
>> Chet Van Duzer: He does depict it, and I would explain that as follows.  Waldseemuller certainly had access to Marco Polo -- the text of Marco Polo.  Marco Polo says that Japan is an island 1,500 miles east of the eastern coast of continental Asia.  And when Waldseemuller made the 1507 map, he did not believe that the new discoveries were Asia.  So if the new discoveries are not Asia, there has to be water between the new discoveries and what the -- the known parts of Asia.  So there has to be water between the new discoveries and Japan for example, which is an island.  So what I believe is that the 1507 map with that image -- the -- the ocean we see west of the new world is a deduction, and nothing more.  Yes [inaudible].
^M00:43:33
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:43:44
>> Chet Van Duzer: The question is how did all these sources come to be in San Die, which it is a small town.  And that's another question to which we don't have good information yet.  I -- we hope to address that in the future, but it is remarkable how much geographical information, how many books, how many maps were gathered there.  And the Caberio chart we know was there, because he used it in both maps.  But that must have been a fantastically expensive map.  There's a -- a facsimile of it at the back of the room.  That facsimile is much, much smaller than the actual map.  It's huge.  It's on parchment, it's hand painted, it must have been tremendously expensive.  We can deduce that he had other manuscript charts, we know that he had many books.  How did he get them?  There had to be financial support coming from somewhere, it's not entirely clear where.  Yes.
^M00:44:41
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:45:04
>> Chet Van Duzer: It has that feel to it, definitely.  It has an encyclopedic character.  But it should be said that there are medieval maps that also have that character -- not quite the same way, the material comes from different sources, but there are earlier maps that have some of that character.
^M00:45:21
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:45:51
>> Chet Van Duzer: The question is about the technology used to produce the maps.  They are printed maps, printed on 12 sheets, they're wood cut.  One interesting feature of the production of these maps is a number of the texts are carved into the wood, but a number of others -- there's actually type set into the wood blocks, which is an interesting technique.  As far as earlier maps produced, I mean these are very large printed maps.  The -- the view of Venice that I showed is also very, very large, printed on several sheets on very fine paper.  As far as earlier large printed maps, there is -- I mean one of the issues is probably that they've just perished and we don't have any record of them.  But there's -- I think from about 1470 there's one remaining sheet from multi-sheet printed world map.   So there's some evidence of -- of earlier ones, but not much.  [Inaudible].
^M00:46:55
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:47:16
>> Chet Van Duzer: Yeah, so the question is -- oh if I can supply any information about why Waldseemuller changed his mind regarding who had actually discovered the new world.  It's interesting that if you look at the printing history of accounts of the new world, there are many, many more editions of Vespucci's works than of Columbus' works.  So Vespucci was more popular.  And the conclusion I would be inclined to come to is that because of that added -- that higher popularity, Waldseemuller had just been exposed to accounts of Vespucci's voyages earlier, and had just accepted that they were the first.  And then as he did more research, he came to realize that no, Columbus had been the first to the new world.  That's -- that's my understanding anyway.  Yes [inaudible].
^M00:48:07
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:48:20
>> Chet Van Duzer: The question is about the collections that I used while I was here, and whether the library should add any titles.  In addition to the -- the general collection that I made heavy use of the Rare Book Division, and also Geography and Maps, and enjoyed my time in those divisions very much.  And I -- I certainly can think of some titles that -- that should be added to the collections.  I think when the Waldseemuller maps were acquired, perhaps a little bit more effort should have been made to acquire titles that are closely related to -- closely related to them, and I will be happy to put together a list of -- of some of those items.  Thank you.  Yes [inaudible].
^M00:49:07
[ Inaudible Question ]
^M00:49:14
>> Chet Van Duzer: Yes.  So in addition to the project that brought me here -- the Kislak project, Dan in Rare Books and John in Geography and Maps and I are involved in a new project to study the -- the printing history of the maps, and particularly to get an idea of who printed them and where.  And so we are looking at the typefaces on the map to see which printers used those same typefaces.  And we're also -- we'll -- we'll take any evidence we can get that will help solve this conundrum about where the maps were printed by whom.  So for example, we'll also look at images in books printed in Strasburg for example, and -- and Basil, which are two of the candidate locations.  So that's -- this is not over.  Research continues.  So I guess that's about it.  Well very much -- thank -- thank you very much.
^M00:50:15
[ Applause ]
^M00:50:24
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