Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, from Fire to Freud

by Peter Watson

The first printed map to show America, that produced by Giovanni Matteo Contarini in 1506, does show the curvature of the earth, while at the same time displaying the new world in three parts–the north joined to Cathay, the West Indies as a group of islands not far from Japan, and Terra Crucis, South America, as an entirely separate (and huge) continent in the south. A year later Martin Waldseemüller produced his famous world map, twelve sheets drawn on a single cordiform projection, with its title describing it as ‘according to the tradition of Ptolemy and the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci and others’ (this is the first map to use the word America to describe the New World). It shows the Old World landmass as occupying 230° of longitude, but Waldseemüller later abandoned Ptolemy and produced maps which showed Asia in its more or less proper proportions.