12 A HISTORY OF AMERICA IN 100 MAPS
Generations of school children learned that “In
fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed
the ocean blue.” But what compelled Christopher
Columbus to set sail west from Spain across the
Atlantic Ocean? Where did he think he was going?
Columbus sought an ocean route to Cathay—or
China—pursuing riches on behalf of the Spanish
Crown. In 1492 he “discovered” the Caribbean island
of Hispaniola, but lived the rest of his life believing
that he had reached the East Indies. This conviction
stemmed from the maps and globes of the era, all of
which suggested that Asia lay west of Europe.
Among the most influential of these contemporary
mapmakers was Henricus Martellus Germanus,
whose long career in Florence lasted from 1459 to
- Martellus was especially prolific in those later
years, and produced this world map as part of his
manuscript atlas of the Mediterranean islands.
Drawn on vellum in 1489 or 1490, the map shows the
world as it had been depicted centuries earlier by
Claudius Ptolemy, the classical geographer whose
maps were rediscovered in the fifteenth century.
Ptolemy’s knowledge of the world spread throughout
Europe before the discoveries of the western
hemisphere rendered them irrelevant.
Though his world map was based on a classical
model, Martellus took care to include the discoveries
of his own time. His representation of Asia reflects
knowledge brought back by Marco Polo. The
extensive information along the coast of Africa was
gained through the 1488 voyage of Bartolomeu Dias.
In fact this was the first map to show the African
continent as described by Dias after rounding
the Cape of Good Hope. By including the entire
African continent, Martellus implicitly suggested
the possibility of an eastward route from Europe to
Asia. The fabled source of the Nile is depicted as
the “Montes Lune,” or Mountains of the Moon. The
dark ink used to mark the western coastline of Africa
endures, though the extensive place names across
the rest of the world have faded from the map.
THE WORLD THAT COLUMBUS KNEW
Henricus Martellus Germanus,
Ptolemaic world map, 1489 or 1490