Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

Guatrin Lud on the 21st of November, 1494, and the "bulle," or programme, as printed by Lud, was apparently considered by him a much more important achievement than the ceremony itself. At the same time a paper-mill had been established near a spring of pure water in a neighboring meadow by one Jean Wisse, and by its water-mark-a bull's head in the centre of each sheet-most of the publications of Saint Dié during that period may be recognized. Nothing of importance is known to have been printed in the Lud printing-office for several years after 1494. The publishing which was done for the Church was ephemeral, and left no trace. important fact was that the experience which was thus gained and the materials that were collected finally enabled the Gymnase of the Vosges to undertake the revised edition of Ptolemy, and that enterprise led, as we shall presently see, to the Cosmographiae Introductio, and gave to the little group of men who were engaged in it a permanent place in history.

The

Jean Basin, of Sandaucourt, the second member of the gymnase, was, like Guatrin Lud, a canon of the Abbey of Saint Dié, vicar of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and a classical scholar of unusual attainments. His leisure hours were devoted to literature; he edited and published the "Nanciade" after the death of its author, De Blarru, and played a busy and useful rôle in the work of the new printing-office, correcting manuscripts and proofs, making translations, and supplying an occasional dedication or bit of verse, as the case required. He was wealthy and benevolent, and inhabited a handsome canonical residence, which stood at the northwest corner of a block or irregular group of buildings, of which the house of Guatrin Lud, with its printing-office, formed the southeast, or diagonally opposite corner. The house of Jean Basin was partially destroyed by fire in 1554; but the walls and lower portions remained intact, so that the structure was rebuilt, or rather restored, with exactly its original form and dimensions, and in that condition it exists to-day, the most perfectly preserved domicile that remains from the Gymnase Vosgien.

Pierre de Blarru, author of the "Nanciade," was one of the most distinguished

[merged small][graphic][merged small]

connected, he had as a young man led a gay and dissolute life at Paris in the rollicking company of François Villon. Having drained the cup of pleasure to its dregs, he became a monk, and only left the monastery at the solicitation of Duke René, who made him his private secretary, and gave him a prebend at Saint Dié, where he was set at the task of writing the "Nanciade." De Blarru died in 1506, leaving the manuscript of his poem in the hands of Jean Basin.

We come now to the real author of the Cosmographiae, Martin Waldseemüller, and his learned and devoted assistant, Matthias Ringmann. A volume of nearly two hundred pages has been written, and was published at Paris in 1867, to set forth all that the indefatigable M. d'Ave

sac had been able in years of patient research to discover and collate concerning the life and labors of this remarkable man, who, in a ten-line paragraph based upon imperfect information, had, in his garret at Saint Dié, decided for all future time and christened the Western continent with the name that it bears today. Not all that M. d'Avesac asserts in his somewhat verbose narrative has been everywhere accepted as conclusively proven, but the essential features of Waldseemüller's history are there established beyond dispute.

Of his family and antecedents little or nothing is known beyond the fact that his parents lived in Freiburg, where Martin was born about 1481, and on the 7th of De

[ocr errors]

Ylacomi

ler), and as "Hylacomylus," lus," or "Ilacomilus," the Freiburger savant comes down to us through the centuries. At what precise date or under what circumstances he first went to Saint Dié can only be conjectured. It was apparently in 1504 or 1505, at which time he was in his twenty-second or twenty-third year. He was then an accomplished Greek and Latin scholar, a skilful mathematician and draughtsman, and was inspired and excited by the geographical discoveries which were then reconstructing men's ideas of the physical globe. The pious members of the Vosgian Gymnase, whose proposed revision of Ptolemy was to be based on the original Greek text, apparently engaged for the work of

CITADEL OF SAINT DIÉ AT THE TIME OF THE GYMNASE VOSGIEN.

cember, 1490, was enrolled by Rector Conrad Knoll as a primary student in the university of that town, which had already become renowned as a seat of advanced learn ing. Notwithstanding his extreme youth, the boy became a laborious and brilliant student, with a marked taste for science and poesy. It was the custom for learned men in those times to conceal their personal identity under a classical pseudonyme, and accordingly the young graduate at Freiburg assumed a Greco-Latin ized version of his family name, and called himself" Martinus Hylacomylus." That is, the German Wald-see-müller (miller of the lake in the woods) was converted into a combination of the Greek words "hyle" (forest) and "mylos" (mil

revision the young secu

lar scholar, who, being fresh from the university lectures, would possess all the latest information which had not yet become current in textbooks, maps, or globes.

The new maps, charts, and tables were to form an important feature of the revised Ptolemy, and to aid in the work of preparing them, the gymnase called in the assistance of another ardent young savant, Matthias Ringmann, who, as the event proved, was admirably qualified for that duty. Ringmann was, from all accounts, a man of extraordinary zeal and versatility. Of his family nothing has been ascertained, but his parents must have been in comfortable circumstances to afford their son the careful and thorough education that he received. He was born in 1482, near the monastery of Paeris, in a valley of the Vosges. The monks recognized his precocity, and gave him careful rudimentary instruction, hoping to secure his bright intellect for the service of the Church; but he showed no inclination toward a religious calling, and at an early age he escaped from his saintly teachers and entered the University of Heidelberg, where he became a laborious student and enthusiastic disciple of the eminent Alsatian scientist Professor Jacques Wimpfeling. From Heidelberg he went

[graphic]

to Paris, where he continued his study of Greek, and underwent a course of instruction in poesy and literature under Andrelino, the renowned Latin rhetorician. This was about the year 1500, when the discoveries of Columbus, Cabot, and Alonzo de Ojeda had set the educated world aflame. Ringmann shared in the new enthusiasm, and took up a thorough course in mathematics and cosmography under Lefevre d'Etaples, then the most distinguished teacher of France in that department of science. He studied at Paris until 1503, when, at the age of twenty-one, he returned to Strasburg, bringing with him a copy of the memorable letter which Americus Vespucius had written from Cape Verde in June, 1501, to his patron, Lorenzo de' Medici, at Florence, giving a somewhat superficial account of his third voyage of discovery. This letter had been translated from Italian into French by Jean Giocondo, of Verona, and a small edition of it published at Paris. The letter was a mere sketch, written at an early date during the voyage, but it contained so much that was new and interesting that Ringmann translated it into Latin, and published it in pamphlet form at Strasburg in August, 1503, under the title, "De Ora Antarctic per regem Portugalliae pridem inventa."

While still a student at Heidelberg he had assumed the classic title "Philesius Vogesigena "-Philetius of the Vosges and under this mellifluous pseudonyme he now entered upon the serious work of his life. He was not only a ripe classical scholar, but was master of French, German, and Italian, and knew theoretically all that was then to be known of geography and astronomy. His publication of the Vespucius letter had given him admission to the world of literature; he wrote and published several short poems of more or less merit, and in March, 1506, he was called across the Vosges to Saint Dié, to assist Waldseemüller in the translation and preparation of maps for the forth-coming edition of Ptolemy.

Hylacomylus and Philetius entered upon their task with the ardor of devotees. The Ptolemaic text, which had become corrupted by filtration through six successive Latin editions, was carefully compared with the original Greek, errors of

[graphic][merged small]

print and translation were corrected, and copious additions made to harmonize the work with recent discoveries. As the task progressed the two young men were constantly impressed with the absurdity of publishing as an authority on geography a treatise written during the second century of Christ, which contained little beyond the limits of the Roman Empire of that period, and no hint of the brilliant discoveries of later times. Just at this moment there arrived at Saint Dié a messenger from Duke René, at Nancy, bringing the manuscript of a report written by Americus Vespucius at Lisbon, under date of September 4, 1504, giving an account of the four successive voyages of discovery that he had made between May, 1497, and June, 1504. How remote from our day of telegraphs and railway mail service was that plodding age, when nearly two years were required for a piece of news like that to travel from Portugal to eastern France! But it came at last, and fell into ready and appreciative hands. Duke René, as the Mæcenas of

COSMOGRAPHIAE INTRODVCTIO; CVM QVIBVSDAM GEOMETRIAE

AC

ASTRONO

MIAE PRINCIPIIS
ADEAM REM NECESSARIIS

Infuper quatuor Americi Ve
fpucij nauigationes.

Vniuerfalis Chofmographie defcriptio
tam in folido plano/cis etiam
infertis quç Ptholomço
ignota a nuperis

reperta funt.

DISTICHON

Cum deus aftra regat & terræ climata Cæsar Nec tellus nec cis fydera maius habent,

TITLE-PAGE OF "COSMOGRAPHIAE INTRODUCTIO."

the gymnase, had forwarded the manuscript to Guatrin Lud as material of obvious utility for the new edition of Ptolemy, and Lud of course turned it over to Waldseemüller and Ringmann. Unable to await, with such precious information in their hands, the slow evolution of the Ptolemy, they conceived the idea of issuing at once a new globe and planisphere to be designed by Ringmann, and in connection therewith a rudimentary treatise on cosmography, explaining the principles of latitude and longitude, the direction of winds and ocean currents, the zodiacal signs, etc. This was to be written by Waldseemüller; and as an appendix or second part of the volume there would be added the full text of Vespucius's narrative, which was then not only the latest and most complete, but the only written account that had been received in central Europe of the newly discovered lands beyond the sea.

The gymnase approved the plan, and thus was born the Cosmographiae Introductio, the little book with a destiny so far beyond the dreams of the men who

wrote and gave it to the world. Latin was then the universal language of literature and science. Hylacomylus wrote his Rudiments in classic phrase which did credit to his university, and the long narrative of Vespucius was translated by Jean Basin into Latin the purity and grace of which are still admired. The book, as it was subsequently published, presented the anomaly of an original volume made up of two parts or subjects having only an incidental connection with each other; for it may well be doubted whether the Florentine Vespucius ever heard of Waldseemüller or the Vosgian Gymnase. Hylacomylus was, however, full of ardent admiration for the recital by Vespucius, and in several passages of his text alludes to it ("ut in sequentibus audietur") very much as a modern editorial writer refers to an important special telegram which appears in another column of his journal. The whole of the Introductio sparkles with the eagerness of its author to show how fully he realized the value and importance of the discoveries which, as he then supposed, had been made by Vespucius.

The manuscript of the Cosmographiae was begun during the summer of 1506, within a month, it may be, of the day when Christopher Columbus, poor, neglected, and discredited at court, was sinking into his unhonored grave. It was finished during the following winter, printers were engaged from Basel and Strasburg, and the first edition was published under the date of "vij kl. Maij," 1507, which corresponds to the 25th of April in that year.

The success of the enterprise was immediate and extraordinary. Four editions of the Cosmographiae were published at Saint Dié during the space of five months, two bearing the date of April 25th, and two more marked the "iiii kl. Septembris," which corresponds to the 29th of August.

II. THE COSMOGRAPHIAE INTRODUCTIO may be described as follows: The volume is in quarto, and comprises fifty-two leaves, besides one double or folding leaf, hav ing on one side a map of the two hemispheres, and on the other a description of the same. Counting this folding leaf, the book contains, therefore, 108 pages of

twenty-seven lines each, printed in large roman type on strong hand-made paper. The water-mark in the paper is the bull's head. The pages are not numbered, but each leaf bears at the bottom a printer's mark, or "signature" ("Aij," "Aijj," etc.), to indicate the "form" or cahier to which it belongs. The first and second Saint Dié editions show numerous abbreviations and typographical errors incident to a publication hurriedly turned out in a new printing-office, but these were mainly corrected in the two subsequent issues, and the whole four rank as fine examples of the bookmakers' art of that period. The text of the title-page is identical in the four editions, but its typographical arrangement is so different that an expert can readily tell from the first line of the title to which of the successive issues a copy of the book belongs. In the first edition of April 25th the initial phrases of the title are thus arranged:

COSMOGRAPHIAE INTRODVCTIO/
CVM QVIBVS

DAM GEOME

TRIAE

AC
ASTRONO

MIAE PRINCIPIIS AD

EAM REM NECESSARIIS.

Insuper quatuor Americi Ve

spucij nauigationes.

ther Nicholas, and the two interlaced initials "I M" for Martinus Ilacomilus. The circle indicates the globe as the emblem of cosmography, and the double cross of Lorraine shows that the publication was made within that province and under the patronage of its reigning duke.

Returning now to the beginning of the volume, we find on the reverse of the titlepage an eleven-line dedication addressed to Maximilian Augustus Cæsar by Ringmann, apostrophizing the Emperor as the Sacred Monarch of all the World, and commending to his favor the author of the present book, "who has dedicated it

[merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

The full title of the book may be trans- to Thee in proof of his devotion." Then lated as follows:

Introduction to cosmography, together with some principles of geometry necessary to the purpose. Also four voyages of Americus Vespucius. A description of universal geography, both stereometrical and planometrical, together with what was unknown to Ptolemy, and has been recently discovered. Distich: Neither the earth nor the stars possess anything greater than God or Cæsar, for God rules the stars and Cæsar the climes of the earth.

The date of publication appears at the end of the volume in three short lines at the base of the colophon, which is the special signature or trade-mark of the printing-office of Guatrin and Nicholas Lud at Saint Dié.

In the adjoining column is a fac-simile of the colophon and date as they appear in the first and second, usually known as the May, editions. In the third and fourth editions this mark is the same, except that the words "iiii kl. Septembris "replace "vij kl. Maij".

The meaning of this design is sufficiently obvious. S. D. stands for Saint Dié, G. L. for Guatrin Lud, N. L. for his bro

follows the formal dedication of the work to the Emperor Maximilian by Waldseemüller himself, in a high-sounding address, which, with its head-lines-"DIVO MAXIMILIANO CAESARI AUGUSTO MARTINUS ILACOMILVS FOELICITATEM OPTAT" - fills three entire pages, explaining the motives which inspired its author, who therein places himself under the protection of his "Sacred Majesty, who holds in his hands the empire of the earth," etc.

In view of what afterwards happened to this florid dedication, a translation of its opening paragraph will be interesting:

"For these reasons, in comparing on my own part, with the aid of some collaborators, the books of Ptolemy with the Greek text, and in addition thereto an examination of the four voyages of Americus Vespucius, I have pre

pared for the use of studious men and as a preparatory introduction a figure of the whole earth under the form of a globe and planisphere, and I have resolved to dedicate it to Your Majesty, who holds in his hands the do

« ZurückWeiter »