The Erdapfel Globe

Through the wonders of twitter I came across a fabulous bit of map history: the Erdapfel (German for Earth Apple), sometimes called the Globe of Martin Behaim. This is possibly the oldest surviving globe in the world and it was made in Nuremberg in 1492, the year Columbus sailed.

Here's a picture of it taken from this site:

There's a lot that's amazing about this map. For one, the creator of the map was quite well traveled for a person living in the late 15th Century. He personally visited Portugal and western Africa. He therefore received some of his knowledge for this globe first hand.

The globe also shows an empty expanse between the western part of Europe and the far east. That said, the map maker used some of the same sources as Columbus, or at the very least, he agreed with the Italian explorer that the world was round. 

The map contains some beautiful illustrations, like this huge whale and boats:

It also contains a great many inaccuracies, as can be imagined. Most notably, perhaps, Japan is further north than shown on this map. Malaysia is shown as a large peninsula and the shape of Africa is incorrect including the shape of Madagascar which is shown as north of Zanzibar.

Anyone who really wants to get into the fine details of this map can take a look at this very comprehensive history here, or this shorter summary, here.

Anyone who wants to see the globe, would have to go to the Germanic Museum in Nuremberg. It seems that in 2011 there was an effort to have the globe digitized, but I can't find any place online where it's viewable.

In all cases, this is an amazing piece of world history and map history and a real, visual time capsule of European understanding of the world at a time contemporary to Columbus.

Add it to the Wishlist: 1766 Map Showing Russian Discoveries of the West Coast of North America

At the time of my writing this post, I am planning a work-trip to Portland, Oregon. Naturally this got me thinking about maps of the region and I decided to see if I could find another west-coast of North America map to add to my virtual wishlist. I got some great ideas from a tweet from Vetus Carta (@rare_maps), an online, Ottawa-based, antique map dealer (as always, no affiliation).

Anyway, the tweet led me to the Vetus Carta site where this gorgeous 1766 of eastern Russia and western North America is on sale.

The image above is from Barry Lawrence Ruderman, where the image is available to zoom into in high-quality (and where it's on sale as well). Vetus Carta, though, provides an impressively detailed overview of the map, which, by the way, is properly titled Nouvelle Carte Des Decouvertes Faites par Des Vaisseaux Russiens Aux Cotes Inconnues De L'Amerique Septentrionale Avec Les Pais Adiacents ('New Map of Discoveries Made by Russian Vessels on the Unknown Coasts of North America with Adjacent Countries') published in Amsterdam in 1758 by Gerhard Friedrich Müller.

Anyone interested in the finer details of the map's history should visit the Vetus Carta site. From my perspective, one of the most important points of this history is that this map not only went on to inspire many other, contemporary map-makers, but that it helped to debunk some of the popular, though incorrect thinking about the region at the time. It was a groundbreaking map in that it was more scientific than other maps of the region that were already available.

Vetus Carta goes on to note some of the inaccuracies in this map, which, again, was more accurate than most of what was already out there: first, it shows a “River of the West” at the “entrance discovered by Martin d’Aguilar in 1609.” This river, which supposedly ran from Hudson's Bay to the Pacific, is a figment of someones imagination. There is also a supposed entrance into the continent that the map-maker says was discovered by Juan de Fuca in 1576, this is incorrect as well. There's also the incorrect shape of Alaska.

From my perspective, as a layperson who really enjoys these antique maps, there are some different things that have caused me to add it to my wishlist other than its historic significance.

I love the blanks on this map. Its amazing to think of a time when people looked at vast spaces of the world and said "we have no idea what's there". Of course, someone knew what was there, but the Russians who provided the information for this map, did not, and so we're left with an enormously large void whose contents could have been anything. For similar reasons, I love the inaccuracies in northern Quebec and around Hudson's Bay.

I also love the contrast in this map between the detailed Russian territory which appears to be a place that was known to European map makers on the one hand, and the supposed emptiness of North America on the other. The places seem so tantalizingly close to one another, and yet, the people living in the east, who knew their own lands, knew nothing of the west or the people in it.

Some of the annotations on this map are also wonderful. The indications of the voyages of Russian explorers are fascinating historic details, but comments like the one above are just great. It reads: 'Land about which we have claims from residents of Kamchatka, some of whom say that it can be seen from Bering Island'. This is just more reinforcement of how close the land of the map-maker is to the land about which he knows nothing, and how tempting such a place may be for an explorer.

This is really a great map, and one that I'd love to have if I could ever afford such wonderful things. Until then, I can enjoy it as part of my virtual wish-list collection.