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This page contains explanatory notes and background information on various entries on the Books and Maps pages.
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Johannes Schöner

The Monumenta Cartographica editor (Dr. Frederik Caspar Wieder, Librarian of the University of Leiden) has interpreted a “PERISCH” legend on one of the globe gores as follows:

“If this word is divided into three parts, we get the meaning of it: PER I SCH, the I indicating Joannes, the SCH Schöner, i. e. per I. Schöner— by Johannes Schöner.”

However, the legend is in fact “PERISCII”—a word to describe “Those who live within a polar circle, whose shadows, during some summer days, will move entirely round, falling toward every point of the compass.” (Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary). The word appears directly below the Antarctic circle on the globe gore. In The Mapping of the World, editor R. A. Skelton writes:

“The craftsman-artist could well be from the school of Schöner, … The gores are tentatively dated c. 1535; they could be earlier but are unlikely to be as early as 1523-24 as stated by Wieder.”

Martin Waldseemüller

Waldseemüller's map seems to favor Portugal over Spain. As noted by Peter Dickson (p. 28), “… there is no sign of the demarcation line established by the Treaty of Tordesillas … and “ … the placement of that little Portuguese flag near the southern end of what we know today as Argentina was quite brazen in legal terms.”

More to follow

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