Published in Stobnicza’s ‘Introductio in Ptholomei Cosmographia[m]’ - Introduction to the Cosmography of Ptolemy – (1512).

Johannes Stobnicza (c. 1470-1530?), a specialist in metaphysics, held the chair of cosmography at Kracow and later entered the Franciscan order there. His ‘Introductio’ is one of the most important early items of Americana, and contains several passages on Amerigo Vespucci and his discoveries. The work is notable for its early description of the Isthmus of Panama, seemingly a year before its official “discovery” by Núñez de Balboa. The two hemispheres appear to have been published for inclusion in a very small number of copies of the work. In ‘Early Polish Americana’ (1937), Yarmonlinksy traces just twenty-one known examples of the book; six undated, and fifteen dated. There is no consensus as to whether the map is an integral part of the book, but according to Yarmolinsky, only four copies (Vienna, Munich, Breslau, all of which are now missing; and John Carter Brown) of the twenty-one known of both issues include the map. To this we can add the present example, first recorded by Burden in the corrigenda to Burden II, and the example at the Bodleian noted by Shirley.

Derived from the inset maps of Waldseemüller’s famous 1507 wall map of the world, the “Birth certificate of America”. The maps, published in Kraków, demonstrate the wide dispersal of Waldseemüller’s great wall map - produced in St Die in Lorraine - throughout early 16th-century Europe. The only surviving example of Waldseemüller’s map, now housed in the Library of Congress, is dateable to 1516, some four years after Stobnicza’s work.

The maps are constructed using a partial and sub-spherical projection truncated at the poles, which, according to the historian Henry Harrisse, may be considered a precursor to Mercator’s 

.

Stobnicza’s map of the Western Hemisphere shows two large masses of North and South America, with a continuous coastline from 50° north to 40° south latitude, connected by a narrow strip of land dividing the ocean between Asia and Europe. A vast ocean to the west of the Americas, on the face of it a year before the first European, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, reported its existence. Stobnicza, like Waldseemüller before him, labels South America “Terra Incognita” indicating, according to Harrisse, that they possessed only hypothetical reasons for delineating the Pacific coast. Stobnicza follows Waldseemüller in showing Cuba, under its traditional name Isabella, as part of the American mainland, but otherwise, only a few small details have been added, such as an elephant in South Africa and a bird in Madagascar.

Johannes Stobnicza (c. 1470–1530) held the chair of cosmography at Jagiellonian University, Kraków and later entered the Franciscan order there. His ‘Introductio in Ptholomei Cosmographiam’ (Introduction to the Cosmography of Ptolemy) of 1512 is one of the most important early writings on the Americas and contains several passages on Amerigo Vespucci and his discoveries. The work is notable for its early description of the Isthmus of Panama, seemingly a year before its official discovery by Núñez de Balboa. 

Stobnicza’s world maps were derived from a famous wall map created by 

 (c. 1470–1520), a German cartographer, in 1507. Waldseemüller made this map for a new edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s ‘

’ sponsored by a French association of humanists known as Gymnasium Vosagense, in the Duchy of Lorraine. He was joined in this project by the geographer Matthias Ringmann who had worked on a previous edition of the ‘

’. Both men are credited with the first recorded usage of the word ‘America’ to name the 

 in honour of Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci who had completed two voyages to the new continent between 1499 and 1502. Waldseemüller was also the first to map South America as a continent separate from Asia, the first to produce a printed globe, and the first to create a printed wall map of Europe. A set of his maps printed as an appendix to the 1513 edition of Ptolemy's ‘

’ is considered to be the first example of a modern atlas. The only surviving example of Waldseemüller’s map, now housed in the Library of Congress, is dateable to 1516, some four years after Stobnicza’s work.

Produced in Poland by the highly respected local cartographer Johannes Stobnicza, this map of the Western Hemisphere pairs with a second map of the Western Hemisphere (SC-TM-1512-Stobincza-EasternHemisphere) forming a small, yet detailed view of the world based on part of 

's legendary wall map (1507).

The Stobnicza maps are extremely rare and are the first to separate out the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. While they are very small and appear quite simple, closer inspection reveals wonderful details such as clouds, windheads, an elephant in southern Africa and a bird in Madagascar.

During the late-eighteenth century, [Stobnicza’s maps] had great status and encouraged many questions, including how such an advanced map[s] came to be produced in Poland, well away from the centres of cartographic knowledge. When, in 1901, Professor J. Fischer discovered the great twelve-sheet world map of 1507 by 

, it became clear that Stobnicza had drawn from the two small insets at the top. In 1892, Harrisse showed that Stobnicza was acquainted with the geographical work of the St Dié Gymnasium in Lorraine...; this was before the discovery of the Waldseemüller map which was produced there.

Second half of an exceptionally rare pair of maps, one of only three known, based on
insets from 

’s wall-map of the world (1507), known in only one example. In effect, the first separately printed map of the Western Hemisphere.

This pair is one of only three known extant examples. The others are located at: the Bodleian Library, Oxford (B.1.c.12); and the John Carter Brown Library. Burden II cites three known examples - JCB, Munich, and Vienna (the last two now missing), but with the following note to the corrigenda in Burden II that refers to the present pair of maps: “A further example was discovered in 2003 bound inside an example of Ptolemaeus’s ‘Geographicae’ published in Lyons in 1535. It now resides in a private American collection” (Burden II vii).

Second half of a pair of woodcut maps of the West and East hemispheres of the world, watermarked with a stylized bull’s-head with caduceus, similar to Meder 81, with countermark of bull’s-head surmounted by a cross, similar to Piccard XVI-371 and Bricquet 15409.


Stobnicza's Western Hemisphere