Martin Waldseemüller and Mathias Ringmann.
Cosmographiae introductio. St. Dié: 1507.
Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (141)
Cosmographiae Introductio
The Cosmographiae introductio, written by Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann and printed in St. Dié, France, in 1507, was meant to be a guidebook to Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, the Universalis cosmographiae. The text describes the necessary geographic and cartographic information that a viewer would need in order to understand Waldseemüller’s representation of the world. In it, Waldseemüller and Ringmann also describe their reasons for naming the New World “America” after Amerigo Vespucci.