This work was 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 ‘Geographia’. 

 and Matthias Ringmann began collaboration on their edition of Ptolemy in 1507 with Ringmann travelling to Italy to obtain a Greek manuscript of the ‘Geographia’, which is now held in the Vatican Library (Vat. Grec. 191). With this key reference progress accelerated, however completion was stalled in 1508 by the death of their patron, Duke René II of Lorraine. The new edition was not published until 1513 by Johannes Schott in Strasbourg. By then, Waldseemüller had pulled out of the project and was not credited for his cartographic work. Nevertheless, his maps were recognised as important contributions to the science of cartography and were considered a standard reference work for many decades. 

The atlas was reprinted in 1520 using the same woodcut blocks. The only surviving example of Waldseemüller’s map, now housed in the Library of Congress, is dateable to 1516.

This striking world map maintains the Ptolemaic projection and many of the traditional features, such as the 'Mare Congelatum' in the North, the climatic zone divisions, and lines of longitude and latitude. However, it also reflects contemporary knowledge and does not include the land bridge between Southern Africa and Asia, which in traditional Ptolemaic maps, landlocked the Indian Ocean. Instead, the southern edge of the map is left open - a feature which was first illustrated in 

’s 1511 issue of Ptolemy's 'Geographia'. 

’s rejection of Claudius Ptolemy’s southern continent stemmed from his familiarity with the Portuguese voyages along the west coast of Africa and around the Cape of Good Hope. 

The Sunderland Collection

This striking windswept map on a Ptolemaic projection comes from Martin Waldseemüller's 1513 edition of Claudius Ptolemy's 'Geographia'. Waldseemüller was a hugely influential and pioneering cartographer. His edition of 'Geographia' was significant because it contained twenty ‘modern’ maps alongside the traditional Ptolemaic maps represented in all the earlier versions of the atlas. It also included one of the earliest references to the New World as ‘America’, in honour of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512).

Geographically, this map is a unique combination of ancient cartography with contemporary knowledge, which includes information from explorations of the Americas and voyages around Africa. Surrounding the map is a series of twelve exquisitely rendered windheads with expressive, individualised features.

This map was among the twenty-seven maps that were included in the first part of Waldseemüller's 1513 edition of Ptolemy's 'Geographia.' His edition was the first to map South America as a continent separate from Asia, and also contains the first printed instance of the name 'America' being applied to the discoveries across the Atlantic: 'The fourth part of the earth, we have decided to call Amerige, the land of Amerigo we might even say, or America because it was discovered by Amerigo'.

His supplement of twenty 'modern' maps, ('Tabulae Modernae') was included as a separate appendix, titled 'Claudii Ptolemaei Supplementem', and is considered to be the first modern atlas. Maps of Lorraine and the Upper Rhine Region in Germany were the first printed maps of those regions and were probably based on survey work carried out by Waldseemüller himself.

Although this map is based on Ptolemaic principles, interestingly, it does not include the land bridge between Southern Africa and Asia, land-locking the Indian Ocean. Instead, the southern edge of the map is left open and shows Ocean to the neat-line.

Waldseemüller's Amended Ptolemaic World Map