’s new edition of the 'Geographia' was first published in 1513 by Johannes Schott in Strasbourg (a notable printer of Reformist and Humanist works) and reissued in 1520 using the same woodblocks. 

The 'Admiral’s Map' is the first of two maps in Waldseemüller’s atlas. It relates to New World discoveries and radically departs from the Ptolemaic model. One of the most striking features of this map is the proliferation of intersecting loxodromes - more commonly known as rhumb lines. This conventional feature was designed to aid navigators when following compass bearings: they appear on traditional nautical charts of the time and particularly on portolan charts.

This map is the third available printed map to show the 'discovery' of the 'New World', labelled as 'Terra Incognita' in the region off the coast of Brazil. Cuba ('Isabella') and Hispaniola ('Spagnola') are the only named islands of the West Indies with a large landmass in South America, derived from the voyages of Portuguese Pedro Álvares Cabral (1467-1520). Further to the north, Newfoundland and the explorations of John Cabot are marked as an incomplete, unlabelled landmass.

In Europe, Greenland is connected to Scandinavia as a peninsula and the British Isles are substantially altered from their Ptolemaic predecessors. Early Portuguese voyages likely provided the sources for the coast of Africa and the newly drawn outlines of Arabia, the Indian sub-continent, and the Malay Peninsula (although there is still confusion between it and the 'peninsula' of China).

The Sunderland Collection

This striking map comes from Martin Waldseemüller's 1520 edition of Claudius Ptolemy's 'Geographia'. It is known as the 'Admiral's Map' because Waldseemüller attributes Christopher Columbus, the 'Admiral of the Ocean Sea' as a source of cartographic information.

This influential work was accompanied by twenty 'modern' maps in the 'Geographia', which were a radical update to Ptolemy's traditional maps and expanded on the Ptolemaic projection that had dominated earlier European cartography. The edition was hugely influential on other mapmakers, such as Petrus Apianus, Sebastian Münster and Gerard Mercator.

The map was created for inclusion in Waldseemüller's 1520 edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s 'Geographia', and was the opening map for the section of twenty modern maps added to the twenty-seven Ptolemaic originals.

Waldseemüller's atlases are considered the first 'modern' atlases. His 1507 wall map of the world was one of the most influential maps ever printed and was the first to label the New World as 'America'. Despite dropping the name 'America' in subsequent editions in 1513 and this 1520 map, Waldseemüller’s term was adopted by later mapmakers such as Sebastian Münster, Petrus Apianus, and Gerard Mercator, who all ensured its survival.

Known as the 'Admiral’s Map', this is only the third printed map to show the European 'discovery' of the Americas. As the title suggests, Martin Waldseemüller abandoned Ptolemaic conventions, which suggested that the 'New World' can be reached by all who can sail.

Waldseemüller's 'Admiral's Map'