This map was published in Nuremberg (1607), in a much-reduced version, surrounded by vignettes of alternative ways in which other civilisations have recorded the passage of time. The present map is the second issue of the larger map, and here signed ‘Ritter fac A.o 1640’, in 

's ‘Speculum Solis' (‘Mirror of the Sun’), a book about sundials.

This world map is rendered on a gnomonic projection, which displays characteristically straight lines of longitude, as well as any great circle line of bearing. The landmasses are drawn to scale in proportion to their distance from the pole. The result is a very distorted, though mathematically correct, projection. Ritter's world map is projected from Nuremberg, with its lines of longitude arrayed to serve also as hour lines suitable for a sundial.

The Sunderland Collection

Franz Ritter was a mathematician from Nuremberg who published the first map on a gnomonic projection. An ancient technology used by Greek mariners as early as the sixth century BCE, this projection displays all great circles as straight lines, resulting in any straight-line segment showing a geodesic, the shortest route between the segment's two endpoints. This is the second edition of Ritter’s map, engraved by Peter Troeschel.

Ritter's plates for maps were intended to be used as sundials, hence very few have survived. Based on the precise unique gnomonic projection for each location of the sundial, lines of bearing could be drawn with an extended piece of string. The earlier edition of the map is surrounded by ten diagrams that show the viewer how to measure and record the passage of time.

Franz Ritter's 'Speculum Solis' ('Mirror of the Sun') from which this map derives, was a work on sundials that containing a number of maps using the gnomonic projection. Ritter's plates for 'Mirror of the Sun' were intended to be used as sundial instruments, and as a result, very few survive.

The map is decorated throughout with engravings of animals, sea monsters, ships, and a few unusual creatures, reminiscent of those found in the border of the world map in Hartmann Schedel’s 'Nuremberg Chronicle' of 1492.

This highly unusual map shows the world projected from the North Pole. The projection, called a gnomonic, or sundial projection, which is named after the central point of a sundial. The landmasses are drawn to scale in proportion to their distance from the pole. The result is very distorted, though mathematically correct.

Ritter's Map of the World