1594: The End Point for an Influential Maker of Maps and Globes

December 2, 1594

Gerardus Mercator, whose influential work in cartography included a seminal 1569 map that depicted sailing courses worldwide, died at the age of 82 in the city of Duisburg in present-day Germany. He had been born on March 5, 1512, in the town of Rupelmonde in what is now Belgium. Mercator established a niche for himself as an authoritative mapmaker long before the existence of GPS and other electronic means to help people get from point A to point B.

Mercator’s major works included a map of the world that he produced in 1538 and a six-panel map of Europe that was completed in 1554. His crowning achievement, however, was his 1569 map. This map is essentially a nautical chart on which lines of both longitude and latitude are spaced evenly in such a way that sailing courses of constant bearing are represented as straight lines, something that is now known as a loxodrome.

The map was titled Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata (Latin for New and more complete representation of the terrestrial globe properly adapted for use in navigation). It proved to be especially helpful to sailors of that time and ushered in a new era of navigation maps and charts. The organizational scheme for this map is known today as the Mercator projection. 

In creating his historic map, Mercator relied heavily not only on the work of fellow cartographers but also charts developed by Spanish and Portuguese sailors who had sailed well beyond shorelines and far out into sea for long-distance destinations. The practical charts prepared by these experienced sailors had previously been ignored in large part by cartographers. 

Mercator also distinguished himself as the first person to regularly use the word “atlas” to describe a collection of maps. In addition, he was widely considered to be the leading European globemaker of his time. (The attached portrait of Mercator was created in 1574 by Frans Hogenberg [1535-1590]).

Image Credit: Public Domain

For more information on Gerardus Mercator, please check out https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/gerardus-mercator/m0gkbp?hl=en