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sailing from Spain, he discovered several islands, previously
unknown, wherefor he was knighted by the Emperor, who
also testified that of all citizens of the Empire he was the
traveller who had gone furthest.1 He settled and married in
such islands, and had heirs, and presented the Town Council
with the Globum terrestrum which until recently stood in
one of the upper reception rooms 3 of the Town Hall."

Wagenseil, who was a man of learning, must have
been fully aware of the utter untrustworthiness of his
authorities, and we might treat his servile adulatory
address with contempt had not his assertions been accepted
by authors of some repute, though little judgment, even
down to the beginning of this twentieth century.

Nurembergers naturally were the first to follow up
the false lead of their townsman Wagenseil. Magnus
David Omeis in 'De claris quibusdam Norimbergen-
sibus ' (Norimb., 1683, p. 23), Johann Wiilfer, Professor at
the Aegidian Gymnasium, in his ' O ratio de majoribus
oceani insulis' (Norimb., 1691, pp. 98-102), Joh. Phil, von
Wurzelbau (b. 1651 at Nuremberg, d. 1752) in the dedicatory
epistle to his ' Vranies Noricae basis astronomico-
geographico' (Norimb., 1697); Christian Cellarius (b.
1638, d. 1707, Professor of History at Halle) in his
' Historia medii aevi' (Jena, 1698, p. 214) and F. C. Hagen
in 'Memoriae Philosophorum' (Bairuth, 1710, p. 221),
these all blindly accept Wagenseil as their guide. Prof.
J. F. Stiiven, of Giessen, in his ' Dissertatio de vero novi
orbis inventore' (Francof., 1704, cc. 5, 6), which he is
bold enough to call a "dissertatio historica critica,"
claims on behalf of his " godlike hero " that he discovered
the Azores and America as far south as Magellan Strait,
that he depicted his discoveries upon a chart which he
presented to King Affonso (who died 1481!), and that
Colon and Magellan saw this chart. " The glory of
having been the first to discover America is due to
Martin Behaim, and from this source Columbus derived a
better knowledge of the route he had to follow; but be
the credit due to Behaim or to Columbus, they both were
great navigators (navarchi), of lofty spirit, and that which
was happily begun by the one was carried to a happy end
by the other." Stiiven suggests that the chart which D.
Pedro is reported to have brought from Venice in 1428
was in reality the work of Behaim, whom he does not
hesitate to identify with Juan Sanchez, of Huelva, the
pilot reported to have died in the house of Columbus !

Michael Friedrich Lochner, the learned physician, in
his ' Commentarium de Ananasa ' (Norimb., 1716) follows
Wagenseil, and suggests that America ought to have been
named " Occidental Bohemia " ; E. D. Hauber, the author
of a 'Versuch einer Historie der Land-Charten ' (Ulm,

1 Wagenseil'a rendering of the Emperor's remarks (' Synopsis historiae
universalis, III., p. 529) reads as "ollows : " Martino Bohemo nemo unus
Imperii civium magis umquam peregrinator f uit magisque remotas orbis
adivit regiones."

2 Regimentsstuben. These were the reception or state rooms on the
upper floor of the Town Hall, where works of art and curiosities were
exhibited (E. Mumuienhof, ' Das Rathaus in Nuremberg').

1724), is content to quote Wagenseil and Stiiven. Even
J. C. Doppelmayr, to whom we are indebted for the first
" facsimile " of Behaim's globe, followed the misleading
authorities mentioned above, when writing the biography
in his ' Historische Nachrichten von den Nurnbergischen
Mathematicis und Kiinstlern' (Niirnb., 1730). Nor is a
single new fact put forward or blunder removed by G. A.
Will, who, in the ' Niirnbergisches Gelehrten Lexikon'
(Niirnb., I., 1755), bestows upon his hero the title of
** thalastus," and thinks that America and Magellan's Strait
ought by rights to have been named " Western Behaimia "
and " Behaim Strait" ; by J. S. Moerl, in his ' Oratio de
meritis Norimbergensium in Geographiam,' or J. S. Fiirer
in an ' Oratio de Martino Behaimo,' both of which
orations may be found in the 1 Museum Noricoum'
published at Altdorf in 1759.

Prof. Geo. Christian Gebauer was the first to
challenge, in his ' Geschichte von Portugal' (Leipzig,
1759, 1., p. 125), these extravagant claims put forward by
ignorance or sycophancy on behalf of Martin Behaim.
Prof. Eobald Tozen of Gottingen still more vigorously
defended the claims of Columbus, as " the true and first
discoverer of the New World, against the unfounded
claims put forth on behalf of Vespucci and Martin
Behaim."3 The publication of Murr's ' Diplomatische
Geschichte' in 1778 ought entirely to have put a stop to
all speculations as to a discovery of the New World by
Behaim, prior to Columbus.4 It failed so to do. On
April 1, 1786, "ignorant and presumptuous" Otto, as
Harrisse5 calls him, addressed a letter and Memoir to
John Franklin, in which Behaim is credited with the
discovery and colonisation of Fayal in 1460, and of
Western America from Guyana (St. Brandan's island of
his globe) southward as far as the strait of Patagonia in
1484. His knighthood, bestowed in 1485, was the reward
of these achievements.6 It was easy to refute these
astounding propositions. The Count Giovanni Rinaldo
Carli7 did so in a letter published in 1792 in ' Opusculi
scelti sulle scienze e sulle arti' (t. XV., pp. 73-97);
Christdbal Cladera in ' Investigaciones historicas' (Madrid,
1794). Both these authors were of course acquainted
with the work of Murr, of which the latter gives a
translation. Since then no writer of weight has ventured
to claim Behaim as a " forerunner " of Columbus,8 though

3 ' Der wahre und erste Entdecker der neuen Welt, Christopher Colon,
gegen die unbegriindeten Anspriiche welche A. Vespucci und M. Behaim
auf diese Ehre machen vertheidigt,' Gottingen, 1761. This essay was
first printed in the ' Hannoversche Beytrage.'

* Apart, of course, from the discoveries made by the Northmen, which
had been forgotten in the fifteenth century.

5 • Bibl. Ainer. vestutissima,' 1866, p. 38.

8 1 Transactions of the American Philosophic Society held in Philadelphia
,' II. (Philad., II., 1726), pp. 263-284. A translation in ' Archives
Litteraires de l'Europe,' 1805, May and June.

* Count Giovanni Rinaldo Carli was born at Capo d'Istria, 1720,
was Professor of Astronomy and Naval Science at Venice, 1741-49, and
died 1795. A first edition of his ' Opusculi scelti' was published in 1778.

8 Loher,' Geschichte der Deutschen in Amerika ' (Cincin., 1847), is one
of the last to do so.