Freiburger historische Bestände - digital

Columbus and Magellan, when their claims as " discoverers
" were called in question. Sebastiao Francisco de
Mendo Trigozo,1 the author of a ' Memoria sobre Martin
de Bohemia' ('Memorias de Litteratura Portugueza,' t.
VIII., 1812; 2nd ed. Lisbon, 1856) is almost wholly
dependent upon Murr for his facts.

After a long interval Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm
Ghillany,2 a man of learning and from 1841-53 Chief
Librarian of the Town Library at Nuremberg, presented us
with a ' Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim '
(Niirnberg, 1853), an ambitious work, to which is prefixed
an Essay by A. von Humboldt on the oldest maps of the
new continent and the name ' America,' and which is
illustrated by what claims to be an " exact copy of
Behaim's globe on its original scale." Ghillany did his
work with much industry; he dealt with Behaim's life and
controverted points of his history as fully as the materials
at his command permitted, and it might be supposed that
the last word had been spoken on the subject. Such,
however, was not the case, as is proved by Dr. Siegmund
Giinther's3 'Martin Behaim' (Bamberg, 1890), which
made known new documents which shed much light upon
certain periods of Behaim's history, and thus produced a
work at once popular and indispensable to the student of
history. The account which Lucien Gallois renders of
Behaim's kfe and work,4 as we have a right to expect from
its gifted author, is instructive, but fails to shed fresh
light upon subjects in dispute; the article in the
' Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie,' by J. Lowenberg6 is
disappointing, if not worthless, and it seems a pity that
this biography was not entrusted to a more painstaking
writer; whilst A. Reichenbach's ' Martin Behaim, ein
deutscher Seefahrer' (Leipzig, 1869) may be a good
' Volksbuch,' but cannot be appealed to as an authority.

In the work which I now venture to present to the
public I shall deal with sufficient fulness with Martin
Behaim's private life, his supposed scientific attainments
and his voyage along the coast of Africa, and I shall give
equal attention to a full description of his globe, which is
still preserved at Nuremberg, and which, whatever its
defects, is one of the most valuable and interesting

1 S. F. de Mendo Trigozo wrote in 1812.

2 Ghillany was born at Erlangen in 1807 and died in 1876. Already
in 1842 he had published a pamphlet, ' Der Erdglobus des Martin Behaim
vom J. 1492, u. der des Johann Schoener vom J. 1520,' with a reduced
facsimile of the Western Hemisphere by Heideloff, a drawing master.

3 S. Giinther, Professor of Geography at the Technical High School of
Munich, is one of the great authorities on mathematical and historical
geography. He was born at Niirnberg in 1848.

* ' Les geographes allemands de la renaissance' (Paris, 1890), pp. 25-37.
L. Gallois, Professor at the Ew>le normale superieure at Paris, was b. 1857.

5 J. Lowenberg, a writer on the history of geographic exploration, was
born at Strzelno (Posen), and died at Berlin, 1853.

geographical monuments of the age immediately
preceding the discovery of America. This globe, up till
now, has not been fairly dealt with. Its legends, indeed,
have in part been quoted and a few of its geographical
names, but no real facsimile of it has ever been published,
still less have the authorities been traced and analysed
upon whom its delineation of the earth's surface is based.
The facsimile which I now present to the public may not
be the best that could have been produced, but it is at all
events on the scale of the original, and contains all its
legends, names and miniatures not to be found in any of
the pseudo-facsimiles published hitherto. In my work I
also deal in some detail with the materials available in
1492 for compiling a map of the known world, thus
enabling the reader to form some judgment of the skill
with which the cartographers of that period have availed
themselves of the materials which were at their disposal.6

In conclusion I feel it my duty to express my thanks
to a number of gentlemen who have kindly given me
their assistance. At Nuremberg my thanks are especially
due to the Barons F. and W. Behaim, who not only
allowed me to take photographs of the globe, of the
portrait of their kinsman, and of a letter written by him,
but also permitted to be printed from an original block by
Albert Diirer a design of their coat of arms. They likewise
afforded to myself and my kind friend, Professor
M. J. Rackl, repeated opportunities for examining the
globe. Facilities for research were most courteously
granted me by Dr. G. von Bezold, Director of the
Germanic Museum, Dr. E. Mummenhof, Keeper of the
City Records, and Dr. E. Reicke, city librarian. Dr. G.
von Laubmann, Director of the Royal Library at Munich,
and Sr. Gabriel Pereira, of the Bibliotheca Nacional, have
most readily responded to my numerous inquiries for
information. Dr. K. R. Scheppig, Director of the
Anthropological Museum at Kiel, has generously placed
at my service valuable information collected by himself
for a work on Behaim upon which he is engaged.
M. G. A. Marcel, Keeper of Maps at the Bibliotheque
nationale at Paris, has afforded me every facility for making
a copy of the real facsimile of Behaim's globe in his
charge. Among many others my thanks are due more
especially to Sr. Raphael Eduardo de Azevedo Basto,
chief of the Torre do Tombo, Consul-general H. Daen-
hardt, and my friend Captain E. J. de Carvalho e Vascon-
cellos at Lisbon ; the family of Count Mirbach of Schloss
Harff, D. Jules Mees, Professor Albrecht Penck, Dr.
Henry Vignaud and others.

6 The present work supersedes as a matter of course the author's
essay, ' Martin de Bohemia,' 8vo, pp. 68, published in the ' Bibliotheca da
Revista Portugueza colonial e maritima,' Lisbon, 1900.