Carta marina (Marine chart of the Portuguese navigations and of the whole known world), 12 woodcut sheets, 1516
Carta marina navigatoria Portugallen navigationes atque tocius cogniti orbis terre marisque formam naturam situs et terminos nostris temporibus recognitos et ab antiquorum traditione differentes ... hec generaliter indicat
Martin Waldseemueller (with Johann Schoener's annotations in this copy)
How we know
compilation Assembled from earlier sources. The author did not observe it directly.
Compilation: Portuguese marine charts for coasts; for inner Asia a fusion of Ptolemy, Marco Polo and medieval legend (Terra Mongal / vera Tartaria with the enthroned Khan); no observation.
Research notes
- Sole surviving copy, annotated by Johann Schoener; LOC also holds a manuscript copy of sheet 6 (item 2016586443). Inner-Asian content derives from Polo and Ptolemy rather than any 16th-century report; later Fries 1525 reduced copies exist.
- Found via LOC JSON search 'Carta marina Waldseemuller 1516' (2 hits).
Why it matters
Earliest printed map in the inventory to name Tartaria in the modern sense: sheet 3 carries TARTARIA across the steppe and the heading TERRA MONGAL ET QUE VERA TARTARIA DICITUR (Land of the Mongols, which is called true Tartary) with the enthroned Khan, alongside Cumania and Great Bulgaria, showing the 1516 equation Mongol land = Tartary and its placement north of Cathay/Sina.
Places named
Whole world; sheet 3: Russia, Moscovia, Tartaria, Cumanie, Bulgaria magna, Kangitarum regio, Samogedorum regio, Terra Mongal, Sinarum regio, India pars
Who copied whom
- Universalis cosmographia M003, 1507same tradition (stated)Carta marina parallels Waldseemüller 1507
- drawn from this one (stated)Fries 1522 from Waldseemüller's modern tables and the Carta marina 1516
Keep exploring
The maps drawn just before and just after this one.
