IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001220183

The Armchair Discovery of the Unknown Southern Continent: Gerardus Mercator, Philosophical Pretensions and a Competitive Trade (2011)

Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Volume: 16
Pages: 505--541
Publication date: 2011
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Maps; atlases Cartography Geography Cosmography 16th century Renaissance Netherlands Mercator, Gerardus Ptolemy

The unknown southern continent is perhaps one of the most puzzling aspects of Gerardus Mercator's otherwise strikingly modern cartography. This paper is an attempt to reconsider it in view of Renaissance cosmology and to outline two factors that led Mercator to engage with the mythical terra australis over decades: his socio-professional status as an artisan and the desire to be a philosopher, on the one hand, and the harsh business of mapmaking in the Low Countries on the other. The resulting unknown southern continent was intimately connected to the classical tradition and geocentric cosmology but also to the specific social niche Mercator was trying to establish for himself.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001220183

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Krogt, Peter van der; (2009)
Gerard Mercator and His Cosmography: How the Atlas Became an Atlas (/p/isis/citation/CBB001034857/)

Article Marica Milanesi; (2015)
Storia antica e esperienza moderna nella geografia del Cinquecento. Gerardo Mercatore e la geografia degli antichi (/p/isis/citation/CBB908162276/)

Chapter Patricia Seed; (2015)
Unpasted: A Guide to Surviving Prints of Mercator’s Nautical Chart of 1569 (/p/isis/citation/CBB098106728/)

Chapter Marica Milanesi; (2015)
“Intentio Totius Cosmographiae” (/p/isis/citation/CBB711427460/)

Chapter Helga Hühnel; (2015)
“Geographica” from the First Half of the 16th Century (/p/isis/citation/CBB780036402/)

Chapter Peter van der Krogt; (2015)
Gerhard Mercator and his Cosmography: How the “Atlas” became an Atlas (/p/isis/citation/CBB487622403/)

Chapter Marcel van den Broecke; (2015)
Mercator and Ortelius: Two of a Kind? (/p/isis/citation/CBB167900475/)

Article Mosley, Adam; (2009)
The Cosmographer's Role in the Sixteenth Century: A Preliminary Study (/p/isis/citation/CBB001034854/)

Chapter Wouter Bracke; (2015)
A Royal Source for Mercator: The “Atlas Bruxellensis” by Christiaan Sgrooten (/p/isis/citation/CBB081165435/)

Chapter Jan de Graeve; (2015)
The Scientific Library of Gerhard Mercator (/p/isis/citation/CBB758557171/)

Book d'Hollander, Raymond; (2005)
Loxodromie et projection de Mercator (/p/isis/citation/CBB000772068/)

Book Gerhard Holzer; Valerie Newby; Petra Svatek; George Zotti; (2015)
A World of Innovation: Cartography in the Time of Gerhard Mercator (/p/isis/citation/CBB535808156/)

Article Lestringant, Frank; (2009)
L'histoire comme géographie, l'apocalypse comme cosmographie: l'exemple d'Agrippa d'Aubigné (/p/isis/citation/CBB001034856/)

Article Anna Guarducci; (2019)
Egnazio Danti e le carte del Theatrum Mundi della Guardaroba nuova in Palazzo Vecchio (Firenze). Le fonti geocartografiche (/p/isis/citation/CBB164010887/)

Book Filippo Camerota; (2023)
Una terra oltre le stelle. Il planisfero di Martin Waldseemüller (/p/isis/citation/CBB579292077/)

Book Horst, Thomas; (2012)
Die Welt als Buch - Gerhard Mercator und der erste Weltatlas Bildband anlässlich der Faksimilierung des Mercatoratlas von 1595 der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz (/p/isis/citation/CBB001551642/)

Article Cormack, Lesley B.; (2009)
The World at Your Fingertips: English Renaissance Globes as Cosmographical, Mathematical and Pedagogical Instruments (/p/isis/citation/CBB001034858/)

Book Lestringant, Frank; Couzinet, Marie-Dominique; Besse, Jean-Marc; (2009)
Les méditations cosmographiques à la Renaissance (/p/isis/citation/CBB001220751/)

Chapter Thomas Horst; (2015)
Mercator as Cosmographer: His Globes and their Relationship to Astrology (/p/isis/citation/CBB938280384/)

Book Roberts, Sean; (2013)
Printing a Mediterranean World: Florence, Constantinople, and the Renaissance of Geography (/p/isis/citation/CBB001253040/)