May 16, 2013 All of Martin Waldseemüller's Cartographic Works On Display for Five Weeks at Library of Congress

An exhibit, “Redrawing Ptolemy: The Maps of Martin Waldseemüller,” which accompanies a cartography conference today at the Library of Congress, will remain on display for five weeks, through Saturday, June 22.

The exhibit features all of Waldseemüller’s cartographic creations under one roof for the first time. They include the famous 1507 World Map, which depicts the name “America” for the first time; the 1516 Carta Marina Map; the 1513 edition of Ptolemy’s “Geographia”; the 1507 Globe Gores; and the John Carter Brown-Henry Stevens World Map, also engraved with the name “America.”

The Waldseemüller maps are located in the last gallery of the “Exploring the Early Americas” exhibition, which is free and open to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, in the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C.

The maps are drawn from the Library of Congress, the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota and the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, R.I.

The Library of Congress conference today in the Coolidge Auditorium, “Redrawing Ptolemy: The Cartography of Martin Waldseemüller and Mathias Ringmann,” brings together scholars to discuss the entire Waldseemüller body of work and that of his fellow cartographer Ringmann. For more information about the conference, visit www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/.