Gerardus Mercator

“ The last link between the two companies was severed as late as the year 1666, when the Great Fire destroyed the office held by the Merchant-Adventurers under Mercers’ Hall. The Haberdashers’ Company was a branch of the Mercers’, which broke off from them in the time of Henry VI. The word ‘mercer’ would seem to imply merchant only, being derived, through the French ‘mercier,’ from the Latin word ‘mercator.’ It is probable that those who were called mercers dealt at first in most commodities, except food and the precious metals. ”

“ Cumbrous and rude globes were made to do duty as best they could; but they were ill adapted to use at sea. Nordenskiöld (Facsimile Atlas, p. 22) has pointed out that Pirckheimer, in the Ptolemy of 1525, had seemingly anticipated the theory which Mercator now with some sort of prevision developed into a principle, which was applied in his great plane chart of 1569. ”

“ If true, there may here be found a connecting link between De Mongenet and Mercator, remembering that the latter dedicated his globe of 1541 to the father of the distinguished cardinal statesman.292 The suggestion of Mercator’s influence on De Mongenet appears quite evident on a comparison of the outlines of their globe maps.
148The Lenox copy of the terrestrial gores (Fig. 63) is dedicated to “Eximio Viro: D:I:P: A Monte Maiore,” while the celestial gores (Fig. 64) carry the dedication “Eximio Viro D. Gabrieli a Tiesbach.” ”

“ How many of the advocates for free trade are acquainted with a production in which one of the most gifted minds that the country ever produced, exerts his delightful powers and most effectual "unadorned eloquence" in the support of their favourite doctrine?
I do not see any copy of the Mercator noticed in the printed catalogue of the British Museum. ”

“ It bears a close resemblance to the Frankfort globe.
9. In the custody of the successors of Canon L’Ecuy of Prémontré. It is without date, and D’Avezac fixed it before 1524; others put it about 1540. It is the first globe to show North America disconnected from Asia. It is said to be now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, at Paris. Cf. Raemdonck, Les Sphères de Mercator, p. 28.
10. What was thought to be the only copy known of one of Gerard Mercator’s engraved globes was bought at the sale of M. Benoni-Verelst, at Ghent, in May, 1868, by the Royal Library at Brussels. ”

“ Lawrence as far as Quebec being a broad gulf, one arm of which extends southwest, nearly to what represents the New England coast. Along Lower Canada is spread out the name “Jacques Cartier.”
Mercator’s map of 1569 makes some improvement upon the Dauphin’s map of 1546, showing Cape Breton more in its true relation to the continent; while Newfoundland is comprised in fewer fragments. North America and the lands to the north are dominated by imagination; and in this map we find the source of much of that confusion which the power of Mercator’s name extended far into the seventeenth century. ”

“ Mercator was the first to give the name of Claudia to the island of Louise, evidently mistaking the name of the wife of Francis for that of his mother, after whom the island was called, according to the letter, without stating her name. Mercator gives a legend in which he mentions that Verrazzano arrived on the coast on the 17th of March 1524, which is the day according to the version of Ramusio, following our mode of computation, as before explained. It is evident, therefore, that Mercator had the Ramusio version before him, and not the Verrazano map, as his authority on the subject. ”

“ It has been previously noted that the employment of engraved gore maps in globe construction was not received with general favor in Italy in the sixteenth century, although Mercator’s globes were copied to some extent, as were those of De Mongenet. Toward the close of the century, the preference for manuscript globes, or for engraved bronze or copper globes seems gradually to have yielded to a belief in the more practical method of construction which had established itself in the North. ”

“ In 1554 Mercator published his great map of Europe in six sheets, three or four of which had already been pretty well worked out at Louvain; a copy of this was rediscovered at Breslau in 1889. Herein, though still greatly under Ptolemy’s influence, Mercator begins to emancipate himself; thus Ptolemy’s 62° for the length of the Mediterranean, reduced to 58° in the globe of 1541, he now cuts down to 53°. On the 28th of October 1556 he observed an eclipse at Duisburg; in 1563 he surveyed Lorraine, at the request of Duke Charles, and completed a map of the same (Lotharingiae descriptio) ”

“ He made for his Majesty two other globes, a celestial one of glass, and a terrestrial globe of wood, which were greatly admired as superior to any specimens that had been before produced. They were unfortunately destroyed in the wars by which the Low Countries were afterward overrun. In 1559 he removed to Duisburg, where the Duke of Juliers and Cleves was contemplating the establishment of a university, and had assigned an honorable position in it to Mercator. ”

“ IV. p. 81) ; in the Mercator gores of 1541 (Vol. II. p. 177) ; and in the Ruscelli map of 1544 (Vol. II. p. 432) , where Greenland (Grotlandia) is simply a neck connecting Europe with America; and in Gastaldi “Carta Marina,” in the Italian Ptolemy of 1548, where it is a protuberance on a similar neck (see Vol. II. 435; IV. 43; and Nordenskjöld’s Studien, 43) . The Rotz map of 1542 seems to be based on the same material used by Mercator in his gores, but he adds a new confusion in calling Greenland the “Cost of Labrador.” Cf. Winsor’s Kohl Maps, no. ”

“ It does not appear that Mercator felt himself bound to a strictly scientific representation and interpretation of the celestial bodies, for he pays more or less homage to astrology, inscribing on the horizon circle of his globe the horoscope as used by astrologists in calculating nativities, perhaps recognizing, from a business standpoint, the advantage of an appeal to certain superstitions which he found still lingering among both the learned and the unlearned. ”

“ The engraved gores pasted on the ball are twelve in number and extend to within twenty degrees of the poles, the remaining space being covered with an engraved circular disc, in accord with a method first employed by Mercator. The surface of the globe is not well preserved, yet notwithstanding the injuries which time has brought to it, it remains a masterpiece of engraving and a valuable geographical record of that early day. ”

“ The twelve gores of the map have been mounted so as to join at the north and south poles of the ecliptic, there however being a small covering disc at each pole, so frequently employed since Mercator’s day, the globe itself being made to revolve on its equatorial axes. ”

“ Farewell, and may you be happy. William Jansz. Alcmar, author and sculptor. 1599.” Fiorini is of the opinion the expression “multa hic mutata” in the above quoted inscription indicates that the copies in which it is found are reprints of an earlier edition, and that it has been inserted for the purpose of keeping the globe on sale. Is not the reference rather to this simple fact that Blaeu borrowed much of his geographical information from others, as he admits, including Mercator and Van Langren, and that he had merely altered the same to the end of bringing his records to date? ”

“ In 1538 appeared Mercator’s map of the world in (north and south) hemispheres, which was rediscovered in 1878 in New York; this work shows Ptolemy’s influence still dominant over Mercatorian cartography. In 1541 he issued the celebrated terrestrial globe, which he dedicated to Nicolas Perrenot, father of Cardinal Granvelle: this was accompanied by his Libellus de usu globi, which is said to have been presented to Charles V. In 1551 a celestial globe followed. Mercator early began to incline towards Protestantism ”

“ In 1572 Mercator issued a second edition of his map of Europe; in 1578 appeared his Tabulae geographicae ad mentem Ptolemaei restitutae et emendatae; and in 1585 the first part (containing Germany, France and Belgium) of the Atlas, sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi, in which he planned to crown his work by uniting in one volume his various detailed maps, so as to form a general description of the globe In 1585 he adapted his Europe to the Atlas ”

“ France (1559–1560, &c.) ; England and Ireland (1577) , and Italy (1378, and perhaps twice or thrice between 1550 and 1558) . Beginning as a map-engraver (in 1547 he enters the Antwerp gild of St Luke as af seller van Kartell) , his early career is that of a business man, and most of his journeys before 1560 are for commercial purposes (such as his yearly visits to the Frankfort fair) . In 1560, however, when travelling with Gerhard Kremer (Mercator) to Trier, Lorraine and Poitiers, he seems to have been attracted, largely by Mercator's influence, towards the career of a scientific geographer ”

“ “What’s the good of Mercator’s North Poles and Equators, Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?” So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply “They are merely conventional signs! ”

“ And she sent forth Gerard and his sons to find out where was the market for such goods, and if she would have leave to sell the same therein, or anywhere in the town; and Gerard found the hall of the embroiderers, and therein the master of the craft, and he received the carle courteously when he heard that there was fine work come to town, and did him to wit that none in any such craft might have freedom of the market save by leave of the guild of the craft ”

“ As wheat Exchange cities, London, Liverpool, and Chicago outclass all others. Neither Italy nor France have any central or dominating market. In Paris, Antwerp, Hamburg, and Amsterdam the Bourses, as the Exchanges are called, are public buildings, and the members of each Bourse represent the local situation and nothing more. One of the most ambitious and speculative of the European Exchanges is the one at Budapest, which stands beside a dainty little park where the brokers eat their lunch in fine weather ”

“ Gerrha was a place of large trade, and its merchants and ship-owners are probably as old as any recorded in history, for they were not merely the factors for the precious commodities of Asia and Europe, but, in conjunction with the Midianites and Edomites, conducted the first caravans on record. From the remotest times they carried on an extensive trade with the Phœnicians in spices and aromatics, and with Babylon in mineral salt and cotton, which the island of Tylos produced in great abundance. ”

“ But yet the certainty, the abundance and the facilities for transport of this supply were such as practically to shut out from competition in the Roman market all but the most favourably situated districts of Italy. Their chance of competition depended mainly on their accidental possession of a good road, or their neighbourhood to the sea or to a navigable river. [207] The larger proprietors in any part of Italy must have possessed greater facilities for carrying their grain to a good market than were enjoyed by the smaller holders. ”

“ There they were certain to find, along the shore, markets already famous in ancient times, Alexandria, Tyre, Berytus, Antioch, Byzantium, Trebizond; the creation of a new market was a great exception. Merchandise still arrived at the ports of the Mediterranean or of the Pontus from the remote East by the old ways of the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf; that coming from the centre of Asia overland still followed the route we find already quoted in Greek and Roman geographies from the narratives of the merchants. ”

“ According to this the respectable man must, in strictness, be a landowner; the trade of a merchant becomes him only so far as it is a means to this ultimate end; science as a profession is suitable only for the Greeks and for Romans not belonging to the ruling classes, who by this means may purchase at all events a certain toleration of their personal presence in genteel circles. It is a thoroughly developed aristocracy of planters, with a strong infusion of mercantile speculation and a slight shading of general culture. ”

“ While we had many tillers of the ground, and few merchants, we were brave in the field, and just at home!"
"Think you, then, that the spirit of commerce is averse to justice, and bravery, and freedom?"
"No, I do not think it, Arvina, I know it!" answered Fabius Sanga, who, with the truth and candor of a patrician of Rome's olden school, possessed, and that justly, much repute for wisdom and foresight. "All mercantile communities are base communities. Look at Tyre, in old times! Look at Carthage, in our grandfathers' days! at Corinth in our own! Merchants are never patriots! ”

“ Goods of a kind were only sold with their kind, and men of one trade were not to be found except with their fellows of the same craft. Thus each market was kept single and the merchants were divided according to their merchandise, each craftsman being separated from others not of his own class. ”

“ Commerce, which was always regarded in Carthage as an honourable pursuit, and the shipping and manufactures which commerce rendered flourishing, brought even in the natural course of things golden harvests annually to the settlers there; and we have already indicated how skilfully, by an extensive and evergrowing system of monopoly, not only all the foreign but also all the inland commerce of the western Mediterranean, and the whole carrying trade between the west and east, were more and more concentrated in that single harbour. ”