In 1507 a German monk named Martin Waldseemueller created a map that would permanently change the world. The cartographer-priest named a newly discovered continent that sat between Africa and Asia. He called it America, as the story goes, after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian banker and geographer who had sailed the coasts of modern day Brazil and Argentine in 1499.
Waldseemueller, who had never traveled far from his own monastery near the border of France and Germany, was surprisingly accurate in his outlining of South America despite it being largely uncharted. Cartographers had previously either heavily exaggerated or woefully underestimated its width, but not Waldseemueller.
Speculative debate exists regarding how did this German monk, living in an inland French city far from the usual lines of sea travel and exploration, gained such accurate knowledge of this new land. The keepers of this secret knowledge are said to have most likely been Portuguese explorers, but Waldseemueller had no direct access to their logs or even their stories. Modern history texts tell us that the first Europeans to sail the Pacific Ocean were Balboa (1513) and Magellan (1522), both years after Waldsemueller’s 1507 map.
John W. Hessler of the U.S. Library of Congress, who purchased the lone surviving copy of Waldseemueller’s map for $10 million in 1993, told the Washington Post that he believes “there is some probability that Waldseemueller knew something that is no longer extant – information we don’t have.”
Some researchers believe the monk had heard of both America and Amerigo and had logically linked the two pieces of information together. Others favor an alternative explanation regarding the origin of Waldseemueller’s knowledge.
A few esoteric religious communities such as the Mandaens and the Essenes believed that the souls of the righteous go to a sort of utopia when they die. This utopian land was marked by a star called Merica. When King Philip IV of France forcefully disbanded the Knights Templar in 1307, some escaping Templars fled through the French countryside to avoid the persecution of the crown. Many hid in monasteries. According to Templar history, a part of one fleet set sail for La Merica in 1308.
It is more probable that Waldseemueller had heard about this journey through circles of escaping Templars rather than having gained then-secret knowledge from a Portuguese navigatory establishment hoping to keep that knowledge for their future economic gain.
Waldseemueller, stating that his map had “pleased very few people,” created a second, far less accurate map in 1516. Someone had upset Waldseemueller enough to recant what he knew to be true.
While it has been suggested that Waldseem ller incorrectly dismissed Christopher Columbus’ great achievement in history by the selection of the name America for the Western Hemisphere, it is evident that the information that Waldseem ller and his colleagues had at their disposal recognized Columbus’ previous voyages of exploration and discovery.