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To summarize, the Galvao map (circa early 1400s) which evidently does not
survive takes one nowhere, the Ricci map of 1602 is totally worthless as
far as advancing any theory or claim about Chinese knowledge of the New World
before Columbus and 1492. In fact Ricci's own statements make clear that
he affirms the European discovery of the New World, both North and South.
Furthermore the confusion of the Dragon Tail on pre-1492 maps and
globes with the later discovery of South America is just that confusion.
This leaves open with the 6-7 Rossi Maps. I will try to locate Ben
Olshin's article in the 2007 volume of Terrae Incognitae. It is my
understanding that since then there has been some Carbon-14 dating done of
several
of the Rossi maps but I do not want to say more.
Based on my memory of the map illustrations provided by Bagrow in
his 1948 Imago Mundi essay on the Rossi maps, it is not implausible that some
Chinese knew something about Alaska and a portion of the west coast of the
Americas. Although a recent documentary film on the History channel
entitled Before Columbus "poo poos" most theories, it does point to some
tantalizing evidence that perhaps --- perhaps the Polynesians reached the west
coast of South America or perhaps the Clovis point technology originated with
the pre-historic Solutrian culture from Iberia.
But so what really? This is like the Vikings reaching Newfoundland
which is a proven fact regardless of the bogus Vinland map, But again so
what?
These were not historically significant achievements in terms of
their consequences or the integration of knowledge of the world as a whole
with reasonable accuracy for which we have to wait for Columbus, the European
explorers, the scholars and cartographers of that era down to Magellan:
this great watershed period from 1492 to 1522 when the ship Victoria
completed the circumnavigation. It was 1492 that paved the way for the
reunification of the human race. Forget the Chinese and the Vikings
It was not a totally wild exaggeration when the Spanish historian
Francisco Lopez de Gomara wrote in 1552 when speaking of Columbus and 1492:
"The greatest event since the Creation of the World (excluding the
Incarnation of Him who created it) was the Discovery of the Indies". This
was the pivotal moment that altered world history in a monumental manner.
Even allowing for Gomera's sweeping formulation, make no mistake
there is a curious, insidious anti-European sentiment that underlies a lot of
the push both within and outside the groves of Academe since the 1960s to
denigrate or deny European primacy after 1492 in keeping with a strong
deference to notions of making everyone "feel good" about themselves -- which
extends to the Sinophilia which drives sweeping claims in favor of Chinese
maritime achievements. This is all a joke to anyone who has a solid grasp
of the relevant primary sources/documentation/maps once judiciously
contextualized.
What was amazing to me was that even Toby Lester the author of The
Fourth Part of the World began his lecture at the Library of Congress in
2009 with a profuse apology for the Euro-centric character of his book.
This was a deep, profound bow toward multiculturalism, cultural relativism
which his book (the more you think about it) promotes because he wants to
frame the Waldseemueller map as the apotheosis of all human knowledge of the
World -- the summation of (equally?) valuable geographical knowledge derived
from many cultures over 2000 years.
However, so was the Martellus map in the late 1480s and the
Cantino/Caverio maps of 1502-1504 which Lester suggests Waldseemueller simply
recycled in so far as it concerned the depiction of the new southern
continent.
And to the extent that Waldseemueller suggested a western coast to South
America, Lester suggests that he acted against his better judgment by
listening to the "dreamer-poet" named Matthias Ringmann.
Lester's position is very close to that of Lawrence Bergreen, the
Magellan biographer, who dismissed all pre-Magellan maps, globes, globe gores
showing a southern water passage and/or a western coastline as merely
"provocative geographical cartoons". Indeed, Bergreen praised Lester's book
for
marketing purposes. From this perspective, the Waldseemueller world map
of 1507 must have been "a provocative geographical cartoon".
Personally I do not think that this really the prism through many at
the Library or the US Treasury want this map to be seen after contributing
$5,000,000 in taxpayer revenue to buy this expensive map. But that is the
inherent conflict between the regnant conventional wisdom and a close study
of what the map reveals once it is fully and judiciously contextualized in
terms of other written documentation and other contemporaneous
cartographic evidence.
As for Lester, his implicit, if not explicit devaluing or denigration
of the revolutionary character of the Waldseemueller map which does in
fact reflect path-breaking Portuguese exploration of South America in the
1501-1506 period is all rubbish as is proven by the analysis of all relevant
primary source material in my book The Magellan Myth and a shorter
Magellan-Vespucci Dossier (including Ringmann's deliberate revision in 1507 of
his
earlier 1505 poem to take into account what Schoener in 1515 explicitly
referred to as a Portuguese circumnavigation).
That is precisely why Schoener, the owner of the $10,000,000
Waldseemueller map of 1507) repeatedly refused to name the Strait in honor of
Magellan. However, Schoener was willing in his 1534 globe to change the name
for what we know as the Pacific from "Oceanus Orientalis" to "Mere
Magellanicum", as I observed in an earlier post.
The bottom line the Waldseemueller, the Lenox Globe and much else
remain big bones in the throat of Establishment scholars.
Earlier I remarked that the books of Bergreen and Lester are
"sleeping pills" for those in the Academic Establishment who do not want to
think
too much or too deeply about the Waldseemueller map or for that matter the
Lenox globe or the Rosselli map of 1508 or any documentation and other maps
(nearly another 18) which are internally consistent and crucially conflict
with the conventional wisdom, the Balboa-Magellan First Paradigm, which is
a false narrative to which Magellan himself did not subscribe given his
truthful and highly publicized disavowal about being the discoverer of the
Strait.
From this perspective, the new Princeton Exhibition concerning the
cartography of the Pacific is another big sleeping pill for the Academic
Establishment. I suppose that unlike the bogus Vinland map which Yale
unwisely
purchased, at least this new exhibition is a sleeping pill. But that does
not make this exhibition more justifiable.
Meanwhile, my challenge for a debate on all these matters remains on
the table.
Peter Dickson
Arlington, Virginia
703-243-6641
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