# Universalis Cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei Traditionem et Americi Vespucii aliorumque Lustrationes
> Martin Waldseemuller - 1507, in a printing of the sheets whose date is disputed
> Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/martin-waldseemuller/waldseemuller-1507-world-map/
> Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-08-27
## Tombstone
- **Artist:** Martin Waldseemuller
- **Date:** 1507, in a printing of the sheets whose date is disputed
- **Medium:** Woodcut with letterpress text on twelve sheets of laid paper, watermarked with a triple pointed crown
- **Dimensions:** 128 x 233 cm assembled; sheets 46 x 63 cm or smaller
- **Object type:** Map
- **Period:** German and Lorraine, early sixteenth century
- **Current location:** Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Washington DC, on permanent display in the Thomas Jefferson Building
- **Attribution:** accepted
## Summary
Twelve woodcut sheets, never pasted together, printed at Strasbourg and dated 1507, carrying the first recorded use of the name America and the first depiction of a separate Western Hemisphere with the Pacific as a separate ocean. A thousand copies were reported printed. This is the only one known to survive, and the survival is an accident of storage: the Nuremberg globe maker Johannes Schoner bound it into a portfolio in 1517 with three other objects and it stayed flat and unhung for four centuries.It was found in the library of Schloss Wolfegg in 1901 by the Jesuit Josef Fischer, and bought by the Library of Congress for USD 10 million, agreed in June 2001 and completed in May 2003. That was a private treaty sale, not an auction: there is no hammer price and no buyer's premium. Congress appropriated half the money. The other half came from Discovery Communications, Jerry Lenfest, David Koch, and two matching donors. The permit to export it from Germany, where the map was on the register of nationally valuable cultural property, was granted in 1999, two years before the price was agreed, and was publicly criticised at home.Two things in this record are not in the standard account. Elizabeth Harris argued in 1985 that the surviving sheets are a later pull rather than the 1507 printing, and the holding library has never adjudicated the point. And the market next door has failed: the Bavarian State Library has established that its own set of Waldseemuller globe gores, bought in 1990 inside an incunable with a seventeenth-century provenance, is a twentieth-century forgery.
## Provenance
Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it.
- **1507-by 1517** Martin Waldseemuller and the Gymnasium Vosagense, Saint-Die `[documented]` (Printed, in a reported edition of 1,000 copies, of which this is the only known survivor)
The Library of Congress catalogues the sheets as the only known surviving copy of the 1507 edition. Elizabeth Harris argued in 1985 that the surviving sheets are a later pull, after 1516, in which case no copy of the 1507 printing survives. The dispute is unresolved.
- **by 1517-1547** Johannes Schoner, Nuremberg `[documented]` (Owned as working material and bound into the Schoner Sammelband at Nuremberg in 1517)
Schoner was a globe maker, astronomer and geographer. The Library states the map originally belonged to him. He died in 1547; the Library's press releases give 1557 in error.
- **1547-mid-seventeenth century** Not established `[unknown]` (No documented owner)
Roughly a century separates Schoner's death from the portfolio's presence at Schloss Wolfegg. No transfer is recorded in the sources consulted. The Wolfegg print room was assembled in the seventeenth century by Maximilian Willibald von Waldburg-Wolfegg, which is a plausible route and not a documented one.
- **mid-seventeenth century-June 2001** The princely house of Waldburg-Wolfegg, Schloss Wolfegg, Upper Swabia `[documented]` (Held in the castle library and print room for more than 350 years; rediscovered there in 1901 by Josef Fischer)
Two Wolfegg collection stamps on the verso of the upper left sheet are the physical record of this ownership. The Library of Congress bought facsimiles of the 1507 and 1516 maps in 1903.
- **1999-2001** Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg (title), Library of Congress (custody from June 2001) `[documented]` (Limited export licence granted by the Federal Republic of Germany and the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg; sale agreed at USD 10 million; initial down payment and transfer of custody)
The map was on the German register of nationally valuable cultural property and could not leave without a permit. The licence was granted in 1999, two years before the sale was agreed. Public criticism in Germany accompanied the decision.
- **May 2003-present** Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Washington DC `[documented]` (Purchase completed; announced 18 June 2003; permanent display in the Thomas Jefferson Building under the terms of the agreement)
USD 5 million appropriated by Congress; the balance from Discovery Communications, Jerry Lenfest, David Koch, George Tobolowsky and Virginia Gray. Inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register in 2005, where Germany still lists it as German documentary heritage held in Washington.
## Auction results
Hammer and buyer's premium are stated separately. Where a source conflates them this record says so.
- **** ,
- This object has never been offered at auction. The figure of USD 10 million is a negotiated private treaty price between Prince Johannes Waldburg-Wolfegg and the Library of Congress, agreed in late June 2001 and settled in May 2003. There is no hammer price and no buyer's premium, and any source that reports one is wrong. The prices given in the narrative for the 1507 globe gores belong to a different object and two of those sheets are now established as twentieth-century forgeries.
## Open questions
- Were the surviving twelve sheets printed in 1507, or after 1516? The Library of Congress catalogues them as the only known copy of the first edition; Elizabeth Harris argued in Imago Mundi in 1985 that they are a later pull kept as a proof. No institution has adjudicated it.
- Where was the map between Johannes Schoner's death in 1547 and its appearance in the Waldburg-Wolfegg collections in the seventeenth century? No owner is documented for roughly a century.
- How and when did the Waldburg-Wolfegg family acquire the Schoner Sammelband? The Library states only that it was in the castle for more than 350 years.
- What conditions were attached to the limited export licence granted in 1999 by the federal government and Baden-Wuerttemberg? The terms have not been published in the sources consulted, and 'limited' is the Library's own word.
- What did Jay I. Kislak pay for the Carta Marina, the globe gores and the Sammelband portfolio in 2014, and what did the Library pay for the Durer star chart in 2015? Neither figure is published.
- How many of the six recorded copies of the 1507 globe gores are genuine? Two are now discredited, and the Bavarian State Library has said it is considering legal claims.
- Did any German institution attempt to acquire or retain the map before the export licence was granted? No competing bid or public appeal is recorded in the sources consulted.
## Sources
- [1] Library of Congress, press release PR 01-093, 'Library of Congress Acquires Only Known Copy of 1507 World Map Compiled by Martin Waldseemuller', 23 July 2001.
- [2] Library of Congress, press release PR 03-110, 'Library of Congress Completes Purchase of Waldseemuller Map', 18 June 2003.
- [3] Library of Congress catalogue record, 'Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m]que lustrationes', LCCN 2003626426, call number G3200 1507 .W3, Geography and Map Division.
- [4] John R. Hebert, 'The Map That Named America: Library Acquires 1507 Waldseemuller Map of the World', Library of Congress Information Bulletin, September 2003. Hebert was chief of the Geography and Map Division.
- [5] Library of Congress exhibition, 'Waldseemuller Maps', in 'Exploring the Early Americas'.
- [6] John Hessler, 'Celebrating Waldseemuller's Carta Marina at 500: A Conference at the Library of Congress', Worlds Revealed: Geography and Maps at the Library of Congress, 7 September 2016.
- [7] Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, press statement, 'Bavarian State Library confirms that its own Waldseemueller globe gores map is a forgery', Munich.
- [8] Museo Galileo, Florence, bibliography for the Waldseemuller online exhibition, recording Elizabeth Harris, 'The Waldseemuller World Map: a Typographic Appraisal', Imago Mundi 37 (1985), 1, pp. 30-53.
- [9] Crossref metadata record for Domenico Bertoloni Meli, 'Printing the Waldseemuller 1507 and 1516 World Maps', The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 120:2 (June 2026), pp. 165-192, doi 10.1086/741326. The publisher's page returned HTTP 403 to this desk; the bibliographic data here is Crossref's, and the article text has not been read.
- [10] Raimund Weible and Bettina Wieselmann, Suedwest Presse, on the Wolfegg sales and the German cultural property rules, reproduced at Archivalia, 'Wolfegger Verkauf: Wirtschaftsministerium wusste Bescheid'. Secondary; the underlying newspaper page was not reachable from this desk.
- [11] Deutsche UNESCO-Kommission, 'Waldseemuellerkarte von 1507', Weltdokumentenerbe Deutschland, giving the year of inscription as 2005 and the location as the Library of Congress.
- [12] Wikipedia, 'Waldseemuller map'. Tertiary, used only to locate the Harris and Bertoloni Meli references and George E. Nunn's analysis. Flagged for replacement with the printed literature.
- [13] Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, item records for the Schoner Sammelband's '[Celestial globe gores]' (2016586439/2016586440) and '[Fragmentary terrestrial globe gores]' (2016586441), both catalogued as the work of Johann Schoner, 1515-1517 - the basis for the 2026-08-30 correction to the Globe gores of 1507 related-work entry above, which had wrongly attributed these to Waldseemuller.
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