Henricus Martellus Germanus

Map of the world by Henricus Martellus Germanus, preserved in the British Library
Map of the world by Henricus Martellus Germanus, preserved at Yale University

Henricus Martellus Germanus (fl. 1480-1496) was a German cartographer active in Florence between 1480 and 1496. His surviving cartographic work includes manuscripts of Ptolemy's Geographia, manuscripts of Insularium illustratum (a descriptive atlas of island maps), and two world maps which were the first to show a passage around the southern tip of Africa into the Indian Ocean. His world maps summarize geographical knowledge at the outset of the Age of Discovery and "epitomize the best of European cartography at the end of the fifteenth century."[1]

  1. ^ Edson 2007, p. 219