Behaim, Martin

Behaim, Martin

also known as Martin of Bohemia

(b. Nuremberg, Germany, 1459; d. Lisbon, Portugal, 29 July 1507), geography

The mercantile interests of Behaim’s family extended from Venice to Flanders. It is traditionally acknowledged that he was a disciple of Regiomontauns, from whom he may have learned how to use astronomical instruments. He quite certainly was influenced by the Ephemerides published by the latter between 1475 and 1506. As a youth he began in the textile business in landers. He was business in Lisbon in 1480.

There has been much speculation about Behaim’s role in Portugal. We know that he became a member of the Council of Mathematicians created by John II and that he became friendly with José Vicinho. Nevertheless, we can no longer defend the thesis that celestial navigation was possible only because of Behaim’s teaching the Portuguese how to use the cross staff (Jacob’s staff, of ballestilla ) and the astronomical tables of Regiomontanus. The cross staff, invented by Levi ben Gerson, was already well known on the Iberian Peninsula; and the declination of the sun given in the Tabula directionum of Regiomontauns is different from that found in the Regimento do astrolabio... Tractado da spera do mundo prepared by the Council of Mathematicians for use by navigators. Joaquin Bensaúde has demonstrated that the numerical values in the Regimento are copies of those in the four-year-cycle sun table in the Almanach perpetuum (1473) of Abraham Zacuto, a Jew from Salamanca (d. ca. 1515), who had been a teacher of Vicinho. The latter was also involved in the scientific movement at the University of Salamanca (with Diego Ortiz and Juan de Salaya), and thus one must believe that the scientific elements that made celestial navigation possible were already present on the peninsula before the arrival of Behaim.

Behaim took part in the expedition of Diogo Cão (1485–1486) that followed the coast of Africa to Cape Cross. It is difficult to determine whether he carried out an observation of the latitude of the North Star while on this trip, or whether this should be attributed to Diogo Gomes (who dictated his memoirs to Behaim) and thus be dated a few years eariler. The text in question, which constitutes the birth certificate of celestial navigation in the Atlantic Ocean (although not in the East Indian), says: “When I went to these places, I took a quadrant. I marked the latitude of the North Pole on the table of the quadrant, and I noticed that the quardant is more useful than the chart. It is true that on the latter one can see the sea route, but if it is incorrect [i.e., if one has committed an error in determining the course] one never arrives at the point previously designated.”

During a landfull at Fayal, Azores, on the return voyage in 1486, Behaim married the daughter of Job Huerter de Moerbeke (in Portuguese, Joz Dutra or Jorge de Utra), the leader of a large Flemish colony there. From 1491 to 1493 he was in Nuremberg, where with the assistance of the painter Glockenthon he built his famous globe. Upon his return to Portugal, Behaim was entrusted with a number of official missions and was taken prisoner by the English while on a journey to Flanders. After he was released, he took up residence in Fayal. He died in the Hospice of Saint Bartholomew while on one of his trips to Lisbon.

A nautical chart, since lost, that showed the strait discovered years later by Magellan was attributed to Behaim. His most important work, which places him among the greatest geographers of the Renaissance, is the globe that has been preserved in Nuremberg. It is a sphere fifty-one centimeters in diameter, covered with parchment luxuriously adorned with many types of figures (111 miniatures, forty-eight banners, and fifteen coats of arms). Many inscriptions clarify and explain, from the most diverse points of view, the geography of 1,100 localities in many parts of the world. Actually, this globe constitutes an adaptation of a nautical chart onto a sphere. It lacks coordinates, but it does represent the equator and the tropics. The space between the western coast of Europe and the eastern coast of Asia is full of fanciful islands from medieval tradition, such as Antilia, which has no relation to the Antilles.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Behaim’s globe has been reproduced in almost every book on the history of geography.

For information on Behaim and his work, see G. Beaujouan, “Les aspects internationaux de la dècouverte ocèanique aux XV^e et XVI^e siècles,” in Actes du Cinquième Collaque International d’Histoire Maritime (Paris, 1960–1966), pp. 69–73; j. Bensaúde, Histoire de la science nautique portugaise à l’èpoque des grandes dècouvertes. Collection de documents...I, Regimento do astrolabio e do quadrante. Tractado da spera do mundo, facs. (Munich, 1914);S. Gunther, Martin Behaim, Bayerische Bibliothek, XII (Bamberg, 1890); R. Henning, Terrae incognitae, IV (Leiden, 1939), 342–376, and indexes; E. G. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe (London, 1908); A. Reichenbach, Martin Behaim, ein deutscher Seefahrer aus den 15 Jahrhundert (Wurzen-Leipzig, 1889); and R. Uhden, “Die Behaimsche Erdkugel und die Nārnberger Globen technik am Ende des 15 Jahrhunerts,” in Minutes of the Amsterdam Geography Congress, Works of Section IV; Géographie historique et histoire de la géographie, IV (1938), 196–198.

Juan Vernet