The new road to the real Indies - Connecting the Meditteranean sea to the Red Sea, and onwards to the Indian ocean

Martin Waldseemuller (1470-1518) is the man who named America. Based on Amerigo Vespucci’s letters, Waldseemuller inexplicably changed the title of the recently discovered “Neue World” to “America” on his 12 sheet world map. In 1513, Waldseemuller published 20 modern maps, in one of the most important and improved editions of Ptolemy. One of the maps shows the peninsula of India, based on recent inputs from Vasco Da Gama & other portuguese explorers. The woodcuts on this map were undertaken by Albrecht Durer himself. With two masters together, this rare map is one of the most important maps of India.

Mercator’s map plates were purchased by Jodocus & Henricus Hondius & Jan Jansson in 1604.  Two popular atlases – Atlas Major & Atlas Minor – were published by them. These included the seminal India Orientalis map. Perhaps the first detailed map of India, which got the shape right, even though it contained the error of Chiamay (modern Chiang Mai, in Thailand) lake & absence of Himalayas. The decorative detail includes a large sea monster and an oriental junk in the Bay of Bengal as well as fine scrollwork title & scale cartouches.

Georg Matthaus Seutter (1678-1756), a leading German cartographer, trained under JB Homann & made some of the most beautiful city plans & maps of his time. Based on inputs from Ain-i-Akbari’s soobahs & Baffin-Roe map & writings, this late- Mughal map is a pioneering work even though it again had errors like the state of “Jengapore” which became cartographic anomalies & baffled explorers including Sven Hedin, who visited North India, many years later.

The first Surveyor general of India, was a 24 year old young man, James Rennell (1742-1830), who starting from Calcutta, mapped 780,000 sq. Kms over 13 years. Rewarded by Robert Clive, James Rennell went on to make India’s first atlas “ The Great Bengal Atlas” & document his experience in his “Memoirs of a Map of Hindoostan”. The cartouche of his 4-sheet large “Map of Hindoostan” captures the Victorian imagery of the early years of English Bengal, later enshrined at the Victoria memorial.