Martin Behaim

Navigator and geographer, born in Nuremberg, SC Germany. He settled in Portugal about 1484 and was associated with the later Portuguese discoveries along the coast of Africa. He revisited Nuremberg in 1490, and there constructed the oldest extant terrestrial globe. A crater on the near side of the Moon is named after him.

Martin Behaim (October 6, 1459 – July 29, 1507), or Behem, was a navigator and geographer of great pretensions.

Behaim was born at Nuremberg, according to one tradition, about 1436;

His alleged introduction of the cross-staff into Portugal (an invention described by the Spanish Jew, Levi ben Gerson, in the 14th century) is a matter of controversy;

From 1484-1485 he claimed to have accompanied Diogo Cão in his second expedition to West Africa, really undertaken in 1485-86, reaching Cabo Negro in 15°40 S. and it is suggested that instead of sharing in this great voyage of discovery, the Nuremberger only sailed to the nearer coasts of Guinea, perhaps as far as the Bight of Benin, and possibly with José Visinho the astronomer and with Joao Affonso d'Aveiro, in 1484-86.

Martin's later history, as traditionally recorded, was as follows: on his return from his West African exploration to Lisbon he was knighted by King John, who afterwards employed him in various capacities; On a visit to his native city in 1492, he constructed his famous terrestrial globe, still preserved at the Nuremberg National Museum, on the same floor as Albrecht Dürer's galleries. (Nuremberg was the heart of the German Renaissance.) The influence of Ptolemy is strongly apparent, but every attempt is made to incorporate the discoveries of the later Middle Ages (Marco Polo, etc.). The antiquity of this globe and the year of its execution, on the eve of the discovery of Americas, make it not just the oldest but the most historically valuable globe extant. All globes are virtual worlds, but this antique provides a glimpse inside the European world on the eve of unparalleled change. Its surface is covered with legends and paintings, and the Erdapfel or Earthapple, as Behaim named it, could be described as a turning encyclopedia. (The state-funded Digital Globe Project has made it available as software for scholars and the interested layperson.) Though less navigationally accurate than the beautiful Catalonian portolani charts of the 14th century, as a scientific work it is of enormous importance.

Its West Africa is marvellously incorrect; Japan is 1500 miles offshore where Marco Polo had left it, putting it within tempting sailing distance of the Canaries. Blunders of 16° are found in the localization of places the author claims to have visited: contemporary maps, at least in regard to continental features, seldom went wrong beyond 1°, but longitude was very difficult to ascertain before the invention of accurate clocks. It is generally agreed that Behaim had no share in transatlantic discovery though his globe suggests an easy sail to the East. Though Columbus and he were apparently in Portugal at the same time, no connection between the two has been established. His family rescued the globe from city hall before it went the way of so many out-of-date artifacts.