Matthias Ringmann

Matthias Ringmann (also known as Philesius Vogesigena or Ringmannus Philesius;floruit 1482 – 1511) was a German cartographer and humanist poet. Along with fellow cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, he is credited with drafting the first world map to name America as a land mass.

Ringmann was born in Eichhoffen, Alsace around 1482, though the exact year is up for debate. He became a schoolmaster and is often described as a poet.

Sometime, around 1503, Ringmann visited Italy. This is where he first learned about the explorations of the recently discovered western lands. These were initially known as the New World, and were later named the Americas. He also came to believe that Amerigo Vespucci had discovered South America.

Upon his return to Germany, Ringmann moved to Saint-Dié-des-Vosges in Lorraine with his friend, Martin Waldseemüller, a cartographer with whom he was working on a new Latin edition of Ptolemy's treatise on geography. Waldseemüller drew the maps while Ringmann edited the translation and wrote a preface. Ringmann is also the best candidate for the author of the introduction to Waldseemüller's great map and globe of the world—yet many historians attribute the work to Waldseemüller himself. It seems probable that Walter Ludd, the head of the Gymnasium Vosagense, paid Ringmann and Waldseemüller to do this work for publication at the Gymnasium's printing press at St. Dié.

Ringmann also may have read the French edition of Vespucci's letters, (Quatre Navigations d' Americ Vespuce). Since Vespucci's written accounts were in Italian, the translation to French could have been the source of Ringmann's misunderstanding of the accepted discoverer of the New World. He described this in his introduction:

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