What is cosmography, really? The Vadian answer

The object and scope of cosmography was a recurrently discussed issue during the sixteenth century, with numerous renowned intellectuals giving their opinion on the matter—in fact, this question still raises some controversy in recent historiography. A particularly pertinent but somewhat less well-known definition than those formulated by the Apians or Frisius of the time is that elaborated by the Swiss humanist Joachim Vadian (1484-1551), in his Libri de situ orbis tres... Addita quosque in Geographiam Catechesi... (Vienna, 1518):

Geography, if one follows the etymology of the word, is the description of the position of lands in relation to the ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, with the enumeration of all the places found therein […]. Geographer is the name given to those who have sought to describe the earth in particular, its extent, or the most important regions, such as Pliny, Dionysius, Strabo […] and Mela except for the first book where he mentions the principles of the world […]. It is said that cosmography gives an account of the earth and the heavens taken together, endeavoring above all to show how the main parts of the earth extend according to latitude and longitude. Ordinarily the geographer, to the enumeration of place, adds history, indicating the origins of cities, of races, of nations, of peoples, and also whence names of things are derived, as well as the prodigious works of nature all over the earth. The cosmographer also enumerates regions, cities, rivers, seas, and mountains, but only for the purpose of defining their boundaries, stating where each starts and ends, or else for the purpose of showing under which parts of the heavens they are situated […]. The study of the instruments intended to conduct measures of this sort and to represent the earth according to meridians and parallels is the concern of the Cosmographer. The greatest of which […] is Ptolemy. […] I dare therefore say that the Geographer is closer to the poet and the historian, in that their processes o descriptions are alike. This is why, as we can see with due attention, Strabo, Pliny and others came to the assistance of poets and historians in their descriptions of places upon the earth […]. The Cosmographer, on the contrary, is turned towards Geometry and Astronomy (quoted in Jean-Marc Besse, “Cosmography and Geography in the Sixteenth Century”, 2009).

[José María Moreno Madrid]