page_title: Gerardus Mercator
section_title: Antwerp 1532–1534
hierarchical_section_title: Gerardus Mercator / Mercator's life / Antwerp 1532–1534
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of the world (c.1527) by Monachus showing two halves of the globe that he had constructed. For full descriptions of the globe see w:Franciscus Monachus.
context_page_description: Gerardus Mercator was a 16th-century geographer, cosmographer and cartographer from the County of Flanders. He is most renowned for creating the 1569 world map based on a new projection which represented sailing courses of constant bearing as straight lines—an innovation that is still employed in nautical charts.
  Mercator was one of the pioneers of cartography and is widely considered the most notable figure of Netherlandish school of cartography in its golden age. In his own day, he was a notable as maker of globes and scientific instruments. In addition, he had interests in theology, philosophy, history, mathematics and geomagnetism. He was also an accomplished engraver and calligrapher.
  Unlike other great scholars of the age he travelled little and his knowledge of geography came from his library of over one thousand books and maps, from his visitors and from his vast correspondence with other scholars, statesmen, travellers, merchants and seamen. Mercator's early maps were in large formats suitable for wall mounting but in the second half of his life, he produced over 100 new regional maps in a smaller format suitable for binding into his Atlas of 1595.
context_section_description: The normal progress for an able Magister was to go on to further study in one of the four faculties at Leuven: Theology, Medicine, Canon Law and Roman Law. Gisbert might have hoped that Mercator would go further in theology and train for the priesthood but Mercator did not: like many twenty year old young men he was having his first serious doubts. The problem was the contradiction between the authority of Aristotle and his own biblical study and scientific observations, particularly in relation to the creation and description of the world. Such doubt was heresy at the University and it is quite possible that he had already said enough in classroom disputations to come to the notice of the authorities: fortunately he did not put his sentiments into print. He left Leuven for Antwerp, there to devote his time to contemplation of philosophy. This period of his life is clouded in uncertainty. He certainly read widely but only succeeded in uncovering more contradictions between the world of the Bible and the world of geography, a hiatus which would occupy him for the rest of his life. He certainly could not effect a reconciliation between his studies and the world of Aristotle.
  
  During this period Mercator was in contact with the Franciscan friar Monachus who lived in the monastery of Mechelen. He was a controversial figure who, from time to time, was in conflict with the church authorities because of his humanist outlook and his break from Aristotelian views of the world: his own views of geography were based on investigation and observation. Mercator must have been impressed by Monachus, his map collection and the famous globe that he had prepared for Jean Carondelet, the principal advisor of Charles V. The globe was constructed by the Leuven goldsmith Gaspar van der Heyden (Gaspar a Myrica c. 1496–c. 1549) with whom Mercator would be apprenticed. These encounters may well have provided the stimulus to put aside his problems with theology and commit himself to geography. Later he would say, "Since my youth, geography has been for me the primary subject of study. I liked not only the description of the Earth but the structure of the whole machinery of the world."
caption: The Portuguese (Lusitanian) and Spanish hemispheres of the globe of Monachus
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