A web edition for America's 'birth certificate'. It was created by the Galileo Museum of Florence with the decisive contribution of the Ente Cassa di Risparmio of Florence and with the collaboration of the Library of Congress to make the map of the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller (1470 ca. – 1521) preserved in the Library of Congress in Washington DC. It is the oldest document in the world (1507) in which the name America appears in homage to Amerigo Vespucci who was the first to recognize that the lands discovered overseas belonged to a new continent.
The project, of great visual impact and highly innovative, required three years of work and has now come to fruition. It will be presented in world preview, right in the place where the large map is kept, during a study day promoted by the Library of Congress to celebrate the 5th centenary of another cartographic monument by Martin Waldseemüller: the Carta Marina of 1516.
Just the representation of the website will be the culmination of the event to be held on Friday 7 October at 9 am. Speakers Davis S. Mao, Deputy Librarian of Congress; Umberto Tombari, President of the Florence Savings Bank; Paolo Galluzzi, Director of the Galileo Museum; Filippo Camerota, Deputy Director of the Museo Galileo; Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress; John Hessler, Curator, Jay I. Kislak Collection of the Archeology and History of the Early Americas, Library of Congress; Elmer Eusman, Library of Congress.
An evocative volume was created for the occasion, accompanied by a flash drive, which allows you to explore the digital contents of the website even off-line.
