Matthias Ringmann

Along with cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, he is credited with the first documented usage of the word America, on the 1507 map Universalis Cosmographia in honour of the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

He pursued a course of studies typical for a humanist of the day, including Greek, Latin, classical literature, history, mathematics and cosmography.

[1] In 1505, Ringmann came across a copy of Mundus Novus, a booklet attributed to Amerigo Vespucci that described the explorer's voyage along the coast of present-day Brazil.

Ringmann was familiar with the speculation of classical authors that a giant, unknown continent lay on the other side of the world and he became convinced that this is what Vespucci had encountered.

In July 1507, he wrote to a friend calling Vespucci "a great man of brave courage" and included this letter in the introduction to his reprint.

[4] In 1506, the Gymnasium obtained a French translation of the Soderini Letter as well as a Portuguese maritime map that detailed the coast of lands recently discovered in the western Atlantic.

In a preface to the Letter, Ringmann wrote I see no reason why anyone could properly disapprove of a name derived from that of Amerigo, the discoverer, a man of sagacious genius.

[7] In 1509, he published a card game, Grammatica Figurata, to make the grammatical rules of Donatus' Ars Minor, more appealing to children.