Diego Ribero - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Diogo Ribeiro, also known as Diego Ribero, was a Portuguese cartographer and explorer who worked most of his life in Spain. He worked on the official maps of the Padron Real
Padrón Real
The Padrón Real , known after 2 August 1527 as the Padrón General , was the official and secret Spanish master map used as a template for the maps present on all Spanish ships during the 16th century. It was kept in Seville, Spain by the Casa de Contratación. Ship pilots were required to use a copy...

(or Padron General ) from 1518-1532. He also made navigation instruments, including astrolabe

Astrolabe

An astrolabe is an elaborate inclinometer, historically used by astronomers, navigators, and astrologers. Its many uses include locating and predicting the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars, determining local time given local latitude and longitude, surveying, triangulation, and to...

s and quadrant

Quadrant (instrument)

A quadrant is an instrument that is used to measure angles up to 90°. It was originally proposed by Ptolemy as a better kind of astrolabe. Several different variations of the instrument were later produced by medieval Muslim astronomers.-Types of quadrants:...

Early life

Born as Diogo Ribeiro, he was the son of Afonso Ribeiro and Beatriz de Oliveira. However, there is no known record of the date and place of his birth. He is believed to have become a seaman at an early age and made several voyages to India as a ship pilot. Reportedly, Ribero sailed with Pedro Afonso de Aguiar who served as captain in the armadas of the explorers Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama

Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...

(1502), Lopo Soares (1504), and Afonso de Albuquerque

Afonso de Albuquerque

Afonso de Albuquerque[p][n] was a Portuguese fidalgo, or nobleman, an admiral whose military and administrative activities as second governor of Portuguese India conquered and established the Portuguese colonial empire in the Indian Ocean...

(1509).

Career

Ribero started working for Charles V

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...

in 1518, as a cartographer at the Casa de Contratación
Casa de Contratación
La Casa de Contratación was a government agency under the Spanish Empire, existing from the 16th to the 18th centuries, which attempted to control all Spanish exploration and colonization...

in Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

. He adopted Spanish citizenship in 1519, and took part in the development of the maps used in the First Circumnavigation of the Earth

Ferdinand Magellan

Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer. He was born in Sabrosa, in northern Portugal, and served King Charles I of Spain in search of a westward route to the "Spice Islands" ....

.

On January 10, 1523, he was named Royal Cosmographer and "master in the art of creating maps, astrolabes, and other instruments". He eventually succeeded Sebastian Cabot

Sebastian Cabot (explorer)

Sebastian Cabot was an explorer, born in the Venetian Republic.-Origins:...

(who left on a voyage) as the head cartographer. Cabot published his first map in 1544.

In 1524, Ribero participated in the Spanish delegation at the Conference of Badajoz

Treaty of Zaragoza (1529)

The Treaty of Zaragoza, also referred to as the capitulation of Zaragoza was a peace treaty between Spain and Portugal signed on 22 April of 1529 by King John III and the Emperor Charles V, in the city of Zaragoza...

, where Spain and Portugal discussed whether the Philippines

Philippines

The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

were on the Spanish or Portuguese side of the Treaty of Tordesillas

Treaty of Tordesillas

The Treaty of Tordesillas , signed at Tordesillas , , divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal along a meridian 370 leagueswest of the Cape Verde islands...

.

In 1527, Ribero finished the Padrón Real

Padrón Real

The Padrón Real , known after 2 August 1527 as the Padrón General , was the official and secret Spanish master map used as a template for the maps present on all Spanish ships during the 16th century. It was kept in Seville, Spain by the Casa de Contratación. Ship pilots were required to use a copy...

, the official (and secret) Spanish map used as template for the maps present in all Spanish ships. It is considered the first scientific world map.

In 1531, he invented a bronze water pump that was able to pump water out ten times faster than the previous models.

Diego Ribero died in 1533.

First scientific world map

Ribero's most important work is the 1527 Padrón real

Padrón Real

. The main map is the first world map based on empiric latitude observations. There are 6 copies attributed to Ribero, including at the Weimar

Weimar

Weimar is a city in Germany famous for its cultural heritage. It is located in the federal state of Thuringia , north of the Thüringer Wald, east of Erfurt, and southwest of Halle and Leipzig. Its current population is approximately 65,000. The oldest record of the city dates from the year 899...

Grand Ducal Library (1527 Mundus Novus) and at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, in Vatican City

Vatican City

Vatican City , or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano , which translates literally as State of the City of the Vatican, is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of...

(1529 Propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

Map or Carta Universal). The layout of the map (Mapamundi) is strongly influenced by the information obtained during the Magellan-Elcano

Juan Sebastián Elcano

Juan Sebastián Elcano was a Basque Spanish explorer who completed the first circumnavigation of the world. As Ferdinand Magellan's second in command, Elcano took over after Magellan's death in the Philippines.-Early life:Elcano was born to Domingo Sebastián Elcano I and Catalina del Puerto...

trip around the world.

Diego's map delineates very precisely the coasts of Central

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

and South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

. It shows the whole east coast of the Americas but of the west coast only the area from Guatemala to Equador. However, neither Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

nor Antarctica appear, and the Indian subcontinent

Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...

appears too small. The map shows, for the first time, the real extension of the Pacific Ocean

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

. It also shows, for the first time, the North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n coast as a continuous one (probably influenced by Esteban Gómez

Esteban Gómez

Esteban Gómez, also known as Estevan Gómez, and born Estêvão Gomes, , was a Portuguese cartographer and explorer. He sailed at the service of Spain in the fleet of Ferdinand Magellan, but deserted the expedition before reaching the Strait of Magellan, and returned to Spain in May 1521...

's exploration in 1525). It also shows the demarcation of the Treaty of Tordesillas

Treaty of Tordesillas

The Treaty of Tordesillas , signed at Tordesillas , , divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe between Spain and Portugal along a meridian 370 leagueswest of the Cape Verde islands...

External links

"Las cartas universales de Diego Ribero (siglo XVI)", by Cesáreo Fernández Duro

Early life

Career

First scientific world map

External links

See also