BEHAIM, MARTIN, a famous cosmographer, descended from a Bohemian family which settled in Nuremberg after the middle of the 18th c., and still flourishes there. Behaim was b. in Nuremberg in 1430 (or, more probably, in 1436). He early entered into mer cantile life, and went to Venice (1457), and to Mechlin, Antwerp, and Vienna (1477 7D), in pursuit of trade. In 1480, he was induced to go to Portugal, where he soon acquired a reputation as a skillful maker of maps. From 1484 to 1485, he accompanied the Portuguese navigator, Diego Cam, in a voyage of discovery along the w. coast of Africa, and sailed as far as the mouth of the Zaire or Congo river, in lat. 22° s., which was 194.° further than had ever been previously reached. In 1486, Behairn sailed to Fayal, one of the Azore islands, where a Flemish colony had settled. Here he married the daughter of Jobst von Mister, governor of the colony. In 1490, lie left Fayal, and returned to his native city, Nuremberg, where lie resided from 1491 to 1493. During this stay, he constructed a large globe, principally from the writings of•Ptolemy, Pliny, Strabo, Marco Polo, and Sir John Mandeville. It is still preserved by the family of
Boltaim, in Nuremberg, and is a valuable record of the progress of discovery, though it indicates that Behaim's geographical knowledge did not at that period extend beyond Japan on the e., and the Cape Verd islands on the west. After traveling through Flanders and France, &Idia again resided in Fayal from 1494 to 1506, and then removed to Lisbon, where lie died, July 29, 1509. The services rendered by I3ehaim to geographical discovery and the scienco of navigation were considerable, though, according to the latest investigations, there is no support for the theory that Behahn was the dis coverer of America, or even that Columbus and Magellineu were indebted to Beliairn for guidance with regard to their discoveries. 13ehaim left no works behind him except his maps and charts.—Murr's Diplontatisehe Geschichte des Riders von /3. (1778-1801); A. von Humboldt's Emmen Critique del' Ifistoire de la Geog. du Nouveau Continent (1836).