BEHAIM, !MARTIN (1459-1506). A famous German cosmographer. He was born in Nuremberg, of Bohemian descent, and probably received his scientific training from the famous savant Regioniontanus. Taking up a mercan tile life, he traveled over Europe, visiting Ven ice, Mechlin, Antwerp, and Vienna, for purposes of trade, between 1475 and 1479. In 1480 he went to Portugal and began the business of mak ing maps, in which he soon acquired fame and a competency. He was selected to accompany the Portuguese expedition commanded by Diogo Cain, on a voyage of discovery along the west ern coast of Africa, in 1484-85—an expedition which pushed nearly twenty degrees beyond the best previous exploration, as far as the mouth of the Congo River. In 1486 he visited Fayal, in the Azores, where there was a Flemish colony, and he shortly afterwards married the daughter of the governor of the islands of Fayal and Pico, Jobst von Hurter. He was a mem ber of a commission to discover some practical method of determining a ship's position at sea by means of astronomical observations, and ren dered important service in this connection to the science of navigation. In 1490 he went back to
Nuremberg, where he lived till 1493. During this period lie constructed a globe as a gift to his native city, where it is still preserved, being the oldest still in existence, and an invaluable rec ord of the exact extent of geographical knowl edge among the best-info•med European scholars and travelers at the time Columbus started on the voyage in which America was discovered. After another short residence in Fayal, he re moved to Lisbon, where he died, July 29, 1506. For his biography, consult: Mum Diploma tisehe Gesehichte des Ritter Martin Behaim (Gotha, 1801) ; and for more modern informa tion. Nordenskjdld, Facsimile-Atlas (Stockholm, 1889),