Editing Martin Helwig

{{Short description|German cartographer}}
[[File:Helwig.png|thumb|Martin Helwig's map of Silesia (south direction on top edge), 1685 reprint]]

'''Martin Helwig''' ({{langx|la|Martino Heilwig}}) (5 November 1516 – 26 January 1574) was a German [[cartographer]] of [[Silesia]] and pedagogue. He was born in [[Nysa, Poland|Neisse]] and died in [[Breslau]], [[Holy Roman Empire]].

==Life==
A former pupil of an eminent German scholar and educationist [[Valentin Friedland]], Helwig went on to study at the [[University of Halle-Wittenberg|University of Wittenberg]], where as a student of [[Martin Luther]] and [[Philip Melanchthon]] he earned the academic degree of [[Magister (degree)|Magister]]. In 1552, he became [[Rector (academia)|Rector]] of St. Maria Magdalena School in Breslau (now Wrocław, in Poland). Equally proficient in mathematics and geography as well as classical languages, he produced the first woodcut map of Silesia made on the basis of surveys and data collected from local inhabitants,<ref name="SEL-MP">Martin Helwig Map of Silesia 1561 - first woodcut map of Silesia made on the basis of surveys and data collected from local inhabitants - published 1561. Utrecht University; Utrecht Studies in the History of Cartography, vol. 6 {{cite web |url=http://cartography.geog.uu.nl/explokart/mappae_summaries.html |title=Explokart: Mappæ Antiquæ |access-date=2012-02-22 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120302191037/http://cartography.geog.uu.nl/explokart/mappae_summaries.html |archive-date=2012-03-02 }}</ref><ref name="SEL-MP1">University of Wroclaw, Maps Department - History of the collection - lost due to war events first copy of woodcut map of Silesia by Martin Helwig from 1561. [http://www.bu.uni.wroc.pl/en/departments/sand-island/maps-department-history-of-collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121026013253/http://www.bu.uni.wroc.pl/en/departments/sand-island/maps-department-history-of-collection |date=2012-10-26 }}</ref> which he published in 1561 under the title "Silesiae Typus", and dedicated to [[:de:Nicolaus Rehdiger der Jüngere|Nicolaus II. Rehdiger]], a wealthy Silesian merchant, banker, philanthropist, governor and patron of the principality of Breslau sponsored the map. Martin Helwig's map went on to receive acclaim in a public writing by [[Caspar Peucer]], an eminent German scholar at the University of Wittenberg, and was later republished in several versions of [[Abraham Ortelius]]'s pioneering world atlas, "[[Theatrum Orbis Terrarum]]".<ref name="MH-ZED">Helwig Martin [https://archive.today/20130212174216/http://www.zedler-lexikon.de/blaettern/zedlerband.html?bandnummer=12&seitenzahl=687] biography in [[Johann Heinrich Zedler|Zedler's]] [[Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon|Great Complete Encyclopedia of All Sciences and Arts]], Volume 12 (H-He), Leipzig 1735, column 1328, (in German).</ref>

The first map of Silesia by Martin Helwig constituted until the middle of the 18th century the main model and source of information for the cartographical presentation of this region of Europe on the maps of the most famous cartographers and publishers of those times.<ref name="SEL-MP"/>

==Notes and references==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*{{DNB portal|115849785|TYP=|NAME=Martin Helwig}}
*{{de-ADB|11|718}}
*{{Zedler Online|12|687|ze120687}}
{{commons category|Martin Helwig}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20120716234726/http://www.library.ucla.edu/yrl/reference/maps/blaeu/germania.jpg Breslau, Silesia, Germany map c 1600]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heilwig, Martin}}
[[Category:German cartographers]]
[[Category:1516 births]]
[[Category:1574 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Nysa, Poland]]
[[Category:16th-century cartographers]]
[[Category:16th-century German writers]]
[[Category:16th-century German male writers]]
[[Category:People from the Habsburg monarchy]]