in
Strasburg in 1505. That same year he was offered the professorship of
Latin in a college at Saint-Die, a charming little town in the Vosges
Mountains, which had long been a seat of learning. It is said to have
been strangely associated with the discovery of America, from the fact
that here was written, about 1410, the book called _Imago Mundi_,
which Columbus read and probably took to sea with him on his first
great voyage. In a double sense, this obscure town and college,
nestling in a little-known valley of the Franco-German mountains, is
known in connection with the name America, as will now be shown.

Young Professor Ringmann found at Saint-Die a select and distinguished
company of scholars, composed of Martin Waldseemueller, professor of
geography; Jean Basin de Sendacour, canon and Latinist; Walter Lud,
secretary to Duke Rene, patron of literature, and especially of the
college of Saint-Die, which was to him as the apple of his eye. He was
the reigning Duke of Lorraine, and titular "King of Sicily and
Jerusalem," but had never strayed far from his own picturesque
province, though he had won a great victory over Charles the Bold in
1477. He is, no doubt, worthy an extended biographical sketch, but in
this connection can only be referred to as the patron of these great
teachers in Saint-Die, who, soon after the appearance of Ringmann
among them, conceived the plan of printing a new edition of _Ptolemy_.

One of them, Walter Lud, was blessed with riches, and as he had
introduced a printing-press, about the year 1500, the college was
amply equipped. So many discoveries had been made since the last
editions of _Ptolemy_ had appeared, that the Saint-Die coterie felt
the need of new works on the subject, and sent Ringmann to Italy
hunting for the same. He, it is thought, brought back, among other
"finds" of great value, the letter written by Vespucci to Soderini
from Lisbon, in September, 1504, a certified manuscript copy of which
was made in February, 1505, and printed at Florence before midsummer,
1506.

No extended explanation is needed now to elucidate the scheme by which
Vespucci's letters were incorporated in the treatise published by
those wise men of Saint-Die, entitled _Cosmographie Introductio_, or
"Rudiments of Geography," and taken from the press on April 25, 1507.

It was a small pamphlet, with engravings of the crudest sort, but it
made a stir in the world such as has been caused by but few books
si