Franciscus Monachus


Franciscus Monachus, was born Frans Smunck in Mechelen in the Duchy of Brabant. His Latinised name, adopted when he matriculated at the University of Louvain, is translated as simply Francis the monk. "Franciscus Monachus" was identified as the Latinised form of his name, Frans Smunck in his obituary notice. He is remembered as the cartographer who created the first terrestrial globe in the Low Countries.

Biography

Franciscus studied and taught at the university of Louvain from about 1510 to 1530 and numbered Gemma Frisius among his students. He was also an important influence on Gerardus Mercator. Very little is known of his life and the accounts which do exist are very brief. On leaving Louvain he returned the short distance to Mechelen where he spent the rest of his life in the monastery there. This was no backwater for the Great Council of Mechelen was the supreme court of Low Countries and would be frequented by the highest in the land.
The monks of Mechelen were Minorite Friars, a humble order which was critical of the corruption of the established Church, so much so that over the years its members had been harassed, excommunicated and burned at the stake. They were undoubtedly under suspicion by the hard-line Inquisitors of Louvain University, men such as Ruard Tapper who said of heretics "It is no great matter whether those that die on this account be guilty or innocent, provided we terrify the people by these examples; which generally succeeds best, when persons eminent for learning, riches, nobility or high stations, are thus sacrificed." Monachus had other additional reasons to come to the notice of the authorities.
The profession of monk was not in conflict with intellectual inquiry. Monachus, the monk, has been described as a court cosmographer and astrologer, the court in question being that of the Emperor Charles V and his regent, Margaret of Austria. He was known for the prediction he gave to Margaret of Austria concerning the defeat and captivity of Francis I at the Battle of Pavia. However, it is his fame as a geographer that has lasted, principally through the globe that he constructed c1527.

The terrestrial globe

The globe was made in collaboration with goldsmith Gaspar van der Heyden at the latter's workshop in Louvain. It was possibly a unique construction for nothing has survived, but Monachus described its use in a 1524 letter from Antwerp to his patron, entitled De Orbis Situ ac descriptione ad Reverendiss. D. archiepiscopum Panormitanum, Francisci, Monachi ordinis Franciscani, epistola sane qua luculenta. The publisher was granted a copyright, which was printed on the title page and stated: "With a privilege from the Most Invincible Emperor of the Romans, Charles V, that for five years no man may print or cause to be printed this geographical book with globes under forfeit of all copies and otherwise the imposition of the most severe penalty".
The Archbishop of Palermo was Jean Carondelet a Burgundian cleric, politician, jurist and one of the most important advisors to the Habsburg rulers, Philip I and his son Charles V. Such connections ensured his rapid advancement in the church hierarchy and the award of rich benefices such as the Archbishopric was simply a financial perquisite. Fortunately, Carondelet published the text of the letter in a pamphlet which was widely circulated and reprinted several times.
The image of the letter shows it beginning with a forthright condemnation of the nonsense of Ptolemy and other early geographers and by implication it contradicted Aristotle's view of the world—and to disbelieve Aristotle's views, which were at the centre of religious orthodoxy, was officially heresy. Monachus had his own views of geography which were based on investigation, observation and observation rather than Aristotelian dicta. Such beliefs exposed Monachus to suspicion.
The hemispheres shown in the pamphlet are presumed to be rough sketches printed with two small woodcuts about in diameter. The actual globe was certainly larger and finer in every respect since the reply to Monachus contains the following statement: Orbis globum, in quo terrae ac maria luculenter depicta sunt, una cum epistola accepimus—We accept the globe of the world on which the land and sea are elegantly depicted, together with the epistle.
As noted by Jan Denucé, we probably have a fairly faithful image of the lost globe in Oronce Fine’s map of 1531, who adopted the views of Monachus.
The content of the map is discussed in great detail by Stevenson and Harrisse and a summary of their findings by Siebold is readily available online. The most important features as follows.
It is the legends above the two hemispheres which would have been of great interest to Carondelet: Hoc orbis Hemisphaerium cedit regi Hispaniae and Hoc orbis Hemisphaerium cedit regi Lusitaniae. Carondelet was the principal advisor of Charles at a time when Spain and Portugal were again debating the division of the world into two hemispheres. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas had agreed a demarcation line that divided the Atlantic and cut through South America. Everything to the east, from Brazil to India, was Portuguese; everything to the west was Spanish. Twenty or so years later the discovery of the riches of the Moluccas, at a time when the mineral wealth of South America was untapped, gave rise to a great debate as to who should possess those Islands. In 1528, Monachus presented Carondelet a geographical globe which implied that the anti-meridian of the Tordesillas dividing line would clearly put the Moluccas in the Spanish hemisphere. In his accompanying tract, De Orbis Situ, he said: "Maximilian Transylvanus recently published a letter concerning the Moluccas islands, which exist in the sea called variously the Mar del Sur, or of the Sinae, or of Syn , finally revealed to the men of our age excellently, and clearly all in the portion and dominion of the King of Spain, except for Java and Porne or Borneo, of which a part toward the west is subject to the King of Portugal, the part which faces the east being subject to the King of Spain". It is therefore no surprise that Carondolet published as widely as he could. One year later the Treaty of Zaragoza was concluded whereby Spain lost the Moluccas despite the globe of Monachus.