A manuscript of inestimable scientific value by Gerard Mercator rediscovered after almost 500 years

For almost 500 years, an extremely valuable manuscript dating back to 1550 lay hidden in the library archive of the well-known San Lorenzo El Escorial monastery near Madrid. This document shines a new light on the humanist working method of its author, the well-known 16th-century Flemish cartographer, Gerard Mercator. Professor Koenraad Van Cleempoel (of Hasselt University) was the person who unearthed this absolute treasure.

What makes this manuscript by Gerard Mercator so meaningful? It is a rare account of how exactly a scientist in the 16th century went about his work. Not only is this Mercator’s most extensive handwritten document discovered to date, but its 50 folios reveal that his methodology actually consisted of a combination of thinking, observing, adjusting, calculating AND designing. For the first time, we now have concrete evidence that he was not satisfied with simply recording the results of his research. Not at all. He studied classical sources, viewed them critically, tested them out against his innovative insights as an independent thinker based upon his observations and then translated everything into usable scientific tools.

Scientific advancement in the renaissance is largely attributable to his illustrious contemporaries from the Low Countries, such as Andreas Vesalius, Rembert Dodoens and Gemma Frisius. Now that this document has been discovered in Spain, Gerard Mercator can rightfully take up his place in their midst.