Editing Gerardus Mercator (section)

===Epitaph and legacy===
[[File:Mercator epitaph pic.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Mercator epitaph in the church of St Salvator, [[Duisburg]]]]
Mercator was buried in the church of [[:de:Salvatorkirche (Duisburg)|St. Salvatore]] in Duisburg, where a memorial was erected about fifty years after his death. The [[q:Gerardus Mercator#epitaph01|main text]] of the epitaph is a summary of his life lauding him as "the foremost mathematician of his time who crafted artistic and accurate globes showing the heaven from the inside and the Earth from the outside ... greatly respected for his wide erudition, particularly in theology, and famous on account of his piety and respectability in life." In addition, on the base of the memorial, there is an epigram:{{efn|The text of Mercator's memorial is given in {{harvnb|Van Raemdonck|1868|p=227}} and a translation may be found at [[q:Gerardus Mercator#epitaph01|Wikisource]]. }}
{{blockquote|
To the reader: whoever you are, your fears that this small clod of earth lies heavily on the buried Mercator are groundless; the whole Earth is no burden for a man who had the whole weight of her lands on his shoulders and carried her as an Atlas.}}
Following Mercator's death, his family prepared the Atlas for publication in four months. They hoped for it to become a source of the income that was needed to support them. This work entailed supplementing the maps of 1585 and 1589 with 28 unpublished maps of Mercator covering the northern countries, creating four maps of the continents and a world map, the printing of Mercator's account of the creation and finally the addition of eulogies and Walter Ghim's biography of Mercator. The title itself provides Mercator's definition of a new meaning for the word "Atlas": ''Atlas Sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica Mundi et Fabricati Figura'' which may be translated as "Atlas or cosmographical meditations upon the fabric of the world and the figure of the fabrick'd'', or, more colloquially, as ''Atlas or cosmographical meditations upon the creation of the universe, and the universe as created."{{sfn|Sullivan|2000|p=2}}{{efn|See {{harvtxt|Karrow|2000}} for a discussion of concept of the term atlas.}} Over the years Mercator's definition of ''atlas'' has become simply ''A collection of maps in a volume.''{{efn| name=wikt}}
<gallery heights="200px" mode="packed">
File:Mercator Atlas 1595 page 5 main frontispiece.jpg|<small>Mercator Atlas title page</small>
File:Mercator World Map.jpg|<small>The world map of Rumold Mercator</small>
File:Mercator Atlas 1595 page 107 Galliae.jpg|<small>The title page for the maps of Gaul</small>
</gallery>
The atlas was not an immediate success. One reason may have been that it was incomplete: Spain was omitted and there were no detailed maps outside Europe. Rumold avowed that a second volume would attend to these deficiencies, but it was not forthcoming and the whole project lost momentum; Rumold, who was 55 years old in 1595, was in decline and died in 1599. His family did produce another edition in 1602, but only the text was reset; there were no new maps.{{sfn|Crane|2003|loc= Epilogue|p=320}} Another reason for the failure of the Atlas was the strength of the continuing sales of the ''[[Theatrum Orbis Terrarum]]'' by Abraham Ortelius. Alongside the sumptuous maps of that book Mercator's un-ornamented new maps looked very unattractive. Despite the death of Ortelius in 1598, the Theatrum flourished: in 1602 it was in its thirteenth Latin edition as well as editions in Dutch, Italian, French, German and Spanish. The Mercator atlas seemed destined for oblivion.{{sfn|Crane|2003|loc= Epilogue |p=323}}

The family was clearly in some financial difficulty for in 1604, Mercator's library of some 1,000 books was sold at a public auction in [[Leiden]] (Netherlands). The only known copy of the sale catalogue{{sfn|Basson|1604}} perished in the Second World War, but fortunately a manuscript copy had been made by Van Raemdonck in 1891 and this was rediscovered in 1987.{{sfn|Penneman|1994}} Of the titles identified, there are 193 on theology (both Catholic and Lutheran), 217 on history and geography, 202 on mathematics (in its widest sense), 32 on medicine and over 100 simply classified (by Basson) as rare books. The contents of the library provide an insight into Mercator's intellectual studies but the mathematics books are the only ones to have been subjected to scholarly analysis: they cover arithmetic, geometry, [[trigonometry]], [[surveying]], [[architecture]], [[fortification]], astronomy, astrology, [[time]] measurement, [[calendar]] calculation, scientific instruments, cartography and applications.{{sfn|De Graeve|2012a}}{{sfn|De Graeve|2012b}} Only one of his own copies has been found—a first edition of Copernicus's ''De revolutionibus orbium coelestium'' annotated in Mercator's hand: this is held by Glasgow University.{{sfn|De Graeve|2012a}}
<gallery heights="180" perrow="2" mode="packed">
File:Hondius Portrait of map-makers.jpg|<small>The Hondius-Mercator atlas</small>
File:Mercator Hondius Atlas Minor of 1607 frontispiece.png|<small>The Atlas Minor of Hondius</small>
</gallery>
[[File:3013-002 Print 15860kopie.jpg|thumb|Gerard Mercator & Jodocus Hondius, L'atlas ou meditations cosmographiques de la fabrique du monde, 1610, [[The Phoebus Foundation]] ]]
[[File:Atlas3.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Title page of Mercator-Hondius atlas of 1637 (in English) showing Titan Atlas, Mercator (twice) and personifications of the continents]]
The sale catalogue doesn't mention any maps, but it is known that the family sold the copper plates to [[Jodocus Hondius]] in 1604.{{sfn|Crane|2003|loc=Epilogue|p=324}} He transformed the atlas. Almost 40 extra maps were added (including Spain and Portugal) and in 1606 a new edition appeared under his name but with full acknowledgement that most maps were created by Mercator. The title page now included a picture of Hondius and Mercator together, although they had never met. Hondius was an accomplished business man and under his guidance the Atlas was an enormous success; he (followed by his son [[Henricus Hondius II|Henricus]], and son-in-law [[Jan Janssonius|Johannes Janssonius]]) produced 29 editions between 1609 and 1641, including one in English. In addition, they published the atlas in a compact form, the Atlas Minor,{{efn|reference=The Atlas Minor may be viewed online at the [https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb11062214?page=5 Bavarian State Library] }} which meant that it was readily available to a wide market. As the editions progressed, Mercator's theological comments and his map commentaries disappeared from the atlas and images of King Atlas were replaced by the Titan Atlas. By the final edition, the number of his maps in the atlas declined to less than 50 as updated new maps were added. Eventually, the atlas became out-of-date and by the middle of the seventeenth century, the publications of map-makers such as [[Joan Blaeu]] and [[Frederik de Wit]] took over.

[[File:Bruxels April 2012-3.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|left|Statue of Mercator, Jardin du Petit Sablon, Brussels]]
Mercator's editions of Ptolemy and his theological writings were in print for many years after the demise of the atlas, but they too eventually disappeared and it was the Mercator projection which emerged as his sole and greatest legacy.{{sfn|Crane|2003|loc= Epilogue|p=325}} His construction of a chart on which the courses of constant bearing favoured by mariners appeared as straight lines ultimately revolutionised the art of navigation, making it simpler and therefore safer. Mercator left no hints to his method of construction and it was [[Edward Wright (mathematician)|Edward Wright]] who first clarified the method in his book ''Certaine Errors'' (1599)—the relevant error being the erroneous belief that straight lines on [[Equirectangular projection|conventional charts]] corresponded to constant courses. Wright's solution was a numerical approximation and it was another 70 years before the projection formula was derived analytically. Wright published a new world map based on the Mercator projection, also in 1599. Slowly, but steadily, charts using the projection appeared throughout the first half of the seventeenth century and by the end of that century chart makers all over the world were using nothing but the Mercator projection, with the aim of showing the oceans and the coastlines in detail without concern for the continental interiors. At some stage the projection made the unfortunate leap to portrayal of the continents and it eventually became the canonical description of the world, despite its manifest distortions at high latitudes.{{efn|The distortions of Mercator's map are discussed in the article on the [[Mercator projection]].}} Recently, Mercator's projection has been rejected for representations of the world{{efn|See the critique of the Mercator and other projections in [[Gall–Peters projection]]}}, but it remains paramount for nautical charts and its use stands as his enduring legacy.{{sfn|Crane|2003|loc= Epilogue|p=325}}

Many cities have a statue of Mercator.{{efn|Statues in [[:File:Gerardus Mercator statue.jpg|Rupelmonde]], [[:File:Duisburg Mercatorbrunnen 2.jpg|Duisburg]], [[:File:Square du Petit Sablon - Gerard Mercator.JPG|Brussels]], [[:File:Mercator in Leuven.JPG|Louvain]].{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} }} His name has been attached to ships,{{efn|The [[Mercator (ship)|Mercator]] was a training vessel for the Belgian navy. It now serves as a museum in [[Ostend]]. There is also a [[:File:Researchship-mercator-labrador-001.jpg|German research ship]] Mercator{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} }} buildings, universities,{{efn|The university of Duisburg was known as the [[Gerhard Mercator University]] until it merged to become the [[University of Duisburg-Essen]], part of which is the Mercator School of Management{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} }} insurance companies, small businesses, pizzerias, streets, schools and more. There is a Belgian bank note. There is a German coin and an incorrect postage stamp (showing a construction which is not the Mercator Projection).{{efn|The [[:File:Mercator VS.JPG|German coin]] and the [[:File:DPAG 2012 Mercator.jpg|incorrect postage stamp]] (showing an incorrect construction for the Mercator Projection.{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} }} He has been modelled in sand and giant figures.{{efn|[[:File:Gerardus Mercator sand sculpture.JPG|Modelled in sand]] and [[:File:Gerard de cremer-reus.jpg|giant figure]].{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} }} There is a venomous snail and a beetle.{{efn|[[Conus mercator|Venomous snail]] and a [[:File:Silvanus mercator Jacobson.png|beetle]].{{citation needed|date=September 2016}} }} An [[:de:(4798) Mercator|asteroid]] is named for him.

There are two museums dedicated primarily to Mercator:
* [http://www.stadtmuseum-duisburg.de/ Kultur- und Stadthistorisches Museum, Duisburg, Germany]. See also [[:de:Kultur- und Stadthistorisches Museum Duisburg|German Wikipedia]].
* [http://musea.sint-niklaas.be/ Mercator Museum (Stedelijke musea), Sint-Niklaas, Belgium.]