“Science, Technology, and Society during the Great Oceanic Discoveries.” [Workshop Ozeane: Grenzen, Interaktionen, Konflikte, Interdisziplinäre Zugänge, 17-18 April 2015 Universität Wien]. This study refers to the interdisciplinary efforts to explore the globe with the great oceanic discoveries, an interesting open question, which had also contributed to the development of geography and exploration. In the fifteenth century the humanists translated the works of the ancient geographers, which influenced the ideological background of the great explorers. Geographical conceptions were gradually liberated from dogmatism, accepting the theory that the Earth is global and regenerating Ptolemy’s belief that the European west coasts are close to the eastern Asia.

2. World map derived from Ptolemy’s Geographia

3. Charts, ships and guns
were the most general categories of the tools
used by the great oceanic explorers. From
the thirteenth century at least, Catalan and
Italian hydrographers drew portolani-charts,
based on practical knowledge. Great
cartographers of the renaissance were
Bartolomeo Pareto, Battista Beccario, Zuane
Pizzigano, Martin Waldseemüller, Andrea
Bianco, Grazioso Benincasa, Juan de la
Cosa (Columbus’s pilot), Luis Teixeira,
Gabriel de Valseca, Matteo Ricci, Diogo
Ribeiro, Abraham Ortelius, Juan López de
Velasco and many others.
Alfredo Pinheiro Marques, “The Discovery of the Azores and its
First Repercussions in Cartography,” ARQUIPÉLAGO, História, 2ª
série, vol. 1, nº 2 (1995): 7-15, http://hdl.handle.net/10400.3/485

4. The Genoese map of 1457

5. The Genoese map of 1457

7. Atlantic islands, in the chart of Bartolomeo Pareto, 1455

8. The observation of longitude became feasible only in the eighteenth century. Dead reckoning,
based on the combination of charts, log crude speedometer reading and stars, was essential
for the first explorers. Sandglasses, pocket watches, compasses and gimbals were also
used for the discoveries, all along with the chip-log, which was introduced in the early sixteenth
century, the astrolabe and the quadrant.
Around 1462,
European sailors had
managed to calculate the
latitude from the altitude
of the Pole Star;
For latitudes in the
southern hemisphere the
navigators, since 1485,
used tables of the sun
declination.

18. In 1503 the Spanish Crown assigned the construction of precise transatlantic charts and
astronomical instruments, and the training of the pilots, to the Casa de la Contratación (House
of Trade) in Seville. Later, in 1524, the Consejo de Indias (Council of Indies) and the Real Corte
were established for the regulation of the Spanish territories affairs.

19. However, a sharp confrontation developed between the ‘Silver Empire’, on the one side, and
the resistance on the other side, as expressed for example by “the Cimarrones, or Maroons, a
tribe of runaway Negro slaves and Indian women who lived in the jungles of the Isthmus and
defied all Spanish attempts to bring them under control.”

20. The systemic aspect of shipping
The linkages among maritime and global history are systemic. That is to say, they relate to
conquest, power, economic interests, piracy and the respective legal arguments.

21. The westward passage to Asia was discussed by Roger Bacon in his Opus Majus and by
Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly in his Imago Mundi, an essential guide for the explorers. Columbus, “in
reading and re-reading his copy, and enriching it with scribbled marginalia, was deriving
instruction from a great English intellect.”
The seamen and merchants of Bristol were trading regularly with Iceland in the fifteenth
century, where they heard of Greenland, Markland and Wineland the Good. Between Bristol,
Azores and Madeira there were also significant commercial relations.

22. ICELAND, GREENLAND, VINLAND: In the extreme northwest and west of the map are laid
down three great islands, named respectively isolanda Ibernica, Gronelada, and Vinlandia.

23. John Cabot
chose Bristol as base for his
expedition to Nova Scotia, in
1497. Cabot mistakenly reported
to the King Henry VII that he had
reached Asia. In his second
voyage Cabot’s mission
disappeared.

24. Christopher Columbus learned the
wealth and the location of the Eastern
lands from the Florentine Paolo
Toscanelli.
In his first voyage, Columbus was
looking for Japan and he supposed that
the shores of Cuba were the mainland
of Cathay.
Only in his third voyage he suspected
that the South American coast could be
a large, unknown continent.
Even in his last, fourth journey,
Columbus mistakenly took Central
America for Indochina.

25. The Western Hemisphere, by Joannes de Stobnicza, 1512.

26. Geographers of his days did
not agree with Columbus’s
views: “In 1494 Peter Martyr
introduced the concept of a
‘Western Hemisphere’,
and in 1496 Columbus’s
friend Bernáldez told him
that another 1200 leagues
sailing westward would still
not have brought him to
Cathay.”
Raleigh A. Skelton,
Explorers’ Maps, 59.
The Western Hemisphere
in the globe of Johannes Schöner, 1515

27. From the end of the sixteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century the Northeast,
the Southeast and the Northwest passages to the Pacific were some of the most
challenging goals of exploration. Martin Frobisher, Henry Hudson, the Danish Arctic
expeditions, tried to explore the Northwest Passage, as well.

29. The Southern Hemisphere, in an engraved world map by Mercator, 1538

31. Ships and Shipbuilding
The European ships, from the beginning of the fifteenth century to the end of the sixteenth,
surpassed the Chinese junks and built heavy, stable, square-rigged ships, with topsails and
castles fore and aft for cross-bowmen. The Portuguese, however, preferred the lateen caravel,
similar to Arabian ships such as the Persian Gulf baghlas and the Red Sea Sambuks. In the
end of the fifteenth century the caravela redonda combined a square rigged course and topsails
on the foremast, and lateen-rig on main and mizzen.

32. Caravels, Carracks and
Galleons
From the middle of the fifteenth
century the fighting ships
carried guns, usually brass
artillery, mounted in the castle
structures fore and aft,
substituted for cross-bow and
arquebus fire. The ships used in
the carreira da India were
mainly galleons and carracks
(naos). The carracks were large
merchant ships, while the
galleons were primarily fighting-
ships. The crews, especially in
the Indian Ocean, were not
European but Muslim, as Vasco
da Gama’s pilot Ibn Majid.

34. Between 1497 and 1650, more than one-fourth of 219 Portuguese shipwrecks were lost in the
Mozambique Channel. Madagascar is a notorious shipwreck island, where castaways from
the Indian Companies, and also pirates had suffered. In 1506, São Vincente was one of the
first Portuguese ships that wrecked in their attempt to explore Madagascar.

35. Carreira da India
The voyages from Lisbon
usually started at the end
of February or in March,
while they sailed from
Goa to Portugal at the
end of December. “The
great majority of
shipwrecks occurred on
the homeward passage
before the carracks could
round the Cape of Good
Hope.” Most of the
wrecked carracks were
overladen, inefficiently
stowed and belated.

36. Circumnavigation
The world’s first
circumnavigator was
Ferdinand Magellan, or better
his ship Victoria.
In 1505 Magellan had
followed the Almeida
expedition, which established
Portuguese coastal fortresses
in Sofala, Kilwa, Anjediva and
Cannanore over the Indian
Ocean. The capturing of the
spice trade and the
establishment of a
Portuguese Viceroy required
a handful of fierce battles in
the Indian Ocean.

37. The First Map of the Strait of Magellan,
1520
The first circumnavigation of the globe
was the voyage of 1519–22 by the
Portuguese navigator Ferdinand
Magellan (1480–1521), undertaken in the
service of Spain. The only known first-
hand account of the voyage is the journal
by Venetian nobleman and scholar
Antonio Pigafetta (circa 1480–1534).
Four manuscript versions of Pigafetta’s
journal survive, three in French and one
in Italian. Pigafetta also made 23
beautiful, hand-drawn color maps, a
complete set of which accompanies each
of the manuscripts.

39. The instability and the hostility increasingly dominated, as the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis did not
terminate the French piracy against the Iberian fleets, while the rise of the Protestants in England
and the Calvinists in Scotland coincided with the opening of piratic and slaving enterprises by
English privateers such as Hawkins, Frobisher and Drake.

40. The mythical element in the shipwreck narratives
was further stressed by the absence of early modern ship technical drawings and maritime
archaeological evidence.

42. Gold and silver, pearls, diamonds, amber, musk, tapestries, ebony, calico, cloves, pepper,
cinnamon, mace and nutmeg were some of the precious commodities of the oceanic trade, as it
was shown by the prey of English pirates over the Portuguese galleon Madre de Deus in 1592 in

43. Drake’s track through the Moluccas in 1579 (dotted line),
in a world map engraved by Jodocus Hondius about 1590

47. Magnetic Disturbance
Many times the technical and scientific errors offer feedback for the advancement of science.
Among the various studies of electricity and magnetism, some of them related shipwrecks to
magnetic disturbance caused by deposits of iron ores.

50. Antarctic Circumpolar
Current
The danger in the Drake
Passage or Mar de
Hoces, but also all
around the Southern
Ocean, could not be
completely explained
before the comparison
of a series of physical
phenomena related to
the Antarctic
Circumpolar Current.

51. Telescopes, clocks and
longitude
Firstly, the problem of longitude
was rightly addressed by Galileo,
who used the telescope for
celestial observations, discovering
mountains on the moon, spots on
the sun, phases of Venus and four
satellites around Jupiter. Galileo
suggested that the observation of
the longitude could be effectively
accomplished through timetables
of the disappearances and
reappearances of Jupiter’s
satellites. However, the court of
King Philip III of Spain rejected his
proposal.

52. Portuguese and Dutch
into the Far East
In the early 17th century the Portuguese
were based in Nagasaki and the Dutch in
Hirado.
The VOC was mainly active in privateering
operations against Portuguese, Spanish
and neutral ships of the main Manila and
Macao routes. The San Antonio incident
refers to the first prize captured by VOC in
the Shogun’s waters.
With these methods, the Dutch colonialism
replaced the Portuguese in Malacca (1641)
and Ceylon (1658). However, the network
structures between principals and agents
proved to be vulnerable by uncertainty and
infighting problems that undermined the
Dutch hegemony.

53. The capture of a Portuguese carrack in the Malacca Straits
by Dutch and English squadrons, October 1602

54. View of Galle fort and part of the Bay. Behind the Black Fort on the left is the anchorage from
which Avondster drifted to shore. (Baldeus, 1672, Amsterdams Historisch Museum)

55. To the Great South Land
Almost one-fifth of the VOC shipwrecks, that is, around fifty wrecks in Malacca, Gabon, St
Helena, Mauritius, Cape Town, Skilly Islands etc., from 1606 to 1795, have been discovered. In
1611, the Dutch captain Brouwer introduced a quicker route to the East Indies, through the
lower latitudes of the Roaring Forties and then north to the Great South Land.

56. Map of Australia and the south-west Pacific by Robert de Vaugondy, published in 1756

57. Scientific knowledge, natural
resources, economic planning and
political thinking
The Dutch, after 1595, using
Linschoten’s sailing directions, travelled
to the East and traded helmets,
armour, weapons, glass, velvet and
German toys .
With the great discoveries of Abel
Tasman and Willem Schouten,
scientists, e.g. Bernhardus Varenius,
were attracted to geography and
investigated mathematical data in
Earth’s motions and dimensions, the
solar affection to the earth, the stars,
the climates, the seasons, map-
construction, longitude, etc.

58. The Pacific
Regarding the Pacific, the Northeast Coast
was isolated until the 1770s, when cargoes of
fur pelts started sailing from Vancouver Island
to the entrepôt of Macao.[1]
Spain's ascendancy was fragile and
depended on factors largely beyond her
control. The Dutch warred on the
Portuguese, who, at Malacca, had
established the gateway to the East Indies.
The Dutch at Batavia, now Jakarta, had
ousted yet another rival, the English, from
Amboina and other eastern emporia.
Japan lay open for Dutch, Portuguese, and
English traders, but the constraints of the
Japanese ituwabu system confined foreign
trade solely to Nagasaki.

59. The rise of the British naval
power
The rise of the British was based
on piracy, slave trade and slave
labor in sugar colonies. The Seven
Years War (1756-1763), the treaty
of Paris in 1763, the British control
over the Bengal gunpowder
production, the increase in
industrial production, the
establishment of the Bombay
shipyard in about 1675 for the
production of ships of Indian teak,
related to the rise of the British
naval power and the emergence of
the Lloyds underwriters.

60. The voyages of
James Cook
combined the colonization
plans with the scientific
research, but also with
commercial, industrial,
transportation and military
purposes.
George Forster’s Reise
um die Welt made James
Cook famous also in Wien
and motivated
explorations to replenish
the collection of tropical
plants at Sch6nbrunn
Palace.

62. Tasman's ships with Maori canoes in 'Murderers Bay', New Zealand, December 1642