Martin Helwig

Martin Helwig ( born November 5, 1516 Neisse; † January 26, 1574 in Breslau) was a German cartographer and teacher.

Life

Martin Helwig was a supporter of the Lutheran doctrine and humanist. As a student of the humanist Valentin Trotzendorf, he attended the University of Wittenberg and has there acquired the academic degree of Magister. He then returned to his homeland to work as a master of Latin schools. Between 1544 and 1551 he worked in Schweidnitz. For religious reasons, he moved in 1552 to the Mary Magdalene Gymnasium in Breslau, where he successfully worked from 1560 until his death in 1574 as a presenter ( headmaster ). There he taught mathematics, geography and classical languages ​​such as Greek and Latin. For his education, he created in 1561 a card from old Italy, which he called aptly lumens Historiae Romanae. Helwig was also known as a poet and philologist good.

In the same year 1561 Helwig created the first map of Silesia, which was based on its own surveys and measurements; they came out in the first edition without a title and took over many years for such recognition, that Caspar Peucer in Wittenberg recommended them to his students and Abraham Oertel this in his Theatro orbis terrarum, which appeared in Antwerp in 1577, recorded. In total there are now eleven printed editions known. To Silesia card he wrote in 1564, the Declaration of Silesian wallets, Why, and how the same useful to use: Sampt a perfect register, thereby to find any city, castle and monastery, without any trouble. A written description of the country in 1571 Descriptio Silesiae is lost.