Joseph Fischer

This map, which claims to update Ptolemy with the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, is the first known to display the word America. The map was purchased from its owner by the United States Library of Congress in 2001 for ten million dollars.

Fischer was born in Quadrath (Rhineland), son of Gustav Fischer (1826-1890) and Elizabeth (1819-1902). He was educated at the gymnasium in Rheine and the University of Münster, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the University of Innsbruck, and the University of Vienna, and Jesuit scholasticates in the Netherlands, Austria and England. In 1881, he entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained to the priesthood in 1891. After 1895, he was professor of geography and history at Stella Matutina College, Feldkirch, Austria, where he taught until 1938.

Fischer's research encompassed Western geography and cartography from antiquity to early modern times. His special focus was on the maps of Ptolemy and Martin Waldseemüller. His scientific achievements comprise the discoveries, starting in 1891, of the maps of Martin Waldseemüller of 1507 and 1516, and of Jodocus Hondius in Schloss Wolfegg, Württemberg. From 1903 to 1904, and again from 1909 to 1910, he visited Italy, France and England as a member of the Austrian Institute of Historical Studies for the purpose of cartographical research. After Stella Matutina College was closed by the Nazis in 1938, Fischer moved to Munich and afterwards in 1941 to Schloss Wolfegg, where he oversaw the archives until his death.

Fischer’s knowledge of history, cartography and palaeography were the reasons that Norwegian-American writer and historian Kirsten Seaver considered him one of the candidates to have forged the Vinland Map. This world map, which emerged in 1957, is supposedly a pre-Columbian map that shows a portion of North America (Vinland); the authenticity of the map has been questioned by many and Seaver’s investigation concluded that Fischer was the most probable author of the map. However, subsequent research into the provenance of the Vinland map documents suggests that they are unlikely to have spent any time in Fischer's possession. Robert Baier, a forensic handwriting analyst, examined the map text and correspondence of Fisher, and his opinion was that “they are not the same writer.”