The Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster

Sebastian Münster

Sebastian Münster , was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and a Hebrew scholar.- Life :Münster was born at Ingelheim near Mainz, the son of Andreas Munster. He completed his studies at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in 1518. His graduate adviser was Johannes Stöffler.He was appointed to...

 (1488 – 1552) from 1544 is the earliest German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 description of the world.

It had numerous editions in different languages including Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 (translated by François de Belleforest

François de Belleforest

François de Belleforest was a prolific French author, poet and translator of the Renaissance. He was born in a poor family and his father was killed when he was seven...

), Italian

Italian language

Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...

, English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

, and even Czech

Czech language

Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...

. The last German edition was published in 1628, long after his death. The Cosmographia was one of the most successful and popular books of the 16th century. It passed through 24 editions in 100 years. This success was due to the fascinating woodcut

Woodcut

Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...

s (some by Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger

Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...

, Urs Graf

Urs Graf

Urs Graf was a Swiss Renaissance painter and printmaker , as well as a mercenary soldier. He only produced two etchings, one of which dates from 1513 – the earliest known etching for which a date has been established...

, Hans Rudolph Manuel Deutsch, and David Kandel

David Kandel

David Kandel was a Renaissance artist.One of the best qualities of the Renaissance Period was its everlasting concern with the elements of the natural world. David Kandel was one of the best known pioneers of botanical art and science...

). It was most important in reviving geography in 16th century Europe.

His first geographic works were Germania descriptio (1530) und Mappa Europae (1536). In 1540 he published a Latin edition of Ptolemy

Ptolemy

Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...

's Geographia with illustrations. The 1550 edition contains cities, portraits, and costumes. These editions, printed in Germany, are the most valued of the Cosmographias.

Content of the 1544–1598 editions

1. Book I - Astronomy, Mathematics, Physical Geography, Cartography
2. Book II - England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Savoy, Trier, Italy
3. Book III - Germany, Alsace, Switzerland, Austria, Carniola, Istria, Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Pomerania, Prussia, Livland
4. Book IV - Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Walachia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey
5. Book V - Asia Minor, Cyprus, Armenia, Palestine, Arabia, Persia, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Scythia, Tartary, India, Ceylon, Burma, China, East Indies, Madagascar, Zanzibar, America
6. Book VI - Mauritania, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Senegal, Gambia, Mali, South Africa, East Africa

Editions of Cosmographia

• German 1544, 1546, 1548, 1550, 1553, 1556, 1558, 1561, 1564, 1567, 1569, 1572, 1574, 1578, 1588, 1592, 1598, 1614, 1628
• Latin 1550, 1552, 1554, 1559, 1572
• French 1552, 1556, 1560, 1565, 1568, 1575
• Italian 1558, 1575
• Czech 1554

In modern fiction

A copy of Münster's Cosmographia, found by chance in a London second-hand book shop in the 1920's, is at the center of Dorothy Sayers'a story "The Learned Adventure of the Dragon's Head" – a Peter Wimsey detective mystery.

Throughout the story, the book is at the center of tense chase, as it turns out to contain the clue for a hidden pirate treasure of the 18th Century. One of the maps from Münster's book is reproduced in Sayers', and it turns out to contain a vital clue for solving the mystery.

Literature

• Karl Heinz Burmeister: Sebastian Münster - Versuch eines biographischen Gesamtbildes. Basler Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft, Band 91, Basel und Stuttgart 1963 und 1969.
• Karl Heinz Burmeister: Sebastian Münster - Eine Bibliographie. Wiesbaden 1964.
• Hans Georg Wehrens: Freiburg in der „Cosmographia“ von Sebastian Münster (1549); in Freiburg im Breisgau 1504 - 1803, Holzschnitte und Kupferstiche. Verlag Herder, Freiburg 2004, S. 34 ff. ISBN 3-451-20633-1.
• Günther Wessel: Von einem, der daheim blieb, die Welt zu entdecken - Die Cosmographia des Sebastian Münster oder Wie man sich vor 500 Jahren die Welt vorstellte. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-593-37198-7.

External links

• Artikel in der TRE
• Lateinische Werke im Internet
• Wer war Sebastian Münster? - Umfangreiche Dokumentensammlung des Sebastian-Münster-Gymnasiums in Ingelheim.
• Sebastian Münster, La Cosmographie universelle online excerpts
• His Map of Asia (1544 AD), Tabula orientalis regionis, Asiae scilicet extremas complectens terras & regna
• Historic Cities: Sebastian Münster
• http://www.uni-giessen.de/gloning/at/schreckenfuchs_1553_oratio-funebris-de-obitu-sebastiani-munsteri.pdf