| Method | Woodcut with early hand colour |
| Artist | Münster, Sebastian |
| Published | [Basel, c.1550] |
| Dimensions | 225 x 170 mm |
| Notes |
A mid-sixteenth century woodcut map of northern and central Italy, oriented with south to top and stretching from the Alps to Naples, from a Latin edition of Munster's celebrated Cosmographia. Mountains, rivers, and principal cities are shown pictorially, and in the Tyrrhenian Sea, off the coast of Rome and Naples, a sailing ship and a large fish can be seen. In the top right, Corsica, and the northern half of Sardinia are also mapped. On the verso, above a large descriptive text in latin, another smaller woodcut map shows the whole of the Italian peninsula, with north to top. Sebastian Münster (20th January 1488 - 26th May 1552) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and theologian. A gifted scholar of Hebraic, Münster originally joined the Franciscans, but left the order in favour of the Lutheran Church. He was appointed to the University of Basel in 1529, and published a number of works in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. His most celebrated works are his Latin edition of Ptolemy's Geographia in 1540, and the Cosmographia in 1544. The Cosmographia was the earliest German description of the world, an ambitious work of 6 volumes published in numerous editions in German, Latin, French, Italian, and Czech. Condition: Trimmed from full sheet, without loss to map. Latin letterpress text on verso. |
| Framing | unmounted |
| Price | £200.00 |
| Stock ID | 53452 |