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Description

The First Map of the Continent of Europe?

Interesting early map of Europe, Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, which appeared in the 1538 edition of Solinus' Polyhistor, rerum toto orbe memorabilium thesaurus locupletissimus. Huic ob argumenti similitudinem Pomponii Melae de situ orbis libros tres adiunximus.

The map provides a simple but relatively accurate depiction of Europe for its time period and is one of the earliest printed maps to depict the whole of Europe.  While historically, Sebastian Munster's 1540 Europa Prima Nova Tabula has been considered the first map of the European continent,  a strong case could be made that this Solinus map qualifies as the first map of Europe, especially give the use of the name "Europa" in the body of the map. 

While unsigned, the map is typically attributed Sebastian Munster, a German cosmographer and geographer, who is best known for his influential works Geographia, first published in 1540, and Cosmographia, first published in 1544. The map has historically been referenced as a Solinus map from the third century Roman geographer Gaius Julius Solinus, whose Collectanea rerum memorabilium (or Polyhistor) was a key source of geographic and ethnographic knowledge in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Much of Solinus' work is drawn from Pliny's work on Natural History and Pomponius Mela's work on Geography. Solinus’ descriptions of the world were often rooted in mythological and historical accounts.

The 1538 edition of the Polyhistor (and subsequent 1543 edition) was published by Heinrich Petri in Basel in 1538.  Sebastian Munster played a major role in the production of the 1538 Polyhistor, combining his expertise as a cartographer, editor, and humanist scholar to enhance the work of Solinus and Mela with updated geographical insights and illustrations. Munster not only edited the text but also provided copious notes, updating Solinus and Mela's accounts with recent geographical information.  He also likely designed or oversaw the creation of the 20 woodcut maps and illustrations included in the 1538 edition.

The 1538 map portrays Europe with a distinctive orientation and emphasis on major rivers, mountain ranges, and cities. Key features include the Danube River, Rhine River, and the Alps, which dominate the landscape and reflect the early modern understanding of Europe’s physical geography. Coastal outlines are irregular and imprecise by modern standards, yet they demonstrate Munster’s effort to incorporate updated geographic knowledge based on contemporary explorations and Renaissance scholarship.  

Sebastian Munster Biography

Sebastian Münster (1488-1552) was a cosmographer and professor of Hebrew who taught at Tübingen, Heidelberg, and Basel. He settled in the latter in 1529 and died there, of plague, in 1552. Münster made himself the center of a large network of scholars from whom he obtained geographic descriptions, maps, and directions.

As a young man, Münster joined the Franciscan order, in which he became a priest. He then studied geography at Tübingen, graduating in 1518. He moved to Basel, where he published a Hebrew grammar, one of the first books in Hebrew published in Germany. In 1521 Münster moved again, to Heidelberg, where he continued to publish Hebrew texts and the first German-produced books in Aramaic. After converting to Protestantism in 1529, he took over the chair of Hebrew at Basel, where he published his main Hebrew work, a two-volume Old Testament with a Latin translation.

Münster published his first known map, a map of Germany, in 1525. Three years later, he released a treatise on sundials. In 1540, he published Geographia universalis vetus et nova, an updated edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia. In addition to the Ptolemaic maps, Münster added 21 modern maps. One of Münster’s innovations was to include one map for each continent, a concept that would influence Ortelius and other early atlas makers. The Geographia was reprinted in 1542, 1545, and 1552.  

He is best known for his Cosmographia universalis, first published in 1544 and released in at least 35 editions by 1628. It was the first German-language description of the world and contained 471 woodcuts and 26 maps over six volumes. Many of the maps were taken from the Geographia and modified over time. The Cosmographia was widely used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The text, woodcuts, and maps all influenced geographical thought for generations.