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An attractive example of Münster’s woodcut map of the British Isles, first issued in the important 1588 edition of his Cosmographia, published by Sebastian Petri in Basel. The map offers a distinctly early modern portrayal of England, Scotland, and Ireland, oriented with west at the top, a convention that reflects both antiquated cartographic tradition and aesthetic choice. It is based on the 1570 map by Abraham Ortelius, though simplified and rendered in Münster’s enduring woodcut style.
Following Münster’s death in 1552, the Cosmographia remained one of the most influential geographical works of the 16th century, widely circulated and translated throughout Europe. In 1588, Sebastian Petri, son of the printer Henri Petri, undertook an ambitious project to revise and modernize the book’s maps using updated geographical models. Among these was this woodcut of the British Isles, which replaced the earlier 1540s versions derived more loosely from late medieval traditions.
The map features a compact and stylized rendering of the British archipelago, showing major rivers, mountain ranges, and cities in a dense and legible format. There is probably something to be learned from the fact that the second version of "Munster" British Isles, following Mercator's wall map of 1562, places west at the top, as if viewing Britain from the continent, while the first edition, based on a domestic mapping, places east at the top, as if looking over Britain with the focus on the continent.
This edition, while updated in content, maintained the woodcut technique at a time when copperplate engraving had become dominant.
A landmark map in the history of cartography and a vital artifact of the late 16th-century European view of Britain and Ireland.
Münster's Cosmographia was the first German-language description of the world, and one of the defining books of the Renaissance. It contained 471 woodcuts and 26 maps over six volumes. First published in 1544, the Cosmographia was hugely popular in addition to being influential for contemporary cartographers like Mercator and Ortelius. It was published in at least 35 editions by 1628; these editions included examples in Latin, French, Italian, English, and Czech. After Münster's death, Henri Petri, and later his son, Sebastien Petri, took charge of printing editions.
Münster drew from his own travels in the work in addition to using other ancient and more modern sources. These sources included Herodotus, Strabo, and Titius Livius, as well as Marcantonio Sabellico, Beatus Rhenanus, and Aegidius Tschudi. Münster additionally collected reports from recent travelers, which he integrated into his descriptions. These descriptions generally included detailed overviews of the customs, dress, and organization of peoples around the world, earning him a prominent place in the histories of geography and anthropology.
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.
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