[Archipelago].: Geographicus Rare Antique Maps

1628 Münster Woodcut View of Islands, Ships and Monsters

Islands-munster-1550

$400.00

[Archipelago]. - Alternate View 1 Thumbnail

[Archipelago]. - Alternate View 2 Thumbnail

Title

[Archipelago].
1550 (undated) 7 x 6 in (17.78 x 15.24 cm)

Description

This is a 1550/ 1628 Sebastian Münster woodcut illustrating islands, ships, and sea monsters. It appeared in Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia, an ambitious work intended to present the whole world and its history to a lay audience - thus the image here, illustating islands both in general, and in specific terms.

The Image

The map illustrates a fictional archipelago surrounded by turbulent seas. Some of the islands appear forbiddingly rocky, while others are peppered with trees and hills, some graced with European-styled walled cities. Sea monsters prowl the archipelago, one resembling a giant sea-hog, and a sea serpent menaces a sailing ship, which fires its cannon to drive the monster away. Two small sailboats and another great sailing ship also navigates between the islands. From one of the islands, a robed figure approaches the shore as if to greet one of the sailing craft. Nothing in the image indicates any specific location, and the details do not correspond directly to the accompanying text. It is thus not a literal representation of a specific place but rather an imaginative representation of sea voyages, their associated dangers, and wonders.

The Text

In the editions of Cosmographia in which this image appeared, it appeared twice: here, accompanying the text describing islands in general, defining the concept and providing a wide variety of examples (in particular length, with respect to Iceland). The other appearance of this illustration attended the opening of the chapter pertaining to the New World. That text described Columbus' courting of the King and Queen of Spain and the start of his 1492 voyage - first from Cadiz to the Canary Islands, thence crossing the Atlantic to find the Island of St. John (Puerto Rico) and Hispaniola. And so, while the image attending this text is primarily an imaginary work, it was nevertheless employed to illustrate sea voyages amongst the world's islands and intended to evoke the wonder associated with those places.

Publication History and Census

This woodcut was executed by an anonymous formschneider for inclusion in the 1550 editions of Münster's Cosmographia and would remain in the work in every edition up to 1628 (the present example appeared in that last edition). The book's many editions are well-represented in institutional collections. While this image is cataloged separately only once in OCLC, it appears on the market from time to time.

CartographerS

Sebastian Münster (January 20, 1488 - May 26, 1552), was a German cartographer, cosmographer, Hebrew scholar and humanist. He was born at Ingelheim near Mainz, the son of Andreas Munster. He completed his studies at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in 1518, after which he was appointed to the University of Basel in 1527. As Professor of Hebrew, he edited the Hebrew Bible, accompanied by a Latin translation. In 1540 he published a Latin edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, which presented the ancient cartographer's 2nd century geographical data supplemented systematically with maps of the modern world. This was followed by what can be considered his principal work, the Cosmographia. First issued in 1544, this was the earliest German description of the modern world. It would become the go-to book for any literate layperson who wished to know about anywhere that was further than a day's journey from home. In preparation for his work on Cosmographia, Münster reached out to humanists around Europe and especially within the Holy Roman Empire, enlisting colleagues to provide him with up-to-date maps and views of their countries and cities, with the result that the book contains a disproportionate number of maps providing the first modern depictions of the areas they depict. Münster, as a religious man, was not producing a travel guide. Just as his work in ancient languages was intended to provide his students with as direct a connection as possible to scriptural revelation, his object in producing Cosmographia was to provide the reader with a description of all of creation: a further means of gaining revelation. The book, unsurprisingly, proved popular and was reissued in numerous editions and languages including Latin, French, Italian, and Czech. The last German edition was published in 1628, long after Münster's death of the plague in 1552. Cosmographia was one of the most successful and popular books of the 16th century, passing through 24 editions between 1544 and 1628. This success was due in part to its fascinating woodcuts (some by Hans Holbein the Younger, Urs Graf, Hans Rudolph Manuel Deutsch, and David Kandel). Münster's work was highly influential in reviving classical geography in 16th century Europe, and providing the intellectual foundations for the production of later compilations of cartographic work, such as Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Münster's output includes a small format 1536 map of Europe; the 1532 Grynaeus map of the world is also attributed to him. His non-geographical output includes Dictionarium trilingue in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and his 1537 Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. Most of Munster's work was published by his stepson, Heinrich Petri (Henricus Petrus), and his son Sebastian Henric Petri. More by this mapmaker...

Heinrich Petri (1508 - 1579) and his son Sebastian Henric Petri (1545 – 1627) were printers based in Basel, Switzerland. Heinrich was the son of the printer Adam Petri and Anna Selber. After Adam died in 1527, Anna married the humanist and geographer Sebastian Münster - one of Adam's collaborators. Sebastian contracted his stepson, Henricus Petri (Petrus), to print editions of his wildly popular Cosmographia. Later Petri, brought his son, Sebastian Henric Petri, into the family business. Their firm was known as the Officina Henricpetrina. In addition to the Cosmographia, they also published a number of other seminal works including the 1566 second edition of Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium and Georg Joachim Rheticus's Narratio. Learn More...

Source

Munster, Sebastian, Cosmographie Universelle, (Basel: Petri) 1628. The Cosmographia Universalis, one of the greatest geographical and historical works of the 16th century, 'taught nearly three generations of laymen most of what they knew about the world beyond their native places' (Strauss). Filled with maps, views, and rich descriptions of places throughout Europe and beyond, it was the best general source of geographical information until the advent of Ortelius' Theatrum. It was first issued by Sebastian Munster (1488 - 1552) in its 1544 German edition, and stayed in print long after its author's death in thirty five editions, and in five languages. (Of these, the 1550 and 1552 editions are widely regarded as the most complete and truest to the author's intentions: thereafter, later editors continued to add to the work's text; editions from 1588 onwards employed an entirely different set of maps produced on Ortelius' model.) Munster's goal, initially, was to rally his homeland's humanists and scholars to produce a new map of Germany in order to 'see what kind of a land our ancestors conquered for their home... bring honor to our country and place its beauties in the clear light of day.' Munster's project quickly expanded to cover the known world in its scope to produce a 'sufficiently large volume, in which I touch upon the foundation of all nations and kingdoms, their peculiarities, rivers, mountains, customs of men, royal successions, origins of the more important cities, succinct histories, religions, characteristics and fertility of lands... in Germany, however, I tarry a little longer'.

Munster's methodology in Cosmographia is notable in particular for his dedication to providing his readers with direct access to firsthand reports of his subjects wherever possible. Many of the maps were the result of his own surveys; others, the fruit of an indefatigable letter writing campaign to scholars, churchmen and princes throughout Europe, amicably badgering them for maps, views, and detailed descriptions of their lands. For lands further afield than his letters could reach, Munster relied on the best that the authorities of northern European scholarship could offer: he was well familiar with the work of Waldseemuller and other geographers of the early 16th century, and was well connected with the best geographers of his own generation. A disproportionate number of the maps of Cosmographia show contemporary geographical knowledge of the their respective areas for the very first time: The first map to show the continents of the Western Hemisphere; the first map to focus on the continent of Asia; the first modern map to name the Pacific Ocean; the first map to use a key; the first modern map of the British Isles and so on. Even in cases where earlier maps exist, Munster's works very often remain the earliest such acquirable by the collector.

Condition

Very good. One wormhole not impacting image. Toning and some show-through, else excellent.

References

OCLC 990347056.

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