1598 Münster View of London, England

This scarce woodcut is the third earliest acquirable depiction of London. Prepared in 1598, it was the only depiction of London to appear in Münster's Cosmographia, appearing in only the three last Sebastian Petri editions of that work. (While pre-dated by the 1593 Norden and the 1595 Valegio plans in James Howgego's cartobibliography, these are not acquirable in their first editions.)

A Classic, Decorative Woodcut

Modeled on Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg's 1572 plan, the city here is laid out as a plan, but the buildings and surrounding landscape are presented in elevation - thus giving the impression of a bird's-eye view, even to the extent of detailing gardens and showing bustling river traffic. Also, as with the Braun and Hogenberg, the anonymous formschneider has included four figures in the foreground: a nobleman and woman, with their attendant maid and footman (he, armed with a sword and buckler), each dressed in the styles of the period appropriate to their positions.

A Late Addition

From its first edition, Münster's Cosmographia included a text describing England and the British Isles. The shortness of that section indicated that for many years, Münster didn't know much about islands. In the 15th century, the British Isles were, of European lands, nearly as remote and unknowable as Scandinavia. When, in 1550, Münster was able to get firsthand reports of those islands, they came via Scotsman Alexander Ales, and so Cosmographia included a depiction of Edinburgh well before one of London.

The Early London Plans

The first single-sheet plan of London was in Cologne in 1572 by Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg. The second acquirable London plan was a woodcut executed for Francois de Belleforest's 1575 French translation of Münster. No other acquirable plan of London was issued until this one in 1598.

It might be supposed that the appearance of an updated Cosmographia such as Belleforest's signaled to its publishers that Münster's hoary work, with its 35-year-old maps, might be due for an overhaul. In 1588, Sebastian Petri began publishing the work with new maps and views. Surprisingly, Petri had little to add for Britain: that section in the 1588 edition is substantially the same as the one from 1578. Not until a decade had passed would the new edition include this image - with the result that only the 1598, the 1614, and the 1628 editions of Cosmographia contain it.

The Source Plan

In the above iterations, this remained the final depiction of London made before the Great Fire of 1666. (Howgego notes that the Great Fire and the problems attendant to land ownership and rebuilding led to the first proper surveys of the city.) It is an image of a still older London: St. Paul's Cathedral still sports the tall, pointed spire, which was destroyed in 1561. The 1572 plan was based on an earlier work that has not survived in completion: a now-lost 15-sheet plan of the city, the so-called 'copperplate map' of which only three plates now survive. The authorship of the 'copperplate map' is not known. It has been speculated that the Hansa in London played some part in its production, even commissioning the work - resulting in the laudatory paragraph to the Hansa that survives on the Braun and Hogenberg. By the time this plan was made, the Hansa had lost their grip on London's trade, and indeed, Elizabeth I ordered the Hansa out of London completely by 1597.

Publication History and Census

This woodcut was executed by an anonymous artist for inclusion in the 1598 Sebastian Petri edition of Münster's Cosmographia. Consequently, it appeared in only three editions of the work, making it among the rarest of the woodcuts from Münster's book and one of the rarest plans of London. The present example conforms typographically to the 1614 German-text edition of the book. Only one example of the separate plan is recorded in OCLC, in the collection of the Hergozin Anna Amalia Bibliothek Klassic.