[Untitled plan of Tunis and fort of Goleta, Tunisia.]: Geographicus Rare Antique Maps

1574 / 1614 Münster View of the city of Tunis, Tunisia

Tunis-munster-1574

$500.00

[Untitled plan of Tunis and fort of Goleta, Tunisia.] - Main View

[Untitled plan of Tunis and fort of Goleta, Tunisia.] - Alternate View 1

[Untitled plan of Tunis and fort of Goleta, Tunisia.] - Main View Thumbnail

Title

[Untitled plan of Tunis and fort of Goleta, Tunisia.]
1574 (undated) 11.25 x 6.75 in (28.575 x 17.145 cm)

Description

Sebastian Münster's woodcut view of Tunis, Tunisia, is the earliest acquirable printed image of that city based on contemporaneous information, resulting from Charles V's 1535 siege of the Tunisian port.

First Acquirable Image of Modern Tunis

Although it first appeared in a 1574 Latin edition of Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia, the woodcut was executed far earlier. It bears the monogram of formschneider Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (1525 - 1571). Deutsch's woodcuts were first included in the 1550 editions of Münster's work, and the present image is consistent stylistically. And yet, this image made its debut long after Deutsch's other works, a year after his death, and long after Münster's death by plague in 1552. An additional formschneider's mark appears as well, 'HBV', whose work appeared in Münster's work at the same time as did that of Deutsch.

A View From A Siege

Oriented to the south, the view presents the port of Tunis, its harbor protected by the fortress of Goleta; the city's defenses, hospital, arsenal, and walls are shown as are the harem and gardens south of the city. The city's hot baths, east of the bay, are marked. The ruins of ancient Carthage are labeled to the west of the bay, and the ancient Roman aqueduct can be seen bordering.

Puzzling out the Source

All of these details are drawn from an unacquirable source: Agostino de Musi's c. 1535 engraving, depicting Charles V's siege of the city. The presence of the harem and gardens in this woodcut precludes its being sourced from Vavasore or Zonta, whose 1535 depictions of the siege lacked these details. Forlani's 1566 copy of Agostino includes them, but also cannot have informed this woodcut, which would have been executed not much later than 1552 or 1553. Deutch's woodcut eliminates the martial elements of the original, focusing exclusively on the city and its features.

Adding to the Cosmographia

From its first printings in 1544, Münster's Cosmographia was notable for maps and views depicting their subjects for the first time in print. In subsequent editions, Münster labored to build the work by ordering improved city views and additional decorative woodcuts. 1550 saw the addition of many maps and views to the body of the work. Münster's spur to do so was the 1548 publication of Johannes Stumpf's magnificently illustrated history of Switzerland, whose woodcut maps and views outstripped those in Cosmographia both in quality and number. Münster knew he had to improve, and commissioned many of the woodcuts that would make his work the most popular. As is evidenced by the present work, he was still laboring at this when the plague took him.

Publication History and Census

This woodcut was executed by the Swiss artist Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch, who produced many of Munster's woodcuts, including his famous panoply of monsters. It would have been drawn and cut prior to Deutsch's 1571 death and may have been executed as early as those Deutsch produced for Münster for inclusion in the 1550 edition of Cosmographia. We do not see it in print until the 1574 Latin edition of the book, and may even have appeared in 1572. After the death of his Münster's widow, the bulk of the material Münster had received too late for inclusion in his 1552 editions was finally incorporated in the work. The present example conforms typographically to the 1614 German-text edition of Cosmographey. Three separate examples are listed in OCLC, but the work 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...

Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (1525–1571) was a Swiss artist and woodcutter. His work appeared in Agricola's De re metallica and for Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia. Deutsch's father, Niklaus Manuel Deutsch (the Elder) and his brother Niklaus were also artists. Learn More...

Agostino de' Musi or 'Veneziano'(c. 1490 - c. 1540) was an Italian engraver of the Renaissance. He was born in Venice, and trained as an artist. He lived and worked as well in Florence and Rome, where he would join the printmaking workshop of Marcantonio Raimondi. He worked there with success until the Sack of Rome in 1527. He returned to Venice following the Sack, where he is thought to have died after 1535. His pictorial work was more prolific and better known than his cartographic work, despite his having executed some superb maps, such as his influential and broadly copied 1535 depiction of Tunis and Goleta. Learn More...

Source

Münster, S., Cosmographei oder beschreibung aller länder, (Basel: Petri) 1614.

Condition

Very good. Lightly toned, else an attractive example with a bold strike and generous margins.

References

OCLC 163168601.

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