Breue descrittione del regno di Pollonia.

Title

Breue descrittione del regno di Pollonia.

Map shows Poland and its neighbouring countries. With the cities of Lemburg (locality of Mālpils in Latvia), Chełm in the Lublin Voivodeship, Wroclaw, Krakow, Ortelsburg (Szczytno district town in the south of the Warmia-Masuria Voivodeship), Vyshhorod (Vißegrod), Gdansk, Thorn, Kyouia (Kyovia diocese). Vilna (Vilnius, capital of Lithuania), Strasbourg in West Prussia (Brodnica).

ca. 1590

Artist

Münster (1489-1552)

Sebastian Münster (1489–1552) was a leading Renaissance cosmographer. His most famous work, the Cosmographia (1544), was a comprehensive description of the world with 24 maps, based on research dating back to 1528. Continuously revised, the 1550 edition already included many new maps. It was the first scientific yet accessible world description published in German, illustrated with numerous woodcuts by artists such as Hans Holbein the Younger. Between 1544 and 1650, the Cosmographia appeared in 46 editions (27 in German) and was translated into several languages. Münster’s work combined the knowledge of scholars, artists, and travelers and remained influential long after his death.

Historical Description

Poland is bordered by the Baltic Sea, Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast and Lithuania to the north, Belarus and Ukraine to the east, Slovakia and Czech Republic, to the south, and Germany to the west. The establishment of the Polish state can be traced back to AD 966, when Mieszko I ruler of the realm coextensive with the territory of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented its longstanding political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest at the end of the 18th century. Poland regained its independence in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles. It was one of the most populous countries of 16th- and 17th-century Europe, with a uniquely liberal political system, which adopted Europe's first written national constitution, the Constitution of 1791.