Böhemer Königreich / mit Bergen und Wälden / geringsumb beschlossen

Title

Böhemer Königreich / mit Bergen und Wälden / geringsumb beschlossen

Map shows the whole of Bohemia in the Czech Republic.

ca. 1550

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

Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech lands in the present-day Czech Republic. In a broader meaning, Bohemia sometimes refers to the entire Czech territory, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, especially in a historical context, such as the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by Bohemian kings. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Austrian Empire. After World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia. Between 1938 and 1945, border regions with sizeable German-speaking minorities of all three Czech lands were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland.