Europa das ein ditscheil der erden/nach gelegenheit unsern zeiten

Title

Europa das ein ditscheil der erden/nach gelegenheit unsern zeiten

Description

Map shows Europe on an inverted projection with north at the bottom of the page. One of the earliest printed maps of the European continent. Curiously oriented to the south. Shows the continent from Constantinople and Greece to the east and Spain to the southwest. With Denmark, England, Scotland and Ireland to the bottom of the map. Decorated with a beautiful sailing ship. Letterpress title on top. A large woodcut border surrounds the title on verso. From Sebastian Münster’s Cosmography, published circa 1545 by Heinrich Petri in Basel.​ Beautiful woodcut with allegories, two saints and German text on verso.​

ca. 1550

Artist

Münster (1489-1552)

Sebastian Münsters (1489-1552) is one of the famous cosmographers of the Renaissance. Its real importance in the field of cartography is based on its famous cosmography, which he published in 1544 with 24 double-sided maps (including Moscow and Transylvania). The material for this came largely from research and the collection of information from around 1528, which he initially only wanted to use for a description of Germany, but was now sufficient for a map of the entire world and ultimately led to a cosmography. He constantly tried to improve this work, i.e. to replace or add to maps. In the edition of 1550, only 14 maps were taken over from the earlier editions. The 52 maps printed in the text were also only partially based on the old maps. The great success of this cosmography was also based on the precise work of the woodcuts mostly by Hans Holbein the Younger, Urs Graf, Hans Rudolph Deutsch and David Kandel. It was the first scientific and at the same time generally understandable description of the knowledge of the world in German, in which the basics of history and geography, astronomy and natural sciences, regional and folklore were summarized according to the state of knowledge at that time. Cosmography is the science of describing the earth and the universe. Until the late Middle Ages, geography, geology and astronomy were also part of it. The first edition of the Cosmographia took place in 1544 in German, printed in Heinrich Petri's office in Basel. Heinrich Petri was a son from the first marriage of Münster's wife to the Basel printer Adam Petri. Over half of all editions up to 1628 were also published in German. However, the work has also been published in Latin, French, Czech and Italian. The English editions all comprised only a part of the complete work. Viktor Hantzsch identified a total of 46 editions in 1898 (German 27; Latin 8; French 3; Italian 3; Czech 1) that appeared from 1544 to 1650, while Karl Heinz Burmeister only had 36 (German 21; Latin 5; French 6; Italian 3; Czech 1) that appeared between 1544 and 1628. The first edition from 1544 was followed by the second edition in 1545, the third in 1546, the fourth edition in 1548 and the fifth edition in 1550, each supplemented by new reports and details, text images, city views and maps and revised altogether. Little has been known about who - apart from the book printers Heinrich Petri and Sebastian Henricpetri - were responsible for the new editions after Münster's death. The 1628 edition was edited and expanded by the Basel theologian Wolfgang Meyer. With Cosmographia, Sebastian Münster has published for the first time a joint work by learned historians and artists, by publishers, wood cutters and engravers. The numerous vedute are usually made as woodcuts. Sebastian Münster obtained his knowledge from the travel reports and stories of various scholars, geographers, cartographers and sea travelers. Long after his death, "Kosmographie" was still a popular work with large editions: 27 German, 8 Latin, 3 French, 4 English and even 1 Czech editions appeared. The last edition appeared in Basel in 1650.

Historical Description

Especially the Greek culture, the Roman Empire and Christianity left their mark until today. In ancient times, the Roman Empire at the time of Augustus united for the first time the entire southern Europe together with the other coastal countries of the Mediterranean in one great empire. In the Roman Empire, the new religion of Christianity was able to spread rapidly. In the early Middle Ages, the Paderborn Epic declared the ruler of the Frankish Empire, Charlemagne, to be the "Father of Europe." The Middle Ages were marked, among other things, by competition between the new Roman emperor in the West and the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople, in the East, to whose two spheres of influence the later deepened division into a Western and Eastern Europe can be traced. Since the 15th century, European nations (especially Spain, Portugal, Russia, the Netherlands, France, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) built colonial empires with large possessions on all other continents. Europe is the continent that has influenced the other continents the most, for example, through Christian missionary work, colonies, slave trade, exchange of goods and culture. n the 18th century, the Enlightenment movement set new directions and demanded tolerance, respect for human dignity, equality and freedom. In France, the French Revolution brought the bourgeoisie to power in 1789. In the early 19th century, half of Europe had to conform to the will of Napoleon, the French emperor who came to power after the revolutionary period, until he suffered a fiasco in Russia in 1812. The conservative victorious powers then tried to restore pre-revolutionary conditions at the Congress of Vienna, which succeeded only temporarily. Industrialization began in parts of Europe in the 18th century and rapidly changed the everyday lives of broad sections of the population.