Sarmatia Asie.

Title

Sarmatia Asie.

Description

Map shows the Caucasus with Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and partly Russia. The reverse shows a figure.

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

334 BC Alexander the Great began his campaign against the Persians and conquered Persia in a few years. His goal was to permanently consolidate the rule of the Hellenes by merging cultures (mass wedding of Susa, own marriage to the daughter of Darius III). However, he could not finish his work, because he was 323 BC. Died of fever in Babylon. Armenia also came under Hellenistic influence, but it was not conquered. By 700, the Arab tribes managed to establish permanent rule in the country. They put down revolts of the Armenian nobility. Within the nobility, the leading family changed during this time: The Bagratids (Bagratuni) took over from the Mamikonjan and were able to extend their rule to parts of Georgia. As a result, in 1080 Armenian refugees founded an independent principality of Little Armenia under the Rubenids in Cilicia. These allied with the crusaders against the Byzantines and Turks. In 1342 the kingdom fell to the Catholic House of Lusignan of Cyprus, but soon came to the Egyptian Mamluks and then to the Ottoman Empire. Under the rule of the Ottomans, the Armenians enjoyed a certain formal autonomy according to the Millet system. When the Ottoman Empire began to decline from around 1800, parts of the Armenians saw Russia as a major Christian power as a protective power that should enable them to gain independence following the example of the Christian Balkan peoples. After the ninth Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) in the context of the Balkan crisis, the Ottoman Empire had to cede further parts of Eastern Armenia and the provinces of Kars and Ardahan to Russia in the Peace of San Stefano.