Schlesia nach aller gelegenheit / in Stetten / Wässern und Bergen / mit sampt andern anstossenden Ländern.

Title

Schlesia nach aller gelegenheit / in Stetten / Wässern und Bergen / mit sampt andern anstossenden Ländern.

Description

Map shows Silesia with the city Breslau,

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

Silesia is a region in Central Europe on both sides of the upper and middle reaches of the Oder and extends in the south along the Sudetes and Beskids. Most of Silesia lies in what is now Poland. A small part in the west of Lower Silesia belongs to East Germany, a southern part of Upper Silesia to the Czech Republic. Between 1289 and 1292, Bohemian king Wenceslaus II became suzerain of some of the Upper Silesian duchies. Polish kings had not renounced their hereditary rights to Silesia until 1335. The province became part of the Bohemian Crown under the Holy Roman Empire, and passed with that crown to the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria in 1526. In the 15th century, several changes were made to Silesia's borders. Parts of the territories which had been transferred to the Silesian Piasts in 1178 were bought by the Polish kings in the second half of the 15th century. From 1526 to 1742 the Habsburgs, as kings of Bohemia, were also dukes of Silesia. Almost all of Silesia became Protestant in the 16th century. Well-known Silesian reformers were among others Johann Heß and Caspar von Schwenckfeld, whose theology was invoked by the Schwenkfeldians, who were represented in Silesia until the 17th century. After the First Silesian War it was agreed in the preliminary peace of Breslau (1742) that Austria had to cede Lower and Upper Silesia to the Oppa as well as the Bohemian County of Glatz to Prussia. Frederick the Great was able to defend this acquisition in the Second Silesian War and also in the Third Silesian War (1756 to 1763). A smaller part of Upper Silesia around Troppau, Jägerndorf, Teschen and Bielitz as well as the southern part of the Principality of Neisse, which belongs to Lower Silesia (= the political district of Freiwaldau until 1938) remained as Austrian Silesia (officially: "Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia") until 1918 of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. First (until 1782) as part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, then (until 1849 and 1860–1861) Moravia. According to a decree of March 4, 1849, all peoples of the Austrian Empire, including Silesians, were given equal rights.