Strassburg

Title

Strassburg

Map shows the city of Strasbourg, on reverse St. Otilienberg.

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

In the Middle Ages Strasbourg belonged to the Holy Roman Empire. The Müllenheim family and the Zorn family were the most important patrician families of Strasbourg at that time, whose rivalry for supremacy in the imperial city (1262 to 1681) was fought out in veritable street battles. Under the reign of these families, Strasbourg developed into one of the most important economic centers of the region. The climax of the violent confrontation between the Müllenheim and Zorn families was the so-called "Geschell der Müllenheim und Zorn" in 1332. as a result of which the city nobility was overthrown, because the real winners of this fight were the guilds. They ruled in the Fünfzehnerwörth (Fifteenth Council), which dealt mainly with the affairs of the guilds, crafts, trades and commerce. Thus, Strasbourg as a free city was one of the first small republics in the Holy Roman Empire. After the invention of printing in Europe by Johannes Gutenberg, Strasbourg quickly became an important center of book production. Strasbourg's printers made a significant contribution to the spread of the Reformation, as the city's extensive religious tolerance meant that writings by Martin Luther and other reformers could be published here early on. One third of the writings printed in the 16th century were Bibles or excerpts from them. In 1605, Johann Carolus published the news journal Relation aller Fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien here, which is considered the first printed newspaper in the world.