Von den Inseln so bey den vorgemeldten Ländern im Meere ligen und zum Landt gerechnet werden. Rhodyß die Insel und Hauptstatt darinn.

Title

Von den Inseln so bey den vorgemeldten Ländern im Meere ligen und zum Landt gerechnet werden. Rhodyß die Insel und Hauptstatt darinn.

Description

Bird's eye view of the present-day old town of Rhodes on the island of the same name. On the reverse two illustrations and text about the islands of Rhodes, Lesbus, Chios, Samos and Icaria.

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

With the de facto division of the Roman Empire in 395, Rhodes became part of the Eastern Roman Empire, later called the Byzantine Empire. In the period after the First Crusade, Domenico Michiel, Doge of the Republic of Venice, on his way back from the Holy Land in 1124, plundered some Byzantine islands, including Rhodes. In 1306 the Genoese Vignolo de' Vignoli concluded a treaty with the knights of the Order of Saint John. In return for their help in implementing his plans, he assured the Knights of the Order, under their Grand Master Fulko de Villaret, of their own dominion on the island. Diplomatically secured by the support of the Pope, who would grant them Rhodes as perpetual property in 1307, the Knights of Saint John began their planned conquest of the island. Rhodes Town was strongly fortified by the Knights of St. John and defended against various attacks from the surrounding Muslim states. It was only under Suleiman the Lawgiver that the island fortress could be stormed by the Ottomans with heavy artillery after several months in 1522, whereupon the knights under Grand Master Philippe de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam capitulated and left the island on New Year's Day 1523. Immediately after the conquest, the Suleyman Pasha Mosque was built by Sultan Suleyman in 1523. The Ottoman rule lasted until May of the year 1912. During the Italian-Turkish War, troops of the Kingdom of Italy occupied Rhodes on 1912. This meant that Rhodes was not affected by the Greek-Turkish agreement of 1922, which provided for the forced resettlement of the Turks of Greece to Turkey and the Greeks of Asia Minor to Hellas. Since the Italian occupation in 1912, the entrance to the harbor is bordered by the statues of a stag (Elafos) and a hind (Elafina), which are considered the new emblem of Rhodes and, according to legend, stand where in ancient times the bases of the Colossus of Rhodes were located.