Von den Ländern Americe.

Title

Von den Ländern Americe.

Description

The front and back show the ship Santa Maria von Columbus on its voyage of discovery to America.

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

Under the discovery of Americans, the first sighting of the continent by seafarers from the global civilization space. It is known that as early as the year 1000 Grænlendingar - under Leif Eriksson - belonged to the ground, Christopher Columbus gilded Americans as explorers, since only after his discovery of the Caribbean on October 12, 1492 did exploration and perception of the landmass continent begin, this date has marked a turning point in human history. This will be the first European, the American mainland in modern administration, Giovanni Caboto rights, even if it is a question that Didrik Pining and João Vaz Corte-Real raised. America was only recognized as a separate continent by the Italian Amerigo Vespucci in 1507 and in the old year by Martin Waldseemüller according to this as America guidelines. According to initial knowledge, Leif Eriksson was the first European to enter mainland America around the year 1000. Some of the “Vinland Sagas”, which report on the discovery trips of the Grænlendingar, give the distinction between the coastal sections in Helluland, Markland and Vinland. The assignment of these areas is the preservation and reaching from Baffin Island and Labrador to Nova Scotia or Massachusetts. Christopher Columbus tries on America trying to turn India (across East Asia) by crossing the Atlantic Ocean. At the turn of 1487/88, the Portuguese Bartolomeu Diaz was the first European to sail around the southern tip of Africa; the further route to India was unexplored until 1498. The first cartel players like Martin Waldseemüller assigned the newly developed sections of the Atlantic coast to Americans a new continent "America", before the first proof was given that War was that America is a continent. He believes this on September 25, 1513, at eleven o'clock in the morning, Vasco Núñez de Balboa after a loss-making expedition through Panama, as well as being the first European to see the Pacific from the good mainland. Amerigo Vespucci had already postulated the continent properties before him, he changed Americans by the observation-clear peculiarities of fauna and flora. Amerigo Vespucci interests that he had already been in Mexico in June 1497. He was possibly the first Christian European to enter the double continent. Martin Waldseemüller, who referred to Vespucci and the mysterious Caveri card, already had personal ideas of Central America and his own resistance to the ocean.