Von den Ländern Asie. Von der Statt Tarnasseri. / Von der Statt und dem Königreich Pego.

Title

Von den Ländern Asie. Von der Statt Tarnasseri. / Von der Statt und dem Königreich Pego.

Description

Two images on one sheet, top view of the town of Thamarassery in the Kozhikode (Calicut) district of Kerala, India. Lower view of the city of Bago in Myanmar. Published by Heinrich Petri, 1550 in Basel.

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

King Anawrahta founded the first Burmese in the 11th century. The early civilizations in Myanmar included the Tibetan-Burmese-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Burma. In the 9th century, the Bamar entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and after the establishment of the pagan kingdom in the 1050s, Burmese language, culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly dominated the country. The pagan kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several belligerent states emerged. In the 16th century, which was reunited by the Taungoo dynasty, the country was briefly the largest empire in the history of mainland Southeast Asia. In the 18th century, Burmese rulers, whose land was not of particular interest to European traders, attempted to maintain their traditional influence in the western areas of Assam, Manipur and Arakan. However, the British East India Company, which expanded its interests in the same area to the east, pushed for them. The Konbaung dynasty of the early 19th century ruled over an area that encompassed modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur and Assam. The British East India Company took control of Myanmar's administration after three Anglo-Burmese wars in the 19th century, and the country became a British colony. Myanmar became independent as a democratic nation in 1948. After a coup d'état in 1962, it became a military dictatorship under the Burma Socialist Program Party. Throughout most of its independent years, the country has been involved in rampant ethnic conflicts and its myriad ethnic groups have been involved in one of the world's longest-lasting civil wars. During this time, the United Nations and several other organizations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country.