Von Gallia. clrrvij / Das ander buch

Title

Von Gallia. clrrvij / Das ander buch

Portrait of Desiderius Erasmus von Rotterdam. He was known as Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam, a Dutch Christian humanist who is widely considered to have been the greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance. Originally trained as a Catholic priest, Erasmus was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style. Erasmus lived against the backdrop of the growing European religious Reformation. While he was critical of the abuses within the Catholic Church and called for reform, he nonetheless kept his distance from Luther, Henry VIII and John Calvin and continued to recognise the authority of the pope, emphasizing a middle way with a deep respect for traditional faith, piety and grace, and rejecting Luther's emphasis on faith alone. Erasmus remained a member of the Roman Catholic Church all his life. On the reverse is a depiction of the battle between the Romans and the Huns. It is said to have taken place on 20 June 451: Almost 30,000 warriors engaged in a bloody slaughter on the Catalaunian fields. The Roman Visigothic army defeated the Huns and forced them to retreat from Gaul.

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.