Description
Early c.16th woodcut map of this famous world by the German cartographer Sebastian Münster with the initials of the engraver David Kandel (1520 – 1592) at lower left.
Münster made this new modern map of the world in an ovaloid projection for the 1550 edition of his Cosmographia.
Surrounding the map are decorative clouds and personified depictions of the twelve winds of the wind-system proposed by Aristotle with their names appearing in banners. The seas are richly embellished with sea monsters. With this map, Munster moved away from the classically accepted Ptolemaic model of the world with a landlocked Indian Ocean. He also omits, Terra Australis Incognita, usually found on world maps of the period and and names for the first time, the Pacific Ocean. The recently discovered North America is named, Terra Florida, and is shown with a huge inland sea which became known as the Verrazano Sea from the accounts of Giovanni da Verrazano (1485-1528) who mistook the Pamlico and Albemarle Sounds as the Pacific Ocean. The ship depicted on the right is Magellan’s ship Victoria honouring his circumnavigation of the world 1519-1522.
With this map Münster was one of the first to provide a more realistic picture of the world.
Latin text on the verso.
From Münster’s Cosmographia Universalis Henrichum Petri, Basle.
