Page 2 - Early Mapping News Today

  1552 (undated)         1 : 50000000 Description This is an excellent 1552 Latin example of Sebastian Münsters map of America, the first printed map of the Western Hemisphere. The map first appeared in Münsters 1540 edition of Ptolemys Geographia, one of the earliest versions of the classical work to systematically include maps showing contemporary geographical knowledge. Beginning in 1544, the map would be included in Münsters magnum opus, Cosmographia Universalis, which for ov...

Cosmographia, in which this map appeared until about 1569. Whereas Geographia only appeared in Latin, Münsters new work was published in German, Latin, French, and Italian (the sole Czech edition of 1554 had only one map of Bohemia). The movable stereotype text with which the map was lettered exhibits slight variations from edition to edition, as does the verso text. Also, the cracks would increase in severity until 1571 or 1572, when the badly worn woodblock was replaced with a similar (but...