Hamburg

Article description

Woodcut published 1628 in the 'Cosmographia' by Sebastian Münster, printed on the full text sheet. German text edition. Decorative 16th century view across the river towards Hamburg with its city walls, below with an explanation for the woodcut naming the churches of the city of Hamburg and a few city gates. Printed on a full text sheet of Sebastian Münsters Cosmographia. This fine antique print was published 1578 in a German text edition of Sebastian Münster's ,Cosmographia', the first detailed scientific and popular description of the world in Sebastian Münster's native language as well as a supreme effort of geographical study and literature of the Reformation period. One of the most popular treatises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Cosmographia reached a total of forty-six editions in six languages by 1650 each incorporating additions and revisions. Sebastian Münster was a professor of Hebrew at Basel university and a most distinguished Hebraist linguist mathematician and geographer. This encyclopedic work was his major undertaking. In its completion, which occupied him for fifteen years, Münster received the assistance of more than one hundred and twenty collaborators, who provided him with the most up-to-date information relating to the towns and places described. The scientifically most valuable sections are those which deal with Germany and Central Europe.