1540 Munster Map of Asia - FIRST EDITION / FIRST STATE!

First Edition, First State.

This is the rare 1540 first-edition first-state of Sebastian Münster's map of Asia, the first printed map of that continent based on contemporary data and the earliest obtainable map of the continent overall. This attractive and evocative map was broadly influential: for more than 30 years during the age of discovery, this map was the predominant representation of Asia available to Europeans.

A Closer Look

The map depicts the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean and from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian Ocean. Although the interior detail is based heavily on Ptolemy, Münster also incorporated information gleaned from recent discoveries by Portuguese traders and adventurers, including Vasco da Gama (c. 1460 - 1624). Both the Portuguese outposts of Goa and Calicut, on the Indian subcontinent, are labeled, and the depiction of India is improved, moving closer to a truly accurate depiction, although still undersized. The inclusion of Sri Lanka (Zaylon) as an island is also an improvement; Münster applies Ptolemy's historical name for Sri Lanka - Taprobana - to Sumatra, which is placed correctly to the west of Malaya.

Southeast Asia and the East Indies

The Portuguese trading post of Malaqua in Southeast Asia is also present. Münster's depiction of Southeast Asia is recognizable and surprisingly rich in novel information. Java - consistent with Marco Polo - is split in two, illustrated here as Java Major and Java Minor. Münster retains Marco Polo's assertion of a vast archipelago in the Pacific made up of 7,448 islands. Münster's depiction of China (Cathay) is also consistent with Marco Polo's writings. At the northwestern angle of the Malay Peninsula can be found Pego (Pegu / Myanmar). This first appeared on a printed map with the 1516 Martin Waldseemüller Carta Marina, one of Münster's sources. Drawing on Magellan's Voyage (1519 - 1522), he includes the Pacific 'Thieves' Islands' of Guam and Rota, here named 'Insulę pdonū,' corrupted from Ladrones. Borneo appears as Porne. Predated only by Oronce Fine's world map, this map is the earliest to show any specific island of the Philippines: Palawan, here named Puloan. Likewise, this map gave its readers their first glimpse of the Spice Islands of the Moluccas and Gilolo. Although Münster extends Asia beyond the eastern limits of the page, his map of the Western Hemisphere makes clear that he beleived Asia and America to be separate continents.

Asia in a Navigable World

Although this map does not name the Pacific, Münster's Asia map is the first to be produced on the assumption that the body of water lying to the east was an ocean distinct from the Atlantic. His maps of the World and the Western Hemisphere are the first to name the Pacific. This map of Asia is the first to be produced consistent with that knowledge.

Publication History and Census

This map was printed for the first 1540 edition of Münster's Geographia. Only the 1540 and 1542 issues were titled INDIA EXTREMA XIX. NOVA TABULA. The banner typesetting of the 1540 is unique: it includes a leaf motif at the left, whereas the 1542 also has a leaf at the right. With further typographical changes, the map remained in each edition of Geographia, the the last in 1552. The map was also included in all editions of Munster's Cosmographia until 1578, after which the double-page maps of the long-lived work were replaced and updated. While editions of Geographia are well represented in institutional collections, OCLC lists just 27 copies dated 1540. The number of confirmed first editions, however, is likely to be lower, judging by the imprecision with which these institutional copies are catalogued. Only 4 examples of this 1540 state of the separate map are catalogued in OCLC.

Cartographers

Sebastian Münster (January 20, 1488 - May 26, 1552), was a German cartographer, cosmographer, Hebrew scholar and humanist. He was born at Ingelheim near Mainz, the son of Andreas Munster. He completed his studies at the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen in 1518, after which he was appointed to the University of Basel in 1527. As Professor of Hebrew, he edited the Hebrew Bible, accompanied by a Latin translation. In 1540 he published a Latin edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, which presented the ancient cartographer's 2nd century geographical data supplemented systematically with maps of the modern world. This was followed by what can be considered his principal work, the Cosmographia. First issued in 1544, this was the earliest German description of the modern world. It would become the go-to book for any literate layperson who wished to know about anywhere that was further than a day's journey from home. In preparation for his work on Cosmographia, Münster reached out to humanists around Europe and especially within the Holy Roman Empire, enlisting colleagues to provide him with up-to-date maps and views of their countries and cities, with the result that the book contains a disproportionate number of maps providing the first modern depictions of the areas they depict. Münster, as a religious man, was not producing a travel guide. Just as his work in ancient languages was intended to provide his students with as direct a connection as possible to scriptural revelation, his object in producing Cosmographia was to provide the reader with a description of all of creation: a further means of gaining revelation. The book, unsurprisingly, proved popular and was reissued in numerous editions and languages including Latin, French, Italian, and Czech. The last German edition was published in 1628, long after Münster's death of the plague in 1552. Cosmographia was one of the most successful and popular books of the 16th century, passing through 24 editions between 1544 and 1628. This success was due in part to its fascinating woodcuts (some by Hans Holbein the Younger, Urs Graf, Hans Rudolph Manuel Deutsch, and David Kandel). Münster's work was highly influential in reviving classical geography in 16th century Europe, and providing the intellectual foundations for the production of later compilations of cartographic work, such as Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Münster's output includes a small format 1536 map of Europe; the 1532 Grynaeus map of the world is also attributed to him. His non-geographical output includes Dictionarium trilingue in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and his 1537 Hebrew Gospel of Matthew. Most of Munster's work was published by his stepson, Heinrich Petri (Henricus Petrus), and his son Sebastian Henric Petri.   Further Details...

Heinrich Petri (1508 - 1579) and his son Sebastian Henric Petri (1545 – 1627) were printers based in Basel, Switzerland. Heinrich was the son of the printer Adam Petri and Anna Selber. After Adam died in 1527, Anna married the humanist and geographer Sebastian Münster - one of Adam's collaborators. Sebastian contracted his stepson, Henricus Petri (Petrus), to print editions of his wildly popular Cosmographia. Later Petri, brought his son, Sebastian Henric Petri, into the family business. Their firm was known as the Officina Henricpetrina. In addition to the Cosmographia, they also published a number of other seminal works including the 1566 second edition of Nicolaus Copernicus's De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium and Georg Joachim Rheticus's Narratio.   Further Details...

Source

Münster, S., Geographia Universalis, (Basel: Petri) 1540.    

Following in the footsteps of Martin Waldseemuller and Lorent Fries before him, Sebastian Munster edited and published a modernized version of Claudius Ptolemy's Geographia. This appeared in six Latin editions in 1540, 1541, 1542, 1545, 1551 and 1552. According to Karrow, Munster based the text on the Latin translation of Willibald Pirkheimer, but he carefully collated it with previous editions, adding notes of his own. The first three editions contained 48 maps, consisting of 27 based on Ptolemy's ancient geography, and 21 maps based on modern geographical knowledge. The latter three editions contained 54 maps, comprised of the same ancient works but with six of the modern maps discarded, and twelve new ones added. For the collector, the modern maps are of sharpest interest. Some were based on Waldseemuller's geography, but many were based on Munster's own surveys and those of other European geographers whose assistance Munster had been able to enlist. Most of these would be reprised in Munster's magnum opus, Cosmographia Universalis. A disproportionate number of Munster's modern maps show contemporary geographical knowledge of the their respective areas for the very first time: The first map to show the continents of the Western Hemisphere; the first map to focus on the continent of Asia; the first modern map to name the Pacific Ocean. Even in cases where earlier maps exist, Munster's works very often remain the earliest such acquirable by the collector.

Condition

Very good. Centerfold split closed with no loss. Else excellent.

References

OCLC 1350924592. Rumsey 11623.104.