Sebastian Münster (20 January 1488 – 26 May 1552), was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
cartographer, cosmographer, and a
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
scholar.
Münster was born at Ingelheim near
MainzMainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the...
, the son of Andreas Munster. He was appointed to the
University of BaselThe University of Basel is located at Basel, Switzerland.-History:Founded in 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university....
in 1527. As Professor of Hebrew, he edited the
Hebrew BibleThe Hebrew Bible is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic...
, accompanied by a
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
translation.
His work, the
CosmographiaThe Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster from 1544 is the earliest German description of the world. It had numerous editions in different languages including Latin, French , Italian, English, and even Czech. The last German edition was published in 1628, long after his death...
from 1544 was the earliest German description of the world.
Sebastian Münster (20 January 1488 – 26 May 1552), was a
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
cartographer, cosmographer, and a
HebrewHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. Culturally, it is considered a Jewish language. Hebrew in its modern form is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world for over...
scholar.
Life
Münster was born at Ingelheim near
MainzMainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. It was a politically important seat of the Prince-elector of Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the...
, the son of Andreas Munster. He was appointed to the
University of BaselThe University of Basel is located at Basel, Switzerland.-History:Founded in 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university....
in 1527. As Professor of Hebrew, he edited the
Hebrew BibleThe Hebrew Bible is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew with some Biblical Aramaic...
, accompanied by a
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
translation.
His work, the
CosmographiaThe Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster from 1544 is the earliest German description of the world. It had numerous editions in different languages including Latin, French , Italian, English, and even Czech. The last German edition was published in 1628, long after his death...
from 1544 was the earliest German description of the world. It had numerous editions in different languages including
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
,
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
,
ItalianItalian is a Romance language spoken by about 60 million people in Italy, and by a total of around 70 million in the world. In Switzerland, Italian is one of four official languages. It is also the official language of San Marino, as well as the primary language of Vatican City...
,
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
, and even
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian. - Official status :Czech is widely...
. The last German edition was published in 1628, long after his death. The
Cosmographia was one of the most successful and popular books of the 16th century. It passed through 24 editions in 100 years.
New International EncyclopediaThe New International Encyclopedia was an English-language encyclopedia first published in the early 1900s. It was printed in two editions. The first edition was published from 1902 to 1914 by Dodd, Mead and Company. The second edition was copyrighted in 1917 and afterwards by Dodd, Mead and...
This success was due to the fascinating
woodcutWoodcut — formally known as xylography — is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s (some by
Hans Holbein the YoungerHans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
,
Urs GrafUrs Graf was a Swiss Renaissance painter and printmaker , as well as a mercenary soldier. He only produced two etchings, one of which dates from 1513 – the earliest known etching for which a date has been established...
, Hans Rudolph Manuel Deutsch, and
David KandelDavid Kandel was a Renaissance artist.One of the best qualities of the Renaissance Period was its everlasting concern with the elements of the natural world. David Kandel was one of the best known pioneers of botanical art and science...
). It was most important in reviving geography in 16th century Europe.
In 1540 he published a Latin edition of
PtolemyClaudius Ptolemaeus , known in English as Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Greek ancestry. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer and a poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under the Roman Empire, and is believed to have been born in the town of...
's
Geographia with illustrations. The 1550 edition contains cities, portraits, and costumes. These editions, printed in Germany, are the most valued of the
Cosmographias.
Münster also wrote the
Dictionarium trilingue in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and
Mappa Europae (map of Europe) in 1536. He died at
BaselBasel is Switzerland's third most populous city . With 830000 inhabitants in the tri-national metropolitan area , Basel is Switzerland's second-largest urban area....
of the
plagueThe Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been an outbreak of bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, but this view has recently been challenged...
in 1552.
He was pictured on the old 100 DM banknotes that were replaced at the beginning of the 1990s.
Portraits of Sebastian Münster
Several paintings with oil on canvas, woodcuts and copper etchings depict Sebastian Münster, by Hans Holbein d. J. (Basel, c. 1530), Willem de Haen (1615), as rector of the
University of BaselThe University of Basel is located at Basel, Switzerland.-History:Founded in 1460, it is Switzerland's oldest university....
(by
Christoph AmbergerChristoph Amberger was a painter of Nürnberg in the 16th century, a disciple of Hans Holbein, his principal work being the history of Joseph in twelve pictures....
, um 1547), and on the 100-DM-bill as used 1962 to 1991.
Literature
- Karl Heinz Burmeister: Sebastian Münster - Versuch eines biographischen Gesamtbildes. Basler Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft, Band 91, Basel und Stuttgart 1963 und 1969.
- Karl Heinz Burmeister: Sebastian Münster - Eine Bibliographie. Wiesbaden 1964.
- Hans Georg Wehrens: Freiburg in der „Cosmographia“ von Sebastian Münster (1549); in Freiburg im Breisgau 1504 - 1803, Holzschnitte und Kupferstiche. Verlag Herder, Freiburg 2004, S. 34 ff. ISBN 3-451-20633-1.
- Günther Wessel: Von einem, der daheim blieb, die Welt zu entdecken - Die Cosmographia des Sebastian Münster oder Wie man sich vor 500 Jahren die Welt vorstellte. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt 2004, ISBN 3-593-37198-7.
External links