Cosmographiae universalis Lib. VI. de MUNSTER, Sebastian (1489-1552)

[Colophon] Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1559. Folio (12 x 7 7/8 inches). Letterpress title-page with woodcut architectural border and portrait of Muenster on verso, 2 fine double-page folding woodcut world maps, and 12 further maps, 3 folding panoramas (that of Vienna as two separate folding plates), 38 folding city views, 8 full-page city views, and more than 900 woodcut half-page vignettes, small vignettes and diagrams in the text (last leaf with repaired marginal repair, some occasional minor marginal staining). Contemporary blind paneled calf over wooden boards (rebacked retaining 19th-century morocco backstrip). Provenance: ?Thomas Fairfax, first Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1560-1640), diplomat, soldier, and horse breeder: with a contemporary ex-temporary inscription by "Ryther" in Latin verse on the verso of the map of Europe "Script ex Munst T[homas] F[airfax] de Denton militis..."; with the later ownership inscription of ?his son Charles Fairfax (1597-1673), antiquary and genealogist, on the title-page, and one or two marginal annotations; early 20th-century type-written bibliographical notes tipped-in to front free endpaper. INTERNALLY AN EXCEPTIONALLY FINE AND ATTRACTIVE COPY, with all maps and plates complete and without restoration. First published in 1544 in German, first published in Latin in 1550. Including separate sections on Africa, Asia and "De Novis Insulis, quomodo, quando & per quem" between pages 1099 and 1113, a description of America including accounts of the voyages and explorations of Columbus, Vespucci, Magellan, &c. The map of America, "Tabula nouarum insularum.", is in Burden's state 10. The book ends with Latin and Hebrew versions of the so-called Prester John letter, the spurious account of a legendary Christian kingdom in the East. Sebastian Munster was to become one of "the most influential cartographers in the sixteenth century" (Burden). Essentially he published Ptolemy's "Geography" with a "further section of modern, more up to date maps. He included for the first time a set of continental maps, the America was the earliest of any notes. He was one of the first to create space in the woodblock for insertion of place-names in metal type. The maps' inclusion in Munster's "Cosmography". sealed the fate of "America" as the name for the new world. The book proved to be very popular, there being nearly forty editions during the following 100 years." (Burden). Adams M1911; Alden 559/30; Burden 12; Shirley 77, 92. Catalogued by Kate Hunter.