SEBASTIAN MÜNSTER. COSMOGRAPHIAE UNIVERSALIS... BASEL: 1552

Small folio (31`0 x 205 mm). , (12) ff. 14 double-page atlas maps including two world maps,  3 folding three-page woodcut maps and city-plans, and c. 970 smaller text woodcuts; title slightly cropped and bottom remargined; repair to top margin of pp.220-221 affecting headline and partially obscuring first line of text on p. 222.  17th-century calf, spine in seven decorative compartments, covers and spine richly gilt-tooled with a diamond pattern of fleur de lis,  covers stamped with the ecclesiastical arms of a cardinal, minor restoration to spine ends and a little rubbing overall.

W. Karrow, Jr. Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century, pp. 410-34; Burmeister 88; G. Strauss, A Sixteenth-century Enclyclopedia: Sebastian Munster’s Cosmography and its Editions, p. 159.

A handsome copy of one of the great illustrated books of the 16th century: the work  “taught nearly three generations of laymen most of what they knew about the world beyond their native places” (Strauss).  Containing over 1000 woodcuts Cosmographie's decpictions of cities were unusually accurate  “They were based on first-hand information gathered from the local officials of each town or place described, and were some of the earliest large-scale plans of cities to be published… It has been said that the Cosmography of Sebastian Munster ‘will remain an important source for the history of civilization of the period’” (The World Encompassed 272).