A cornerstone map of Africa:    Africa/Libya/Morland/mit allen künigreichen so zů unsern zeiten Darin gefunden werden.            

Original woodblock printed map
Uncolored as issued
257 x 345 mm (not including title above map)
Map # D-7   
$ Sold

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This map is famous for the medieval depiction of the Cyclops.  The map also shows an elephant, and various African kingdoms including Hamarich, the capital of the famous Christian king, Prester John.  Munster's map is based partly on Ptolemaic sources (the Nile begins in the two fictitious lakes), partly on Portuguese sources, and partly on Arabic sources. 

This map first appeared in Munster's Geographia in 1540.  This map is from a German edition of Munster's Cosmographia of 1553.  Verso of the map has: Des gantzenn | lands Africe ein gemei- | ne beschreibung.  within border of four woodcuts, top figures of horned men on seahorses, bottom figures of cherubs and left & right leaves, and at the bottom "xiii".  (Our Research).

This is Variant 10 of the map.  There is a later woodcut map of Africa that appeared in editions of the Cosmographia from 1588 to 1628.

Sebastian Munster (1489-1552) was one of the three great cartographers who dominated the sixteenth century, along with Mercator and Ortelius, "and of these three, Munster probably had the widest influence in spreading geographical knowledge throughout Europe in the middle years of the century" (Moreland & Bannister, p.78). "[Munster's] Cosmographia... contained not only the latest maps and views of many well-known cities, but included an encyclopedic amount of detail about the known - and unknown - world and undoubtedly must have been one of the most widely read books of its time."

Reference:  Betz Map # 3, Variant 10.   Tooley, Map Collectors' Circle: Map Collectors' Series on African Maps, No. 29.  Norwich Map # 2.  Moreland and Bannister.

Fine condition overall.  Other than an old water-stain at the top (much more noticeable in the photograph than in person), the paper is fine with no separations or weakness.