This map of the New World is often credited with popularising the name America due to the popularity of Munster’s Cosmographia and the numerous editions published in the 16th century. The influence of Marco Polo’s explorations of Asia in the 13th century is evident in the 7,448 islands in the North Pacific and Zipangri (Japan) shown just off the west coast of North America. The North American continent has a very strange shape with no Californian land mass and the eastern region is almost divided by a body of water known as the Verrazzano Sea. Yucatan is still shown as an island, Cozumel is called Cozumela, and Lake Temistitan (unnamed in the state) is connected to the Gulf of Mexico. South America has a large bulge on the west coast, the Amazon River is very short, and cannibals inhabit the continent, shown as Canibali next to a gruesome vignette of human limbs. The map is very decorative, with Magellan’s surviving ship Victoria appearing in the Pacific. The flags of Spain and Portugal represent their respective spheres of influence in the New World. This is the 5th state according to Burden and the 4th according to Kershaw, with the place names Temistitan in Mexico and Insula Atlantica in South America.
Map of the Western Hemisphere, 1550
Sebastian Munster (1489 – 1552) was one of the three most famous cartographers of the 16th century, along with Mercator and Ortelius.
Munster’s Geographia and Cosmographia Universalis were two of the most widely read and influential books of the time.
His editions of Ptolemy’s Geographia, published between 1540 and 1552, were illustrated with 48 woodcut maps, the standard 27 Ptolemaic maps supplemented by 21 new maps.
These new maps included a separate map of each of the known continents and marked the development of regional cartography in central Europe.
The Ancient Geography was a prelude to Münster’s major work, the Cosmographia, which was published in six languages in nearly 30 editions between 1544 and 1578, and then revised and re-edited by Sebastian Petri between 1588 and 1628.
The Cosmographia was a geographical reference as well as a historical and ethnographic description of the world. It contained the maps of the Geographia plus additional regional maps and city views, with nearly 500 illustrations, making it one of the most popular pictorial encyclopaedias of the 16th century.
This map of the New World is often credited with popularising the name America due to the popularity of Munster’s Cosmographia and the numerous editions published in the 16th century.
The influence of Marco Polo’s explorations of Asia in the 13th century is evident in the 7,448 islands in the North Pacific and Zipangri (Japan) shown just off the west coast of North America.
The North American continent has a very strange shape with no Californian land mass and the eastern region is almost divided by a body of water known as the Verrazzano Sea.
Yucatan is still shown as an island, Cozumel is called Cozumela, and Lake Temistitan (unnamed in the state) is connected to the Gulf of Mexico.
South America has a large bulge on the west coast, the Amazon River is very short, and cannibals inhabit the continent, shown as Canibali next to a gruesome vignette of human limbs.
The map is very decorative, with Magellan’s surviving ship Victoria appearing in the Pacific.
The flags of Spain and Portugal represent their respective spheres of influence in the New World. This is the 5th state according to Burden and the 4th according to Kershaw, with the place names Temistitan in Mexico and Insula Atlantica in South America.
Map of the Western Hemisphere 1550 – Historical Map
