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First Latin edition, and the first illustrated edition. Colophon: Basel: Heinrich Petri, March 1550. Folio in 8s (12 15/16" x 8 1/8", 312mm x 207mm). [Full collation available.] With 54 wood-cut maps and views, of which 51 are double-page and 3 (Worms at Y3, Heidelberg at Mm2 and Vienna from Tt3) intended to be folding but bound as two double-page wood-cut views each. Bound in later (XVIIc?) speckled calf. On the spine, five raised bands. Title ("COSMOGR/ VNIVERSA") gilt to the second panel. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. All edges of the text-block speckled red. Front hinge split and partly perished, lacking the head- and tail-pieces. Wear to the extremities, with a 4" loss to the front cover at the fore-edge. Rubbed generally. Damp-stain, mostly mild but occasionally heavier, throughout, and generally marginal. An old repair to the map of Europa (31r). Double-page map of Paris (g2.3, pp. 87-90) renewed with some loss. Map of Rome (quire n, pp. 149-152) with a split at the mount. Closed tears to several leaves, mostly marginal. Worming to the lower margin Ccc3-Ddd4 (pp. 1077-1096). Spot-offsetting to O1-O5 and Qq1-Rr3. Ink marginalia to o4r (p. 159, view of Venice: "Mar"), o5r (p. 161: "Mediolanens[is]), HH1r (p. 801, striking through "& Hieronymus" Hus: "et Hieronimus de Praga") and Fff5v (p. 1130: "Arsine"). Graphite marginalia to Y2r (p. 479: tracing the final S and A from Y3r in "CIVITAS/WORMA"). Ink ownership signature of "Brevoy" (Brevoye? Brevon?) to the front paste-down and to the title-page. Ink ownership signature of "hornot 1755" (or 1799?) to the recto of the first free end-paper. Pasted armorial plate of the Abbaye de ND d'Issoudon (struck through in ink) to the title-page, obscuring the "OSM" of "COSMO"(/GRAPHIAE). Ink ownership signature of "Deshayes/1687" to a1r (p. 1, with offsetting to 142v, the blank of the map of the Americas). Münster (1488-1552) was a cartographer and Hebraist -- though in fact he was a true polymath and humanist. He published on language and mathematics, astronomy and cartography, and was one of the great biblical exegetes. Indeed, such is his intellectual legacy that his was the face on the 100 Deutsche Mark note used in West Germany 1962-1991. Münster's legacy is due most of all to his Cosmographia -- which is in some senses an atlas, but more truly an encyclopedia. Its ambit is the world, its span all of human history. To descriptions of various nations or regions Münster adds sections on the tools of navigation and surveying, the histories of empires and even religious heterodoxy: the "Prester John letter" in both Latin and Hebrew. The maps and woodcuts (some by Hans Holbein the Younger) are among the most important of the XVIc, including the earliest depiction of the Americas as discrete continents. The 1550 edition, long the most sought-after of all the many translations and editions of the Cosmographia, often has a long pattern of provenance; the present item is no exception. For many centuries, the book circulated through French collections. The "Deshayes" who signed the first page of the text in 1687 (and closed the book too quickly thereafter) is unknown. One thinks of Jean Deshayes (d. 1706), the noted hydrographer-cartographer who moved to Canada in 1685 (difficult for our date) and who amassed a vast library. The Abbey of Our Lady of Issoudun is a Benedictine community in the diocese of Bourges in central France. The XVIIIc signature (it is unclear whether dated 1755 or 1799; the former seems likelier) of Hornot brings to mind the multivalent Antoine Hornot, the Burgundy-born chronicler and amasser of potted histories of various subjects. Purchased at the Christie's New York sale of Henri Burton (22 April 1994, lot 46), noting that the volume came from the collection of Frederick Hastings Rindge (1857-1905). Adams M1908; Burmeister 89; Sabin 51379; Shirley 92 (world map); VD16 M 6714 (lacking the 12pp. index *6).
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