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Title: 'Die Lander Asie nach irer gelegenheit bisz in India werden in diser Tafel verzeichnet'. A very early Map of Asia showing the area from Muscovy and Arabia east to "Archipelagus 7448 insularu", off the coast of China. This "archipelagus" was mentioned by Marco Polo in his journal and it's likely that Columbus assumed he reached these islands in 1492. Numerous placenames throughout Asia fill the map. An interesting scene of a giant fish and a mermaid dominate the Indian Ocean. 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". This map is from the 1572 German edition of Munster's Cosmography. This map was unchanged from when it was first issued in 1540.
ANTIQUE MAPS (1363)
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