Münster's Cosmographia
Sebastian Münster (1488–1552) was a Franciscan who left the order, became a scholar of Hebrew and mathematics and settled in Basel. In 1544 he published the Cosmographia, a description of the world in German, with maps, views of cities and accounts of history and customs. He had spent years collecting material, and he asked scholars across Europe to send him descriptions and drawings of their own regions.
The book sold steadily. It was reprinted and revised after his death and translated into Latin and several other languages, and new editions kept appearing into the middle of the seventeenth century.
The pictures
Much of its appeal was in the illustrations. Woodcut views of towns, portraits of rulers, plants, animals and peoples filled the pages, many of them cut in the busy Basel workshops. For many readers the Cosmographia was the only account they had of anywhere beyond their own region, and it carried errors along with the information.
The sea monsters on Münster's map of the northern seas were taken from the Carta Marina of Olaus Magnus, published in 1539, and passed from there into a great many later maps.