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Name: Sebastian Münster
Dates: 1488-1550
Map type: Woodblock engraved maps.

Sebastian Münster was born in Nierder-Ingelheim: a small town on the river Rhine on 20th January 1488. In 1503, his father, Andreus sent him to Heidelberg to study arts and theology. Around 1514, studying under mathematician Johann Stöffler that Münster absorbed a keen knowledge of mathematical geography and cartography.

Münster's notes from this time  contain a number of fascinating lectures,  musings on his studies and teacher, but most remarkably,  a series of 44 maps drawn by Münster. Most were understandably created to aid study from existing printed material, but one it has been suggested, is typical of a map maker's  first map: one of his home area, the Rhine from Basle to Neuss.

Under Stöffler, Münster became very familiar with the early work of Ptolemy and in 1540, Münster's edition of Ptolemy's Geographia appeared, illustrated with 48 woodcut maps, the standard Ptolemaic format plus a number of previously unseen new maps. This incredible collection broke new ground in how Europe would be mapped from this point on.

After his Geographia, Münster published the first edition of the Cosmographia, which was based on Münster's own geographical research. This publication ran for a number of editions: the 1550 was notable in that it included a large number of prospect views of German towns.

In May 1550 Münster died of plague. Both the Geographia and Cosmographia were reprinted posthumously in 1552 in what was to be their last re-working.
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