Cosmographiae universalis lib. VI.

Rare first Latin edition illustrated with a title-page within woodcut border, woodcut portrait of Munster on verso; 14 woodcut double-page maps, including 2 world maps (the first, by David Kandel, showing the New World) and one map of the Americas; 39 woodcut double-page town views (including the "panorama" views of Heidelberg and Vienna, joined); one double-page woodcut of "sea and land monsters"; approximately 75 other maps and views in the text; and approximately 900 small woodcuts in text (some repeated).

First Latin edition of Sebastian Münster's famous Cosmography. The most extensive and relevant description of the state of the world known at the time of the Reformation, Cosmographia was one of the most esteemed works of its time. It produced some forty editions in various languages ??within 100 years of the publication of the German original of 1544. The first Latin edition appeared in 1550. That of 1552 is the last edition published during the lifetime of the author, a few months before his death on May 23, 1552.

The very rich illustration, composed of geographical maps, but also city views, and many woods engraved in the text offering all kinds of subjects, is one of the reasons for the success of the Cosmographia.

Including the famous plate "Mostri marini & terrestri, che si trouano in ogni luogo nelle parti d' aquilone..", with mythical sea monsters derivative from the 'Carta Marina' of 1539 by Olaus Magnus.

Münster was the first to introduce a separate map for each of the four then known continents.
The map of the Americas "Tabula novarum insularum, quas diversis respectibus Occidentalis et Indianas vocant"; was therefor the earliest separate map to show both North and South America. One of the first maps also to include Japan, and the first to refer to Mare Pacificum or the Pacific Ocean. Magellan’s ship Victoria, the only survivor of five vessels, and Brazil as the ‘place of the cannibals’ (Canibali).

Hans Holbein the younger himself contributed to this book, he is notably the author of the view of Amsterdam. The engraver Conrad Schnitt also produced subjects, but his disappearance in 1541 did not allow him to see the publication of the book, and it was to the Swiss engraver Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (1525-1571) that we owe him essential part of the illustration (see McLean).

Provenance : Charles René Girard de Villars is a French naturalist (1698-1769), king’s counsel and Doctor of medicine, professor of anatomy and surgery in La Rochelle.
He studied medicine and practiced in Chantonnay from 1733 to 1741. Graduate of the universities of Montpellier and Angers, associate at the Royal College of Physicians of La Rochelle, professor of anatomy and surgery; he became a member of "l’Académie des belles-lettres", sciences and arts of La Rochelle, of which he held the vice-presidency in 1744 and the presidency in 1746.
He became, in 1747 corresponding member of the Academy of Science for René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683-1757) and later for Antoine de Jussieu (1686-1758).

Reference: Sabin 51379, Shirley 92.