Typus cosmographicus universalis

Sebastian Münster was a German humanist, Hebraist, cosmographer, and mapmaker based in Basel. This world map first appeared in Johann Huttich and Simon Grynaeus’s collection of travel accounts Novus orbis regionum published at Basel by Johann Hervagius in 1532. Although unsigned, the map is attributed to Münster, while the decorative border is often associated with Hans Holbein the Younger; the woodcut may have been cut by Münster’s collaborator Conrad Schnitt.

The map presents the world in an oval projection, surrounded by scenes drawn from the travel accounts collected in the Novus orbis. It shows the Old World across the centre and the newly encountered Atlantic lands to the left. North America appears as Terra de Cuba, separated from Asia, while South America is shown as an elongated landmass labelled America Terra Nova, with names such as Parias, Cannibali, and Prisilia. Unlike Oronce Fine’s world map, which replaced it in the later 1532 issue of the Novus orbis (88), Münster’s map does not include a great southern continent. The surrounding scenes make the map especially engaging. In the upper-left are details drawn from Alvise Cadamosto’s account of West Africa, including African figures, an elephant pushing a hunter, and winged serpents. The upper-right draws on Ludovico di Varthema’s travels, showing feather-clad figures with bows and spice plants labelled piper, muscata, and gariofili. The lower-right also refers to Varthema, with his arrival at a port city and a scene of animal slaughter in front of a woman leaning from a balcony, probably connected with his observations on Arabia Felix. At lower left is a cannibalism scene inspired by Christopher Columbus’s descriptions of the Caribbean, with dismembered bodies, cooking, and drying flesh shown around a hut.

Another intriguing feature is the pair of figures at the poles turning crank handles attached to the Earth’s axis. This has sometimes been read as a possible allusion to the Earth’s rotation. Münster’s accompanying introduction to the Novus orbis regionum, however, remained geocentric, stating that it was "the unanimous opinion of all educated people that the body of the earth... occupies the centre of the entire universe." The detail is therefore better understood as a device for showing the world’s axis, rather than clear evidence of heliocentric thinking, especially since Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbium coelestium did not appear until 1543.

Within the collection, this map is closely connected with Oronce Fine’s double cordiform world map (88), and Münster’s later modern world maps Typus orbis universalis (91and 90).