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Folio (32 x 21 cm.), two parts in one volume: [20], 230, [2] pages; printer's device on title-page and on verso of final blank, historiated initials, 2 folding woodcut maps of Asia, 4 full-page maps, and 14 vignette maps in the text. Bound in 19th century half calf over marbled paper boards; contemporary ink ownership inscription on title page of Don Cristobal Bañes (perhaps Don Cristobal Bañez Salcedo, active in Seville, Spain in the late 17th century), as well as three ecclesiastical ownership stamps, one of which has been defaced with ink. EARLY EDITION OF SOLINUS S WORK WITH "ASIA MAJOR" MAP SHOWING AMERICA AS "TERRA INCOGNITA". Second edition thus, first published with Munster's commentary in 1538, Solinus's Polyhistor is a collection of geographical accounts edited by Sebastian Münster. This work is renowned for its inclusion of a printed map bearing the earliest representation of the northwest coast of America as "Terra incognita" in the upper right-hand corner of the folding map of "Asia Major," the first complete map of Asia. This same map also shows one of the earliest depictions of a strait between Asia and America, nearly 200 years before Vitus Bering famously voyaged to this part of the world. At the time of publication, scholars and voyagers were still debating the plausibility of a land mass connection between the Asian and American continents. The Polyhistor also includes a second, detailed folding map of the Greek Isles and parts of modern day Turkey and Eastern Europe. Solinus was a legendary Roman geographer, grammarian and anthologist. His Polyhistor incorporated much of Pliny s Natural History and included Pomponius Mela s geography. There are brief remarks on a number of historical, social, religious and natural history questions. The Polyhistor was first issued in the middle of the third century. Münster, the editor of the 1538 and 1543 editions of the Polyhistor, is quite a significant figure in the history of sixteenth-century cartography. However, while there is little doubt that Münster edited and inserted his own commentary into the text of this 1543 edition, it is not clear whether he also served as its cartographer. Münster studied Hebrew at Heidelberg and was also a scholar of geography. In 1540 he published his own "updated" edition of Ptolemy s Geography, which included maps of the new or modern world. Münster was also one of the first cartographers to create space in the woodblock for the insertion of metal-typed place-names. Indeed, his decision to refer to the New World as "America" in his 1544 edition of the Cosmography greatly contributed to the name s endurance. REFERENCES: VD 16, S 6969; Burmeister 172; Hieronymus 470; Karrow S. 420, No. 58. Seller Inventory # 72JFP029
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