File:1552 S Munster Polonia et Vngaria XX raremaps.jpg

English: Munster's map of Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Moscovy and the Balkans, extending from Prussia, Vilna and Smolensky in the north to Bosnia, Bulgaria, Constantinople and the Crimea in the south, centered on Poland. Also includes Russia, Lithuania, Hungary, Serbia.

The 1552 edition is unique for several reasons. First, it is the only edition of the map to include the extra grid numbers, an early attempt at a different standardized indexing of placenames. Second, it is the only edition with the XX in the title. Earlier editions included XV and later editions dropped the Roman number entirely.

Munster's Geographia (first published in 1540) and his later Cosmographia were cartographic landmarks. The Geographia included not only Ptolemaic maps, but also a number of landmark modern maps, including the first separate maps of the 4 continents, the first map of England and the earliest obtainable map of Scandinavia. The Cosmographia (first published in 1544) was the earliest German description of the world and a major work in the revival of geographic thought in 16th-century Europe. Altogether, about 40 editions of the Cosmographia appeared between 1544 and 1628.

Munster dominated cartographic publication during the mid-16th Century. Munster is generally regarded as one of the most important map makers of the 16th Century. Munster was a linguist and mathematician, who initially taught Hebrew in Heidelberg. He issued his first mapping of Germany in 1529, after which he issued a call for geographical information about Germany to scholars throughout the country. The response was better than hoped for, and included substantial foreign material, which supplied him with up to date, if not necessarily accurate maps, for the issuance of his Geographia in 1540.

•Barry Lawrence Ruderman•