Sebastian Münster

Sebastian Münster (1488 – 1552), German cartographer and cosmographer. He also was a Christian Hebraist scholar who taught as a professor at the University of Basel. His well-known work, the highly accurate world map, Cosmographia, sold well and went through 24 editions. Its influence was widely spread by a production of woodcuts created of it by a variety of artists.

Quotes

• [A] description of the whole world with all that therein is.
  • From the preface to Cosmographia (1544), quoted in translation by C. R. Beazley, "Review of Sebastian Münster, by Viktor Hantzsch", The Geographical Journal, vol. 17, no. 4 (1901), p. 424

• Wheras the people of the forenamed Ilandes, fled at the sight of our menne, the cause thereof was, that they suspected them to haue been Canibals, that cruel & fearse people which eate mans fleshe, which nacion our men had ouerpassed, leaninge them on the southsyde. But after they had knowledge of the contrary, they made greuous complaynt to our men, of the beastly and fearse maners of these Canibales, which were no lesse cruel agaynst them, them the Tyger or the Lyon agaynste tame beastes. Declaring furthermore, yt when soeuer they take any of them vnder the age of .xiiij. yeares, they vse to gelde them, & francke them vntyll they be very fat, as we are wont to doe with capons or hennes: and as for suche as drawe towarde .xx. yeare olde, to kyll them forthwith and pull out theyr guttes, and eate the same freshe and newe, wyth other extreme partes of the bodye, poudering the residue with salte, or keping it in a certayne pickle as we do iegottes or sansages.
  • "Of the people called Canibales or Anthropophagi, which are accustomed to eate mans fleshe", in The Newe India, trans. Rycharde Eden (1553)

External links

• Sebastiano Munstero, Cosmographia universale (Cologne: the heirs of Arnoldo Byrckmanno, 1575)
• Sebastian Münster, trans. Rycharde Eden, A Treatyse of the Newe India (London [S. Mierdman for] Edward Sutton, [1553])