Antique Maps of the Middle East, Arabia & Persia. Gallery of authentic historic & rare maps of the Middle East, Arabia, Persia, & the Holy Land, 16th- 19th centuries.
Hamarich, the capital of the kingdom of the mythical Christian king Prester John.
A Visually Compelling MapOf the early maps of Africa, Münster s is the most entertaining, with its decorative elements such as parrots, an elephant, and a giant Cyclops. The grand ship shown sailing near the Cape of Good Hope does more than decorate: it reinforces the news that those waters were navigable, a reality not reflected in Ptolemy s mapping of the world until scholars began revising the 2nd century geographers work at the end of the 15th century. By the time atlases such as Ortelius began entering publication, Münster s groundbreaking map would be obsolete. One result of this is that despite its broad reach, the map was not copied by other mapmakers, making it visually unique - and an utterly essential map for the collector of maps of the discovery period in general, and Africa in particular.
Cosmographia, in which this map appeared until about 1569. Whereas
Geographia only appeared in Latin, Münster s new work was published in German, Latin, French, and Italian (the sole Czech edition of 1554 had only one map of Bohemia). The movable stereotype text with which the map was lettered exhibits slight variations from edition to edition, as does the verso text. Also, the cracks would increase in severity until 1571 or 1572, when the badly worn woodblock was replaced with a similar (but easily distinguishable) woodcut which remained in Münster s opus until 1578, with the exception of the Italian editions of 1571 and 1575, which appear to have been produced using maps printed for the Italian 1558 edition. All editions of 1588 and later contained new maps derived from Ortelius.