"Theatrum Veronense 1549", Munster, Sebastian

Sebastian Munster (1489 - 1552) was one of the three most renowned cartographers of the sixteenth century, along with Mercator and Ortelius. Munster's Geographia and Cosmographia Universalis were two of the most widely read and influential books of the period. His editions of Ptolemy's Geographia, published between 1540 and 1552, were illustrated with 48 woodcut maps, the standard 27 Ptolemaic maps supplemented by 21 new maps. These new maps included a separate map of each of the known continents and marked the development of regional cartography in Central Europe. The antique geography was a prelude to Munster's major work, the Cosmographia, which was published in nearly 30 editions in six languages between 1544 and 1578 and then was revised and reissued by Sebastian Petri from 1588 to 1628. The Cosmographia was a geographical as well as historical and ethnographic description of the world. It contained the maps from the Geographia plus additional regional maps and city views with nearly 500 illustrations which made it one of the most popular pictorial encyclopedias of the sixteen century.

This is a fabulous view of the grandiose Teatro Romano in Verona. The Roman Theatre was built in the last quarter of the 1st century B.C., at the foot of the Hill of St. Peter on the banks of the Adige River. The engraving is by Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch (with his monogram RMD on the façade at right) and Christoph Stimmer (whose initials CS appear in the water at bottom right). French text below and on verso.

References: Shirley (BL Atlases) T.MUN-1d #33.

Condition: A

A nice impression on a bright sheet with some printer's ink residue above the title and several stains along the edges of the sheet.