Sebastian Münster (1489–1552) - Cosmographia Universalis - Sacco di Roma e Invasioni Barbariche - 1550

This original sheet is a precious Renaissance page drawn from the inner sections of the third book's Latin edition of 1550 of Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia Universalis, printed in Basel by the publisher Heinrich Petri. The front of the page bears the solemn chorographic section entitled LIBER III, expressly dedicated by Münster to the description of the Kraichgau region and to the opening of the historical chapter DE BELLIS QVIBVSDAM IN PALATINATV gestis (Chapter CCCLVIII). The Latin text opens by describing the geographical boundaries, the forests, and the noble houses of the territory near Heidelberg, then introducing a digression on natural history about the habits of herons and their deadly aerial clashes with hawks, before passing to the detailed military chronicle of the ascent of Frederick I of the Palatinate, called the Victorious or the Bellicose. Münster narrates how, after the death of his brother Louis IV in 1449, Frederick assumed guardianship of his nephew Philip and the government of the Palatine lands, allying himself with Diether von Isenburg, archbishop of Mainz, and clashing vehemently with papal and imperial factions that struck him with excommunication. The visual composition of the front is enriched by a fine woodcut showing in full figure the solemn portrait of a German prince in Renaissance attire, depicted while he grips an imposing standard-issue halberd. Of extraordinary collectible interest is the presence of ancient marginal notes printed contemporaneously (Ardea auis, Fridericus princeps bellicosus, Bellum ob dotem) which attest to the critical apparatus of the work aimed at highlighting the most significant dynastic and political passages. Turning the page, the back continues the development of the historical chronicle with the heading DE GERMANIA. The Latin text unfolds as a dense and learned philosophical and historiographical dissertation on bloody field battles, on the devastation of villages, and on the complex peace treaties that ended the regional wars of the Palatinate and Bavaria. Münster draws parallels between customs, martial labors, and diplomatic endeavors that saw the capture of eminent prisoners such as the bishop of Metz and the margrave of Baden, analyzing the heavy financial penalties imposed and the subsequent ban of the prince Frederick by the emperor in 1474, extending the narrative to the great upheavals of the Landshut War of Succession in 1504 under Emperor Maximilian I. The page is solemnly enriched by important typographic marginal glosses (Conflictus in Palatinatu, Tres principes capti, Proscribitur Fridericus princeps, Schrieffen, Descriptio belli Bauarici). The preface introduces the methodological motivations that guided the author in composing the Cosmographia, understood as a monumental work intended to offer rulers and scholars of the sixteenth century a universal guide to understand the morals, geography, and the changes of the peoples of Earth through the ages.

Dimensions 30 x 20 cm
It will be shipped by courier