1552 Munster Leaf: Turkey Islam Circumcision

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1552 Description of Turkey from "Cosmographia" by Sebastian Münster: Islam, Food, Circumcision
Five Woodcut Pictures

Single authentic woodcut leaf from "Cosmographia" by Sebastian Münster. Latin edition; Basel printing house of Sebastian Heinrich-Petri 1552. Book IV ("De Turcis"), pages 973/4.

Sebastian Münster (1488-1552) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and Hebrew scholar whose Cosmographia (1544; "Cosmography") was the earliest German description of the world and a major work - after the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493 - in the revival of geographic thought in 16th-century Europe. Altogether, about 40 editions of the Cosmographia appeared during 1544-1628. Although other cosmographies predate Münster's, he is given first place in historical discussions of this sort of publication, and was a major influence on his subject for over 200 years.

In nearly all works about Münster, his Cosmographia is given pride of place. Despite this, we still lack a detailed survey of its contents from edition to edition, during the years 1544 to 1628, and an account of its influence on a wide range of scientific disciplines. Münster obtained the material for his book in three ways. He used all available literary sources. He tried to obtain original manuscript material for description of the countryside and of villages and towns. Finally, he obtained further material on his travels (primarily in south-west Germany, Switzerland, and Alsace). Cosmographia contained not only the latest maps and views of many well-known cities, but included an encyclopaedic amount of detail about the known - and unknown - world and undoubtedly must have been one of the most widely read books of its time. Aside from the well-known maps and views present in the Cosmographia (including the first separate printed map of the Western Hemisphere), the text is thickly sprinkled with vigorous woodcuts: portraits of kings and princes, costumes and occupations, habits and customs, flora and fauna, monsters and horrors. Münster divided his material into six books. Book I is a useful summary of astronomical-mathematical and physical geography. Book II deals with England, Spain, France, and Italy. Book III deals with Germany and surrounding lands. Book IV embraces northern, eastern, and south-eastern Europe. Books V (Asia and America) and VI (Africa) are of modest proportions.

This authentic leaf from the last edition of Cosmographia deals with Turkey. Münster describes customs and habots of the Turks, in particular, their religion and worship, Muhammad, Heaven in Islam, fasting, dining, and circumcision. There exists an early English translation of selected sections of Casmographia, in the book "A briefe collection and compendious extract of straunge and memorable thinges, gathered out of the Cosmographye of Sebastian Munster. Wherein is made a plaine description of diuers and straunge lawes, rites, maners and properties of sondrye nations, and a short report of straunge histories of diuers men, and of the nature and properties of certaine fovvles, fishes, beastes, monsters, and sondry countryes and places", published in London in 1574 by Tomas Marshe (the facsimile of this book has been put online by the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor). The content of this lean can be found therein:

• ""How the Turkes do beleeve, and howe they worship God" (p. 38)
• "The opinion of the Turkes upon the world to come" (pp. 39-40)
• "Of the fasting and meates of the Turkes" (pp. 40-41)
• "Of the circumcision of the Turkes" (pp. 41-44)

1. A mosque
2. Turkish paradise
3. A man castrating a horse.
4. A peasant woman
5. An old man

Page measures 8 1/4" x 12 1/4". Wide margins suitable for framing. Printed on laid paper. The leaf is in good condition. Imperfections: some browning; minor soiling and handling in margins; one faint diagonal fold in lower corner. It is a rare historical document which will look great with a mat and frame.

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