1550 Munster Leaf Basel Council University Thunderstorm

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1550 Description of Basel in Switzerland from "Cosmographia" by Sebastian Münster
The Council of Basel, Felix V, Council of Lausanne, University of Basel, Reformation
Two Splendid Woodcut Pictures

Single authentic woodcut leaf from "Cosmographia" by Sebastian Münster. German edition; Basel printing house of Sebastian Heinrich-Petri 1550. Book III ("Von dem Deutschen land"), pages diii-diiii (503-504).

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. 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. Of about 20 German editions of the Cosmographia, the 1550 edition is the most valued. Click here for the title page of the 1550 German edition (not included).

Click here for more information about Münster and Cosmographia, including the content and list of editions and artists

This most interesting authentic leaf from the 1550 German edition of Cosmographia is devoted Basel (Basle) in Switzerland. Page 503 describes the Ecumenical Council of Basel, a general council of the Roman Catholic church. It was called by Pope Martin V a few weeks before his death in 1431 and then confirmed by Pope Eugenius IV. In 1437 Eugenius transferred the council to Ferrara, Italy, in order to consider reunion with the Greeks. Many of the bishops at Basel accepted the move to Ferrara, but several remained at Basel as a rump council. When the rump council suspended Eugenius, he excommunicated its members. The council, with only seven bishops present, then declared Eugenius deposed and in 1439 elected as his successor a layman, the Duke of Savoy, Amadeus VIII, who took the name Pope Felix V. The next 10 years of this rump council are important only because the princes used it to strengthen their control over the churches in their own territories. In June 1448 the rump of the council migrated to Lausanne. The antipope, at the insistence of France, ended by abdicating (7 April 1449). Eugenius IV died on 23 February 1447, and the council at Lausanne, to save appearances, gave their support to his successor, Pope Nicholas V, who had already been governing the Church for two years. Trustworthy evidence, they said, proved to them that this pontiff accepted the dogma of the superiority of the council as defined at Constance and at Basel. The leaf describes all those events.

Thereafter follows a section on Basel's history and Reformation in Switzerland that goes till 1536. There is a sentence on the University of Basel ("Hohe schul zu Basel"), the first in Switzerland, was founded in 1460 by Pope Pius II. The text mentions a tremendous thunderstorm of 1526, the war of the Catholic cantons against Zürich in 1531, and the year of 1536 when Geneva (allied with Bern) adopted the Reformation and Bern subdued territories of the duke of Savoy.

The leaf contains two woodcut pictures:

• A pope
• Thunderstorm in Basel

Page measures 8.4 x 12.8 inches. Margins suitable for framing. Printed on quality laid paper. The leaf is in good condition. Imperfections: minor soiling, two tiny marginal wormholes. This is a rare and exceptionally interesting historical document which will look great with a mat and frame.

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