Muenster, Sebastian.

Rudimenta Mathematica. Haec in Duos Digeruntur Libros, Quorum prior Geometriae Tradit Principia seu prima elementa, una cum rerum & variarum figuraru[m] dimensionibus...

Basel: [ H. Petrus. 1551], First edition of Muenster’s final published work, lavishly illustrated. The text of the first part deals with geometry largely as applied to surveying and ballistics. The second part starting at p. 69 is an extensive treatise on sundials and horology. Some of the woodcuts are attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger. With the blank leaf A6 and the errata leaf, with woodcut illustration meant to correct the cut on p. 145. Lacking the double-page folding woodcut, which is supplied in good facsimile on old paper. Large woodcut on title-page. showing surveyors at work, numerous woodcuts in text, woodcut printer’s device on the verso of the errata leaf. Boards soiled and discolored, endpapers browned, some toning to title-page and text, old faded dampstain at inner margin in some sections. Overall a good, clean copy. Old armorial library bookplate (Bibliotec. Collegii Valkend). Contemporary vellum boards, title in manuscript on spine, later silk ties. Folio. Two parts in one. [12], 242, [2] pp. Item #17041

Sebastian Muenster (1488-1552) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and Christian Hebraist. Born in Ingelheim near Mainz, he entered the Franciscan order in 1505, but left it for the Lutheran Church in order to take an appointment at the Reformed Church-dominated University of Basel in 1529. A professor of Hebrew and a disciple of Elias Levita, he became the first German to produce an edition of the Hebrew Bible in 1534-5. His Bible was accompanied by a Lati translation and contained a large number of annotations. His Cosmographia (1544), the earliest German-language description of the world, was one of the most successful books of its time, going through twenty-four editions in 100 years. It played an important role in reviving geography in sixteenth-century Europe.

Adams M1939. Zinner 2022. Houzeau and Lancaster 11364. Burmeister, 54.

Price: $5,000.00