A fine early map of Holland by Sebastian Münster published in the 1560 French edition of the ‘Cosmographia’. Sebastian Münster (1488-1552) is a renowned geographer, cosmographer, mathematician, and humanist. He was also a professor at Basle University. In 1540 Münster published his own edition of Ptolemy’s ‘Geographia’. The ‘Cosmographia’, his most renowned work, was first published by Henri Petri in 1544 in German. This encyclopaedic work is the first scientific compendium of the knowledge of the day including astronomy, geography, history, and natural sciences. It consists of six books the first of which describes geography and astronomy using many illustrations. The remaining books describe the regions of the world: Southern and Western Europe, Germany, Northern and Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. The first editions were all in German and published in 1544, 1546, 1548 and 1550. It was due to the great demand abroad that Münster published this extremely rare Latin edition. Bonifacius Amerbach, Sigismondo Arquer, Petrus Artopoeus and François Bonivard are among the co-authors. The 1550 German and Latin editions were the first of Münster’s works to contain town views, published just before his death in 1552. Heijden (1987); Karrow (1993) no. 58/15.