1561 Munster Leaf Huns Attila Vandals Goths Gypsies

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Click Double your traffic. Get Vendio Gallery - Now FREE! vortecpan Old Maps, Woodcut Leaves, Antique Prints, Incunabula 1561 Munster Leaf Huns Attila Vandals Goths Gypsies Album Album 1561 Description of the Barbarians from "Cosmographia" by Sebastian Münster Goths, Huns, Attila, Vandals, Gypsies Two Nice Woodcut Pictures Single authentic woodcut leaf from "Cosmographia" by Sebastian Münster. German edition; Basel printing house of Sebastian Heinrich-Petri 1561. Book III ("Von dem Deutschen land"), pages ccclxix-ccclxx (369-70). 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 Hemisp, 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. Click for more information about Münster and Cosmographia, including the content and list of editions and artists This most interesting authentic leaf from the 1561 German edition of Cosmographia is devoted to ancient history of Germany and the German nation. Page 369 (top) talks about the Visigoths and their Spanish kingdom. The following section deals with the kingdom of the Huns and Attila. Attila was the king of the Huns from 434 to 453. He was one of the greatest of the barbarian rulers who assailed the Roman Empire, invading the southern Balkan provinces and Greece and then Gaul and Italy. The Hun kingdom was centered in modern-day Hungary. In 451, Attila invaded Gaul. He announced that his objective in the West was the kingdom of the Visigoths (a Germanic people who had conquered parts of the two Roman empires) centred on Toulouse. When Attila had already entered Gaul, the Roman general Aetius reached an agreement with the Visigothic king, Theodoric I, to combine their forces in resisting the Huns. Many legends surround the campaign that followed. It is certain, however, that Attila almost succeeded in occupying Aurelianum (Orleans) before the allies arrived. Indeed, the Huns had already gained a footing inside the city when Aetius and Theodoric forced them to withdraw. The decisive engagement was the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains (Chalons). After fierce fighting, in which the Visigothic king was killed, Attila withdrew and shortly afterward retired from Gaul. This was his first and only defeat. Page 370, middle section, describes the Vandals and their North African kingdom. Tafter follows the beginning of the section on the Roma (Gypsies). The text refers to the Gypsies as "Züginern oder Heiden" (heathens or pagans). In 1418, the Gypsies passed through Hungary and Germany, w the Emperor Sigismund agreed to give them letters of protection. They appeared in Westphalia, in the free cities of the north, and on the shores of the Baltic, then turned south once again and travelled to Leipzig and Frankfurt-am-Main before entering Switzerland. The leaf contains two woodcut pictures: Two kings Attila's portrait, carrying an inscription "Attila flagellum Dei" ("The Scourge of God"). See pictures... read more

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