ABSTRACT
The Cosmographia, it is correct to say, held both the ‘essence of Münster’s craft and his convictions’. 1 Sebastian Münster’s craft was that of scholar who approached Scripture through his expertise in the Sacred Languages; history through human, physical and written sources; and geography through both empirically-researched mathematics and a correspondence-based peer inquiry. This chapter will seek to describe how the book produced from those avenues of enquiry, using those areas of expertise, came to reflect the convictions of the author. The ambitious range of topics covered by the Cosmographia has been described: geography, physical and human, the history and manners of men, animals, plants, prodigies. What follows is an attempt to grasp how Münster understood the facets of the world which he saw and set down in his book. In this attempt, it may be possible to understand why the Cosmographia was so successful, so often reprinted and translated, so palpable an influence and so prized a possession far beyond the lands known directly to Münster, and so long after his own death.
