Cosmographey. Oder beschreibung Aller Länder herrschafftenn vnd fürnembsten Stetten des gantzen Erdbodens: sampt jhren Gelegenheiten, Eygenschafften, Religion, Gebreüchen, Geschichten vnnd Handthierungen [...]. Erstlich durch Herrn Sebastian Munster [...] in sechs Buecher verfasset demnach [...] durch jhn selbs gebesseret: Jetz aber auffs letste [...] biß in das M.D.LXXVIII.jar gemehret vnd mit drey vnd viertzig Stetten neüwen Contrafacturen [...] bezieret.

Folio: [13] lvs-26 double-page pl.-mcccciiij-[1] pp. (title underl., the "Anzeigung was mehrung in dieser neuwen edition [...]" immediately bound after title, map 23 and 25 are of a smaller size, occ. ms. notes in pencil and ink, wormholes throughout, but particularly in 1st and last part, some foxing with a sm. hole in the plan of Rome (ccxxvi), light marg. water stain, an occ. repair, error in pagination).

Contemp. panel-stamped pigskin figuring biblical scenes encircled with numerous fillets, roll-stamps, medallions, the owner's name "Jacob Bering", spine with raised bands (rebound, new flylvs, sm. defects, sl. rubbed).

Rare and enlarged 1578 edition of Sebastian Münster's "Cosmographey" (1st ed.: 1544) incl. his famous "Geographia" (1st ed.: 1540), published the year before Sebastian Petri took over the publishing business from his father and stopped using Münster's original set of woodblocks. As the first and most exhaustive geography book published up to then, Münster's pictorial encyclopedia was the book that "sealed the fate of "America" as the name of the New World" by introducing Waldseemuller's choice of name in a popular and widely disseminated work. With 2 world maps (incl. the first to name the Pacific Ocean "Mare Pacificum"), the four continents, 20 regional maps, incl. 3 large folding views of Worms, Heidelberg and Vienna, the map of the "New World", of Paris and Switzerland, almost 1000 woodcuts, by more than 120 artists incl. Hans Holbein the Younger, Urs Graf, Hans Rudolph Manuel Deutsch, and David Kandel, and many others. According to the title there are 43 new woodcuts, but after the title the "Anzeigung was mehrung in dieser neuwen edition [...] derzükommen und beschehen" lists 47 supplementary plates. Enriched with a later plate of Wittenberg by Hieronymus Nutzell, outside collation (Wittenberg, Paul Helwich, 1591).
Ref. VD16 M-6703. - Sabin 51392. - Burden N. 12 (state 13). - Shirley 76-77. - Not in ESTC.
Prov. Jacob Bering (cover). - Stadel (ms. entry). - Sailly (bookpl.). - Franz Xaver Anton von Schónau zu Saasen (id.).