MÜNSTER, S. - [Sea monsters] De regni Settentrionali Monstri marini & terrestri…

Münster's plate of monsters of both land and sea, taken from an Italian text edition of Münster's Cosmographia, which is a short and complete summary of Renaissance knowledge, with abundant tusks, horns and twin-spouts. One vignette shows a galleon trying to outrun one monster by throwing their cargo overboard, while one sailor takes sight with a musket. Across the top is a panel showing land-based creatures.
One of the more fanciful cartographic curiosities and a unique view of Renaissance attitudes toward the 'unknown' lands beyond the civilized world.
Ortelius also adapted many of the monsters for use on his map of Iceland in 1587.
A famous wood block print showing sea serpents and other terrifying monsters, some fictional, some real. Most of the beasts here are derived from a 1539 map of Scandinavia drawn by Olaus Magnus. Although Munster's Monsters may initially seam fabulous and scary, many are based upon or outright depictions the factual creatures that Scandinavian sailors and whalemen actually encountered. This woodcut was composed by the Swiss artist Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch, who produced many of Munster's woodcuts. The actual Formschneider is unknown beyond his initials, M-F, which appear along with 'Deutsch's HR-MD.' Among the more recognizable beasts are various forms of whales with obvious blowholes, at least two enormous lobsters, a sea serpent (probably an oarfish), the whale fish (white fish at center, an Orca), and something that might very well be a walrus. Of course, there are fictional sea monsters too, including a pig faced sea beast, apparently seen by sailors in 1537, and the Sea Buffalo, something that looks like a cross between a bull and a fish.
In the lower left, there is a tree populated by 'duckbirds,' a curious kind of avian that Munster claims 'grows on trees' but which, in his lifetime, had not been seen for some 400 years. The verso of the print has Italian taxt with a key A-P with a description of the shown beasts.
From Cosmographia Universalis. An exciting print.

Sebastian Münster was born in Nierder-Ingelheim, near Mainz on 20th January 1488, the son of Andreas Münster. In 1505, he joined the Franciscan Order, and four years later was sent to the monastery of St. Katherina in Rufach. There he studied under Konrad Pelikan, who was to have great influence over the young man in the next five years. Pelikan was a teacher of Hebrew, Greek, mathematics and cosmography.
In 1529 Munster settled in Basle, where he was to spend the rest of his life. In 1540, Munster's edition of Ptolemy appeared, illustrated with 48 woodcut maps, the standard Ptolemaic corpus supplemented by a number of new maps, of great significance for the mapping of Europe.
Having completed the Geographia, Munster returned to his pet project, the description of Germany. In 1544, he published the first edition of the Cosmographia, a summary both of Munster's own geographical researches and those of his many correspondents. The Cosmographia, with its later expanded editions, was as close as Munster would come to fulfilling the vision of 1528.
The Cosmographia was very much in the illustrative tradition of the Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle, bringing together many of the modern maps from the Geographia, additional maps that had come to him in the intervening years, as well as several hundred woodcuts printed set in the text. Again, the Cosmographia was frequently reprinted. For the 1550 edition additions included a large number of town prospects.
Read more about Sebastian Münster. [+]