MÜNSTER,S. - La ville de Paris, par tout tant renommée & principalle ville du royaulme de France.

Very early birds-eye view of Paris. From his Cosmographia, that great compendium of Renaissance knowledge.
An exciting print.
Engraved by Hans Rudolf Manuel-Deutsch(1525-1572?), with his initials in the lower right corner. A lettered key identifies important places, including the Sorbonne. The surrounding countryside is filled with small walled estates, windmills and farmland, while in the foreground two bodies dangle from the gallows.
The Cosmographiae Universalis of Sebastian Münster (1488-1552), printed for the first time in Basel in 1544 by the publisher Heinrich Petri, was updated several times and increased with new maps and urban representations in its many editions until the beginning of the next century. Münster had worked to collect information in order to obtain a work that did not disappoint expectations and, after a further publication in German embellished with 910 woodblock prints, arrived in 1550 to the final edition in Latin, illustrated by 970 woodcuts.

There were then numerous editions in different languages, including Latin, French, Italian, English and Czech. After his death in Münster (1552), Heinrich Petri first, and then his son Sebastian, continued the publication of the work. The Cosmographia universalis was one of the most popular and successful books of the 16th century, and saw as many as 24 editions in 100 years: the last German edition was published in 1628, long after the author's death. The Cosmographia contained not only the latest maps and views of all the most famous cities, but also a series of encyclopedic details related to the known, and unknown, world.

Figure dans l'édition française de la "Cosmographie Universelle" de S. Münster. En haut, à gauche, un cartouche orné comprend la légende en français. En bas à droite, figure le monogramme du graveur "HR MD "(Hans Rudolf Manuel Deutsch), suivi d'un poignard placé horizontalement. Plan en élévation gravé sur bois.

Le plan représente la ville de Paris vers 1530. Il figure en effet les portes de l'enceinte de Philippe-Auguste, démolies entre 1529 et 1535, la tour de Billy, détruite par la foudre en juillet 1538 ; de plus l'existence sur le plan du "collegium regium", fondé par François Ier en 1529, en suggérant un "terminum a quo", permet de proposer la date de 1530 environ pour l'état représenté de la ville.