Silograph, hand-painted, very well executed and very charming, mm 115x155 on sheet with text mm 310x210. Taken from the rare Italian edition, published in 1558, of the Geographia Universalis, the most important German geographical work after the Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493. Münster (1488-1552) was a brilliant polymath and one of the most important intellectuals of the Renaissance period, among the first Europeans to understand Middle Eastern languages and cultures, he published several works on this subject as well as on theology, geography and chronology. Educated in Tübingen, his surviving university notebooks, the Kollegienbuch, reveal a mind of insatiable curiosity, especially about cosmography. Later, Münster became professor of Hebrew in Heidelberg and then, from 1529, at the University of Basel. In the 1530s, he devoted himself to the translation of Ptolemy's Geography, adding new material concerning the new lands discovered in Africa, the Americas and Asia. The result was the publication of his highly regarded Geographia Universalis, first printed in 1540. He was also an innovator with regard to the design and layout of maps, and was one of the first to create a space on his wooden blocks for the insertion of place names in metal type. Excellent specimen with a few defects in the margins (woodworm mark, halo, lack) that do not affect the engraved part.