Biography of Sebastian Münster

Sebastian Münster (1488-1552) was a German cartographer, cosmographer, and Christian Hebraist scholar. He produced the first German description of the world in his Cosmographia from 1544, which was the first to introduce “separate maps for each of the four continents known then – America, Africa, Asia and Europe”. He was also the first German to produce an edition of the Hebrew bible.

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1488 – He is born in Ingelheim, near Mainz.

1505 – He enters the Franciscan order.

1509 – He enters a monastery and becomes the student of Konrad Pelikan for five years.

1518 – He completes his studies at the University of Tübingen.

1527 – He publishes Dictionarium Chaldaicum and Grammatica Chaldaica in Basel.

1529 – He leaves the Franciscans for the Lutheran Church in order to accept an appointment at the Reformed Church-dominated University of Basel.

1530 – He publishes a Dictionarium trilingue for Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.

1531 – He publishes Horologiographia (a treatise on dialling – constructing sundials).

1536 – He releases a Mappa Europae. He publishes Organum Uranicum (a treatise on the planetary motions).

1537 – He publishes a Hebrew Gospel of Matthew.

1540 – He publishes an illustrated Latin edition of Ptolemy’s Geographia.

1544 – He publishes Cosmographia. (This becomes one of the most popular and successful works of the 16th century.)

1546 – He publishes his Hebraica Biblia.

1552 – He dies of the plague in Basel.

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References:

1 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_M%C3%BCnster

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