Bünting, Heinrich (1545-1606). Die eigentliche und wahrhafftige gestalt der Erden und desMeers.

Bünting, Heinrich (1545-1606).

Die eigentliche und wahrhafftige gestalt der Erden und desMeers.

from: ITINERARIUMSACRAE SCRIPTURA

Leipzig: 1585. Single-sheet map (10 2/3” x 14 1/5”)

Woodcut

From Bünting’s ITINERARIUMSACRAE SCRIPTURA showing the continents EUROPE, ASIA, and AFRICA, as well as parts of AMERICA in the lower left quadrant. WOODCUT in excellent condition with full margins and age toning. The present map is the second world map in the Itinerarium, following a depiction of the landmasses as a clover leaf around the city of Jerusalem. The present map shows lakes,rivers, mountains, and sea monsters that populate the southern hemisphere. “It is a curious map, including - at the east end of the Indian Ocean - a portion of land with an outline coincidentally much like that of Western Australia, named India Meridionalis. In the south-west corner Bünting places a portion of America, ‘Die Newe Welt’. (…) Jerusalem is sited in the center of the map because it was regarded then as the centre of the world. The Nile and its origin is prominent, arising from one large lake in the center, with additional tributaries from the Montes Lunae.” (Norwich 1983). “ Heinrich Bünting was a geographer and professor of theology who started his career under the patronage of Sidonie of Saxony. As a Ubiquitarian heparticipated in the theological disputes of his time; his religious zeal can be gauged from the publication of the Itinerarium, a lavishly illustrated book on the Holy Land and travels of the Bible’s central figures. Curiously, he had never visited Palestine himself and compiled his travel guide evaluating original source material by chroniclers such as Burchard of Mount Sion and Bernhard of Breidenbach. Norwich, Oscar: “Maps of Africa: An Illustrated and Annotated Carto-Bibliography”, Johannesburg 1983.