KRAKÓW POLAND 1568 MÜNSTER UNUSUAL ANTIQUE WOODCUT CITY VIEW FRENCH EDITION

De l'election de Grachus, qui feit bastir Gracovie.

Description: Striking and highly detailed unusual 1568 Sebastian Münster miniature scene depicting Krakus in the act of founding the city of Krakow, Poland. The plate shows the city with its buildings, town walls and surrounding landscape. French text on the verso and on the lower side.

Kraków is one of the largest and oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula river (Polish: Wisła) in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. It was the capital of Poland from 1038 to 1596, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Kraków from 1846 to 1918, and the capital of Kraków Voivodeship from the 14th century to 1999. It is now the capital of the Lesser Poland Voivodeship.
 
Early history
 
The earliest known settlement on the present site of Kraków was established on Wawel Hill, and dates back to the 4th century. Legend attributes the town's establishment to the mythical ruler Krakus, who built it above a cave occupied by a ravenous dragon, Smok Wawelski. Many knights unsuccessfully attempted to oust the dragon by force, but instead, Krakus fed it a poisoned lamb, which killed the dragon. The city was free to flourish. Dragon bones, most likely that of mammoth, are displayed at the entrance of the Wawel Cathedral. Before the Polish state had been formed, Kraków was the capital of the tribe of Vistulans, subjugated for a short period by Great Moravia. After Great Moravia was destroyed by the Hungarians, Kraków became part of the kingdom of Bohemia. The first appearance of the city's name in historical records dates back to 966, when a Sephardi Jewish traveller, Abraham ben Jacob, described Kraków as a notable commercial centre under the rule of the then duke of Bohemia (Boleslaus I the Cruel). He also mentioned the baptism of Prince Mieszko I and his status as the first historical ruler of Poland. Towards the end of his reign, Mieszko took Kraków from the Bohemians and incorporated it into the holdings of the Piast dynasty.
 
By the end of the 10th century, the city was a leading center of trade. Brick buildings were being constructed, including the Royal Wawel Castle with the Rotunda of Sts. Felix and Adauctus, Romanesque churches, a cathedral, and a basilica. Sometime after 1042, Casimir I the Restorer made Kraków the seat of the Polish government. In 1079 on a hillock in nearby Skałka, the Bishop of Kraków, Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów, was slain by the order of the Polish king Bolesław II the Generous. In 1138, the Testament of Bolesław III Wrymouth came into effect upon his death. It divided Poland into five provinces, with Kraków named as the Seniorate Province, meant to be ruled by the eldest male member of the royal family as the High Duke. Infighting among brothers, however, caused the seniorate system to soon collapse, and a century-long struggle between Bolesław's descendants followed. The fragmentation of Poland lasted until 1320.

Krakus, Krak or Grakch was a legendary Polish prince, ruler of the Vistulans (a Lechitic tribe), and the presumed founder of Kraków. Krakus is also credited with building Wawel Castle and slaying the Wawel Dragon by feeding it a dead sheep full of sulfur. The latter is how Krak the cobbler became Krakus the prince, and later king. The first recorded mention of Krakus, then spelled Grakch, is in the Chronica seu originale regum et principum Poloniae from 1190.
 
Historian Jacek Banaszkiewicz attributes Krak's name to a pre-Slavic word "krakula", meaning 'judge's staff' or 'scepter', which also signified judicial authority among the pagan Balts. Historians Cetwiński and Derwich suggest a different etymology, which seems more probable to some, with Krak, meaning simply an oak, a sacred tree, most often associated with the concept of genealogy. Moreover, the name of the city of Kraków is believed to be derived from the word kruk, which translates to 'crow' or 'raven'.
 
Krakus Mound, which exists to this day, was previously believed to contain Krakus' remains. It has been the subject of thorough archeological research from 1934–38, however, no grave has ever been found in it. The mound has a diameter of over 50 meters. According to research, it was erected between the 8th and 10th centuries as a central element of an ancient grave site, which does not exist today.
 
The Krak and Princess Wanda legend appeared in the early Polish history written by Wincenty Kadłubek (Latin: Vincentius Cadlubkonis); a similar legend, that of Krok and Libussa, appeared in the early Czech history by Cosmas of Prague.
 
The sheet comes from the 1568 French Edition of Sebastian Münster's "Cosmographia".
 
The Cosmographia ("Cosmography") by Sebastian Münster (1488–1552) from 1544 is the earliest German-language description of the world.
 
It had numerous editions in different languages including Latin, French (translated by François de Belleforest), Italian, English, and Czech. The last German edition was published in 1628, long after his death. The Cosmographia was one of the most successful and popular books of the 16th century. It passed through 24 editions in 100 years. This success was due to the notable woodcuts (some by Hans Holbein the Younger, Urs Graf, Hans Rudolph Manuel Deutsch, and David Kandel). It was most important in reviving geography in 16th-century Europe. Among the notable maps within Cosmographia is the map "Tabula novarum insularum", which is credited as the first map to show the American continents as geographically discrete.
 
His earlier geographic works were Germania descriptio (1530) and Mappa Europae (1536). In 1540, he published a Latin edition of Ptolemy's Geographia with illustrations.
 
Editions:
 
German 1544, 1546, 1548, 1550, 1553, 1556, 1558, 1561, 1564, 1567, 1569, 1572, 1574, 1578, 1588, 1592, 1598, 1614, 1628
Latin 1550, 1552, 1554, 1559, 1572
French 1552, 1556, 1560, 1565, 1568, 1575
Italian 1558, 1575
Czech 1554. 

Date: 1574 ( undated )

Dimension:  View size approx.: cm 11,3 x 7,9 === Paper size approx.: cm 20,9 x 31,2

Condition: Very strong and dark impression on good paper. Paper with chains. Map uncolored. Wide margins. Corners partially missing. Small foxing and browning. Small waterstains. Conditions are as you can see in the images.

Mapmaker: 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.