29-20 15.5 -10 SEBASTIAN MЬNSTER. History of Latvia. RIGA. VIEW OF THE CITY in the mid-16th century. Woodcut. Cosmographia by Sebastian Mьnster (1488-1552). Basel, 1550. Latvian War Museum. Riga. Latvia. Author: SEBASTIAN MЬNSTER (1488-1552) Caption: History of Latvia. Riga. View of the city in the mid-16th century. Woodcut. COSMOGRAPHIA BY SEBASTIAN MЬNSTER (1488-1552). Basel, 1550. Latvian War Museum. Riga. Latvia. It's a scene familiar to anyone with a good Latvian history book: the Riga skyline as it appeared in the mid-16th century, still instantly recognizable today: Our scan is of an original leaf taken from the 1575 French edition of Sebastian Munster's epic encyclopedic work, the Cosmographia Universalis. It was only after we had the leaf in our possession that we discovered this was more than a pretty picture. It was the lead illustration for an article about the Latvians. The article is most notable because it contains among the the very first published samples of the Latvian language, the Lord's Prayer. Tantalizingly, frustratingly, our single leaf ends right in the middle. It hardly differs from modern Latvian. Sebastian Mьnster Sebastian Mьnster (1489-1552) was born in Ingelheim, Germany, and lived for the latter part of his life in Basel, Switzerland. His interests and talents spanned mathematics, Hebrew linguistics and scholarship, and cartography. In 1544 he published the Cosmographia, the culmination of his academic career, containing more than 500 woodcut pages. The Cosmographia was issued in 46 editions—pre-dating its intellectual progeny, the Encyclopaedia Britannica, by more than two centuries. Editions included: in German between 1544 and 1628; in Latin between 1550 and 1559; in Italian in 1558; and in French in 1575. An outbreak of the plague tragically cut Mьnster's life short in 1552. Successors continued publishing and updating editions.