Sebastian Münster

His well-known work, the highly accurate world map, Cosmographia, sold well and went through 24 editions.

Its influence was widely spread by a production of woodcuts created of it by a variety of artists.

[4]He left the Franciscans for the Lutheran Church in order to accept an appointment at the Reformed Church-dominated University of Basel in 1529.

[3][5] He had long harboured an interest in Lutheranism, and during the German Peasants' War, as a monk, he had been repeatedly attacked.

In 1537, he published a Rabbinical translation of the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew which he had obtained from Spanish Conversos.

It had numerous editions in different languages including Latin, French, Italian, English, and even Czech.

[7] This success was due to the fascinating woodcuts (some by Hans Holbein the Younger, Urs Graf, Hans Rudolph Manuel Deutsch, and David Kandel), in addition to including the first to introduce "separate maps for each of the four continents known then – America, Africa, Asia and Europe.

[6] Several paintings with oil on canvas, woodcuts and copper etchings depict Sebastian Münster, by Hans Holbein d. J.