Sebastian Munster (1488-1552), German cartographer. Munster was born at Ingelheim near Mainz. He was professor of Hebrew at the University of Basel and edited the Hebrew Bible and added commentaries in Latin. His major work was the Cosmographica of 1544, the earliest description of the world in German. It was subsequently translated into many languages as was one of the most popular books of the 16th century. He died of the plague in 1552. This engraving comes from Beze's Les vrais pourtraits des hommes illustres, printed at Geneva in 1581.