Matthew McLean – författare

Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia was an immensely influential book that attempted to describe the entire world across all of human history and analyse its constituent elements of geography, history, ethnography, zoology and botany. First published in 1544 it went through thirty-five editions and was published in five languages, making it one of the most important books of the Reformation period. Beginning with a biographical study of Sebastian Münster, his life and the range of his scholarly work, this book then moves on to discuss the genre of cosmography. The bulk of the book, however, deals with the Cosmographia itself, offering a close reading of the 1550 Latin edition (the last and definitive edition worked upon by Münster). By analysing the contents of the Cosmographia it attempts to recreate how the world of the sixteenth century appeared to a scholar living in Basel, and understand what he saw and heard. Through this examination of Münster, his publications and scholarly networks, the conflicts and continuities between medieval scholarly traditions and the widening horizons of the sixteenth century are explored and revealed. Of interest to scholars of humanist culture, the Reformation and book history, this ambitious work throws into relief previously overlooked aspects of the intellectual and religious culture of the time.

This volume presents significant new research on several key aspects of the late mediaeval and early modern Bible. The essays in this collection deal with Bible scholarship and translation, illustration and production, Bible uses for lay devotion, and the role of Bibles in theological controversy. Inquiring into the ways in which scholars gave new forms to their Bibles and how their readers received their work, this book considers the contribution of key figures such as Castellio, Bibliander, Tremellius, Piscator and Calov. In addition, it examines the exegetical controversies between several centres of Reformed learning as well as among the theologians of Louvain. It encompasses biblical illustration in the Low Countries and the use of maps in the Geneva Bible, and considers the practice of Bible translation, and the strategies by which new versions were justified.