Networked Nation / Maps, Spaces, Cultures / 1

In Networked Nation: Mapping German Cities in Sebastian Münster’s 'Cosmographia', Jasper van Putten examines the groundbreaking woodcut city views in the German humanist Sebastian Münster’s Cosmographia. This description of the world, published in Basel from 1544 to 1628, glorified the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and engendered the city book genre. Van Putten argues that Münster’s network of city view makers and contributors―from German princes and artists to Swiss woodcutters, draftsmen, and printers―expressed their local and national cultural identities in the views. The Cosmographia, and the city books it inspired, offer insights into the development of German and Swiss identity from 1550 to Switzerland’s independence from the empire in 1648.

Jasper van Putten, Ph.D. (2015), Harvard University, is lecturer at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. His publications concern the production of knowledge through prints in the early modern period.