Americae Sive Novi Orbis Nova Descriptio. / Die newen inseln so hinder Hispaniam gegen Orient . . .

Sebastian Münster (1489-1552) is one of the most renowned cartographers of the sixteenth century, Mercator and Ortelius are considered at the same level. Munster's two main works, namely the 'Geographia' and 'Cosmographia Universalis' were among the most widely read books of the time and exerted a huge influence on the culture of the XVI century.
The Geographia can be considered a prelude to Munster's major work, the Cosmographia Universalis. It was published in nearly 30 editions and in six languages between 1544 and 1578. It was then reissued, in a revised version, by Sebastian Petri, who published the Cosmographia from 1588 to 1628.
It is not only a geographical description of the known world, but also a historical and ethnographic encyclopedia ante litteram. It contained general and regional maps as well as city views with nearly 500 illustrations: one of the most popular pictorial works of the sixteen century!

Here is a superb copy of the Map of America, which appeared around 1588 in Munster's Cosmographia. This map depicts all of North and South America, starting from from a mysterious inland lake (Conibas) to Tierra del Fuego, and from New Guiana to beyond the easternmost coast of Brazil. This map replaced Sebastian Munster's original 1540 map of America, and is almost totally based on Ortelius' 1570 map of the Americas.
Many of the cartographic oddities and false myths of the time are delineated. Teirra de Fuego remains attached to the southern continent. A set of islands in the Pacific, close to the western coast of the Pacific is named 'Archipeago di San Lazao,'. New Guinea is apparently connected to the unknown southern continent.
In North America a great bay extends into the central part of the continent. This map was engraved in woodcut ca 1588 and published in Basel by Sebastian Petri. After 1588, it was only issued in posthumous German editions of Sebastian Munster's Cosmographia issued in 1592, 1598, 1614, and 1628, and is thus rare.
This example is from a German edition.