Abstract

The Cosmographia universalis by Sebastian Münster is a work that had 35 editions in 5 languages between 1544 and 1628. Profusely illustrated, it sought not only to update maps and present landscapes of the different regions it covered, but also to describe the habits, customs and characteristics of the people and places mentioned in the books. Among the illustrations of the edition of 1550, there are two that show machines used in metallurgy driven by waterwheels. The image of one of them, a stamp mill, is the first published impression of that machine. The second, a bellows, coincides with the printing of a similar machine, in one of the books of Pyrotechnics, published the same year in Italy. A third image presents a distribution and conduction system of brine in a salt mine. The illustrations of the Cosmographia are also compared with similar ones published in the sixteenth century or in previous manuscripts.