Bünting, Heinrich | Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae, 1588, with three celebrated figural maps

Bünting, Heinrich

Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae Das ist Ein Reisebuch Uber die Gantze Heilige Schrifft. Wittenberg: Zacharias Krafft, 1588 (parts 2–4: Magdeburg: Paul Donat for Ambrose Kirchner, 1588)

4 parts in one volume, folio (310 x 197 mm). Title-page printed in red and black, 12 woodcut maps and plans (10 full-page), woodcut initials and tailpiece, section-titles with woodcut vignettes and ornaments, as well as distinct pagination and signatures for, final three parts; usual variously severe browning, plan of Solom's Temple trimmed close. Contemporary blind-panelled pigskin over bevelled boards, spine in five compartments, one (of two) clasp on lower cover, both brass catches on upper, plain endpapers and edges; soiled and rubbed.

Heinrich Bünting was a German pastor and theologian, best known for Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae, first published in 1581 and reprinted in some sixty editions through the middle of the eighteenth century. His geographical description of the Holy Land examines biblical units of distance, biblical place names, Jerusalem, its walls and gates, and toponyms found in the Old and New Testaments, as well as the apocryphal books. Bünting also discusses biblical currency and measurements.

Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae is best known for its woodcut maps and plans. Some of these—the Holy Land, Egypt, Jerusalem, and Solomon’s Temple—are conventional. The fame of the book is really founded on its three celebrated figural maps: the world as a cloverleaf (possibly representing the Trinity with Jerusalem in the center), Europe in the form of a crowned and robed woman (with Spain at the head), and Asia as the winged horse Pegasus.

REFERENCES

Shirley 142; Nebenzahl, Holy Land pp. 88–89