This book is often attributed to Simon Grynaeus but is more properly credited to Johann Huttich, who compiled most of the work. The contents stem from the German-speaking, Protestant intellectual milieu that produced other important early geographical publications. 

Johann Huttich (1490–1544) was able to access accounts of early Spanish and Portuguese voyagers to America while in Madrid as part of the embassy associated with Charles V's election as Holy Roman Emperor. Included are the three voyages of Christopher Columbus, as well as those of Amerigo Vespucci, Pedro Alonso Niño, Vicente Yánez Pinzón, Pedro Alvares Cabral, and Alvise da Cadamosto. In addition to the Portuguese discoveries in Brazil and the East, Huttich incorporates accounts of Marco Polo and material collected by Peter Martyr. There are also numerous accounts of other European voyages. Huttich's work is one of the earliest to bring together in a single volume a number of otherwise extremely rare contemporary accounts of the earliest explorers, some of which are now lost in the original.

 contributed this world map with a lengthy introduction to the 1532 edition of ‘Novus Orbis Regionum’ compiled by the protestant theologians Simon Grynaeus and Johann Huttich. Geographically, Münster based the configuration of the Americas on 

WorldMap), while radically adjusting the projection from cordiform to oval. He retained Apianus’ tentative separation of South and North America while naming the latter ‘Terra de Cuba’. Münster used different sources for Africa and was to reuse much of this information later for the continental map in his ‘Cosmographia’ of 1540, including the image of the splendid sailing ship (see SC-A-1540-Munster). 

The spectacular border by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543) make this map especially unique. One of the most celebrated artists of the Northern Renaissance, Holbein was working in Basel at the time before moving to London to become the official court painter to Henry VIII. The illustrations in the four corners loosely represent the flora and fauna of the four continents and include depictions of their supposed inhabitants. These representations combine the ancient ethnography of Pliny the Elder’s so-called ‘monstrous races’ (see SC-B-1472-Isidore-Etymologies-1Ed-TOMap0) with sensationalized encounters recounted by contemporary explorers.

 (1488–1552) was a cosmographer and professor of Hebrew who taught at Tübingen, Heidelberg, and Basel. After converting to Protestantism in 1529, he took over the chair of Hebrew at the University of Basel, where he published a two-volume Old Testament in Hebrew with a Latin translation. In Basel, Münster made himself the centre of a large network of scholars from whom he obtained geographic descriptions, maps, and directions. He remained in Basel until his death in 1552. 

Münster published his first known map, a map of Germany, in 1525. Three years later, he released a treatise on sundials. In 1540, he published ‘

 Universalis Vetus et Nova’, an updated edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s ‘

’ (see SC-A-1540-Munster). In addition to the Ptolemaic maps, Münster added twenty-one modern maps that would influence Ortelius and other early atlas makers. He is best known for his ‘Cosmographia Universalis’ (see SC-A-1559-Munster-UniversalCosmography), first published in 1544 and released in at least thirty-five editions by 1628. 

This famous and beautiful map was created by 

, with elaborate borders by Hans Holbein the Younger. It anticipates Münster's greatest work, the 'Cosmographia', and his oval world map produced eight years later.

The map draws on many sources, including 

. The illustrations around the map contain sensational and fanciful descriptions of the exotic spices, flora, fauna, and peoples who were believed to populate the four known continents. Exquisitely rendered sea monsters and galleons ply the oceans on the map.

At the poles, two angels are shown turning the Earth. This alludes to the radical claim by Copernicus that the Earth moved around the sun and turned on its axis. This heliocentric theory disrupted earlier Ptolemaic and Christian concepts that the Earth was the centre of the Universe.

A particularly intriguing detail in the border is the depiction of two angels energetically turning cranks inserted into the north and south poles. This is likely a reference to Nicolaus Copernicus’ theories that advocated for a heliocentric solar system and a rotating Earth. While Copernicus’ revolutionary ‘De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium’ was published in 1543, eleven years after this map, his theories had achieved considerable currency among Northern European humanists with whom 

 and Hans Holbein the Younger were closely associated. Ptolemaic celestial theory, the generally accepted orthodoxy, demanded a stationary Earth and this splendid image is therefore one of the earliest references to Copernicus’ hugely important, and at the time highly controversial theory. 

’s celebrated world map with superb border decoration attributed to Hans Holbein the Younger, which cleverly reveals a tacit understanding of the controversial Copernican heliocentric theory.

Double-page oval wood-engraved map on two joined sheets

Münster's World Map, with borders by Hans Holbein the Younger