Bünting cloverleaf map
The most charming curiosity in early cartography, and proof that a map can be collected for its idea rather than its accuracy. In his 1581 Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae, Heinrich Bünting drew Europe, Asia and Africa as the three leaves of a clover with Jerusalem at the center, a device suggested by the arms of his home town, Hanover. England, Scandinavia and, in the lower left corner, America float outside the trefoil.
It is a woodcut from a popular book that ran to many editions in German, Latin, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Czech and English, so examples survive in several languages. Ask which edition and language a copy comes from before agreeing on a price.
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