La Cosmographei (1544) de Sebastian Münster, une approche protestante de la cosmographie au tournant du Moyen Age et des Temps Modernes ?

After the discovery of America, cosmography became a popular genre. The authors resorted not only to divers methods and disciplines (e.g. astronomy, mathematics, historiography, philosophy) but also to several sources such as The Bible, literature and stories. While cosmography had been dominated until then by catholic scientists, Sebastian Münster was one of the first protestants to attempt a description of the earth. In this paper we propose to ask ourselves whether Münster wrote a protestant cosmogony, whether on the contrary his appraoch was the established catholic one or whether he was only trying to avoid confessionalism. The problem of authority thus concerns Münster’s position towards the authority of God and The Bible, the authority of ancient texts and the authority of his contemporaries.Pott Sandra. La Cosmographei (1544) de Sebastian Münster, une approche protestante de la cosmographie au tournant du Moyen Age et des Temps Modernes ?. In: Anglophonia/Caliban, n°17, 2005. Protestantisme(s) et autorité / Protestantism and authority. pp. 75-85