1618 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Brno is seen from the southeast, from an only slightly elevated viewpoint on the far side of the River Svratka.

Fine view of Brno seen from the southeast. TRANSLATION OF CAPTION: Brunn, in the vernacular Brno, eminent city in the Margravate of Moravia.

COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Brno (in Latin Bruna, in Bohemian Brno) is the most distinguished city in Moravia after the episcopal see of Olomouc and has more beautiful, grand and richly decorated buildings and houses than the other towns. It is impossible to say how old this city is, but we know that it cannot be new for many reasons, in particular the castle, which resembles the old Franconian style of architecture. Today the provincial diets are normally held here. Recently the Moravian Estates acknowledged and paid homage to His Serene Highness Archduke Ferdinand here after he had been elected and crowned king of Bohemia."

Brno is seen from the southeast, from an only slightly elevated viewpoint on the far side of the River Svratka. The city wall is fortified with an extraordinary number of towers, behind which many churches are visible. Dominating the right is the spire of St James's church (N), dating from the 14th to the 16th century. On the left, the castle stands high above the city on Spilberk Hill. Founded in the 13th century, it served as the residence of the Margraves of Moravia (F) from the 14th century onward. The cathedral of SS Peter and Paul, with its remarkably high saddleback roof, is visible to the left, and the Gothic town hall tower stands to the right (H). The city lies in a favorable position at the foot of Spilberk Hill and at the confluence of the Svratka and the Svitava. The earliest record appears in a late 11th-century document. In the 12th/13th centuries, Germans and Walloons settled here. In 1243, Brno received a municipal charter and several special privileges. In 1642 Brno replaced Olomouc as the capital of Moravia, and today it is the second-largest city in the Czech Republic after Prague. (Taschen)
Frans Hogenberg (1535 Mechelen - Cologne 1590) was a copper engraver and etcher. Georg Braun (1541 - Cologne - 1622) was a geographer and publisher. Both edited the first comprehensive, systematically designed atlas of town views and plans from around the world. The collection 'Civitates Orbis Terrarum' was published from 1572 until 1618 and ultimately, 6 volumes contained more than 500 copper engravings together with a huge amount of textual information

Civitates Orbis Terrarum

The Civitates Orbis Terrarum (Atlas of Cities of the World) was the second-oldest printed atlas in world cartography and the first atlas of towns. Its principal creators and authors were the theologian and editor Georg Braun, the most important engraver and publisher Frans Hogenberg, the engraver Simon van den Neuvel, the artist and draftsman Georg (Joris) Hoefnagel, the topographer Jacob van Deventer and others. Although published outside the Netherlands, the Civitates is nevertheless one of the best examples of the Antwerp school of cartography.
Key figures in the school included Abraham Ortelius, Gerardus Mercator, and several other geographers. The Civitates reflects the Flemish engraving style typical of Dutch atlases of the period. In addition, correspondence among Braun, Hogenberg, and Ortelius clearly indicates that they conceived the atlas in Antwerp.

The atlas contains more than 500 maps and represents an entire era in the history of town mapping. The atlas was published in six volumes between 1572 and 1617. To obtain the originals for his work, Braun corresponded extensively with map sellers and scholars in different cities and countries. The authors also conducted their own investigations.
However, these were not true geodetic surveys, but detailed on-location drawings of panoramic views of the towns made from some high point. Georg Hoefnagel made most of the engravings that decorate the Civitates, from its first volume to its last, from such drawings. Hoefnagel drew images of many towns in France, Italy, England, and Spain.
He and his son Jacob subsequently created representations of Austrian and Hungarian towns for the Civitates. In addition to these overview plans, the atlas includes more detailed maps based on topographic surveys, particularly those of Jacob van Deventer (15??-1575). Accordingly, the maps show the systematic structure of the towns' layout, with perspective representations of various quarters and individual buildings.
The town usually appears in the background, while the foreground shows the surrounding countryside and detailed depictions of typical town inhabitants.
These visual representations of people not only augmented the maps' content but also served another purpose. Braun and Hogenberg illustrated the Civitates pages with figures of local inhabitants to prevent Turks from using the maps for military purposes, since Islam forbids images of humans.

Of the total number of towns, only a couple of dozen lie outside Europe, in Asia, Africa, and South America. This shows extremely limited cartographic knowledge of the world, due to the insufficient development of science and mapmaking practices in the second half of the sixth century. At the same time, one cannot help but be astonished by the huge quantity of material included in the atlas by the standards of the time.

Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates was an enormous success. It was republished many times and supplemented with new sections. Its maps became exemplary; other publishers frequently reproduced them in smaller formats as illustrations for books and maps.

After Franz Hogenberg's death, Abraham Hogenberg kept the atlas's typographic plates in Cologne. When Abraham died in 1653, his heirs evidently sold them to Johannes Janssonius, an active and skilled publisher of books and atlases in Amsterdam. In 1657, Janssonius issued the atlas in eight volumes in a completely revised edition, with illustrations arranged by country. A large number of quite new engravings were added to it, while outdated prints were omitted. After Janssonius's death in 1664, his grandson Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge acquired the engravings and used some to compile his own atlas, which appeared in 1682. In 1694, the energetic Amsterdam publisher Frederick de Wit purchased van Waesberge's copper plates and equipment at auction; he was well known for his numerous maps and atlases. De Wit organized a new edition, enriched with new engravings.

After de Wit's time, at the turn of the eighteenth century, the copper plates for the atlas passed to the publisher Pieter van der Aa (1659 - 1733). He acquired them in Leyden and used them for an atlas published in 1729. This publication included a diverse mixture of engravings from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries.

After van der Aa, the publishing house of Covens and Mortier acquired town maps bearing the publisher's imprint of de Wit. Over the centuries, various publishers reproduced these 16th-century perspective views and maps because of their rich historical and geographical content. At the same time, no atlas of the world's cities in the history of global cartography matches the Civitates Orbis Terrarum in size and fullness.

Beyond its historical, geographical, and cartographic significance, the Civitates is also highly artistic. That is why, to this day, the atlas's town maps have adorned the most exquisite interiors and attracted not only specialists in the field but also admirers of fine art.