1577 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Calechut Celeberrimum Indiae Emporium [on sheet with] Ormus [and] Canonor [and] S. Georgii Oppidum Mina.

Four very desirable and early town-plans of Kozhikode, Hormuz, Kannur and Almina.
"KOZHIKODE (CALICUT) : "The city is viewed from the sea, just as it would have appeared to the astonished eyes of the Portuguese explorers arriving from the west. For when Vasco da Gama landed at Kappad, some 25 km from Calicut (today Koshikode) in 1498, it marked an important moment in European history: the sea route to India had finally been discovered. Excluding a foreign air, Calicut appears within a forest of palm trees, set against a backdrop of mountains and with numerous ships in the foreground. The royal procession can be seen on the beach in front of the city, and to the right a working elephant with its driver. Kozhikode had already established itself as an important center of power and trade even before Vasco da Gama's arrival. After taking the city in 1538, the Portuguese built a fort and from 1540 held the spice-trade monopoly. Kozhikode, which lies on the Malabar Coast in the Indian state of Kerla, today has some 445,000 inhabitants. . ." . (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.122.)

HORMUZ : "The plate shows Hormuz on an island, in a stereotypical view that is probably a product of the draughtsman's imagination. The city is made up of tall, foreign-seeming houses with flat roofs, built close together, and is surrounded by a solid wall. Hormuz was captured in 1507 by Alfonso de Albuquerque and remained firmly in Portuguese hands from 1515 to 1622. Due to its position on the Strait of Hormuz - one of the most important straits in the world - at the entrance to the Persian Gulf, 16 km off the coast of Iran, the rocky island remains an important strategic location and a major center of trade for the Arab world.. " (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.122.)

KANNUR : "The view shows the town of Kannur - formerly Anglicized as Cannanore - from the west. As in many engravings of Indian cities, the foreignness of the country is symbolized by palm trees and the simple architecture of the houses. In 1502 Kannur became a strategic base and trading port for the Portuguese, who shipped spices to Europe from here. In 1504 Francisco de Almeida, viceroy of India, built the castle mentioned in the text, Fort St Angelo, which is located 3 km from the town. . .". (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.128.)

ELMINA) : "The view of Mina (Elmina in modern-day Ghana) shows a small, fenced village (pagus) lying beside the massive castle of São Jorge da Mina, which was built in 1482 in order to protect the most important gold trading post on Africa's Gold Coast. The fort was the first European stronghold on Black African soil and remained the headquarters of the Portuguese in Africa up till 1637, when it was conquered by the Dutch. Due to its gold reserves, the African village that lay near the fort was called El Mina ("The Mine") by the Portuguese and in 1486 was granted a Portuguese municipal charter. Between the end of the 16th century and Ghana's independence, the villages around El Mina converged to become Elmina or Edina state.." . (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.128.)

From volume one of the greatest publication in this genre!. The Civitates was compiled and written by George Braun, Canon of Cologne Cathedral. Braun gathered together vast amounts of information and draft plans to produce over 500 city views/maps published in six parts between 1572 and 1617. Most of these engravings were made by Simon Novellanus and Frans Hogenberg, many after drawings by Joris Hoefnagel.
Read more about the Civitates Orbis.

Reference: Koeman (1967-70) B & H 1-5, NMM III, i, 459 (1573-1618 ed.), Introduction', in: G. Braun and F. Hogenberg, Civitates orbis terrarum (Amsterdam: 1965). (2)

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.