1588 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Crempa Holsatiae Opp. ... [on sheet with] Reinholdsburga - Rendesburga. (Krempe - Rendsburg)

Two bird's-eye views by Braun and Hogenberg: Krempe and Rendsburg.

KREMPE : TRANSLATION OF CARTOUCHE TEXT: Krempe, at the instigation of Joannes Rantzau, Knight of the Golden Helm, a heavily Holstein town.

COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Krempe, a town in Holstein, derives its name from the heavily travelled waters that flow through the midst of it to the Rivers Stör and Elbe. It was incorporated as a city and granted its coat of arms in 1271 by Gerhard, first Count of Schauenburg and Holstein. In 1535, during the Count's War, it was fortified by the knight Johannes Rantzau with moated ramparts and bastions and is now not the least of the Holstein fortifications. Its inhabitants are merchants for the most part, but they also engage in farming."

Looking from the north, the viewer sees a town mentioned for the first time in 1240, made a free city in 1250 and fortified in the 16th century.The huddle of patrician town-house gables is topped only by the church of St Peter and the magnificent town hall (Curia), attesting to the heyday of this trading centre from the 13th to the 16th century. By the time this work went to print ships from Krempe were sailing as far as to the Mediterranean and even to Arkhangelsk on the White Sea and Krempe merchants had opened trading posts in England, France and Portugal. The founding of Glückstadt put paid to the town's prosperity. To add insult to injury the Au silted up - by 1696 Krempe was bankrupt. Plagues, wars and enforced levies did the rest, leaving the city to sink into the somnolence of a rural backwater.

RENDSBURG with CARTOUCHE: Rendsburg, a fine town in Holstein, encircled by the River Eider.

COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "The city is situated in a highly advantageous location. Indeed the River Eider flows all round it and through it with so many bends that one can board a ship there and sail for Spain, France, England and the Netherlands. The tower, which is still visible today next to the castle, was built by Gerhard the Great, Count of Holstein and Schauenburg, in 1230. Afterwards it was sold to the Kings of Denmark, had the existing fortifications erected."

Viewed from the north and a slightly elevated vantage point, the town is situated on an island in the River Eider and fortified with earthworks. The church of St Mary, the first Gothic hall church built in Holstein, and the 16th-century town hall are easy to pick out at the centre of the island. The three-masted ships in the background indicate far-flung North Sea and Baltic trade links. Rendsburg, which is first mentioned in 1199 and was made a free city in 1252/53, began as a settlement on a ford over the Eider marking the border between Schleswig and Holstein and was defended by the Reinholdsburg, a 12th-century border fortress that was converted into a Renaissance palace in the late 16th century. Construction of the North Sea-Baltic Canal in 1887-1895 made the water-level sink by 2 m so that nothing indicate today that Rendsburg was once on an island.

More about Frans Hogenberg. and his Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus [+]

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 2162, state 1; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p. 315.

Georg Braun ( 1541 - 1622)

The Civitates Orbis Terrarum (Atlas of Cities of the World) by Hogenberg 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 work of the Antwerp school of cartographers.
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). Correspondingly, the maps show the systematic structure of the towns' building up, with perspective representations of various quarters and individual buildings.
The town is usually placed in the background, while the foreground shows its 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 pages of the Civitates with figures of local inhabitants to prevent the 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 are located 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, it is impossible not to be astonished at the huge quantity - by the standards of the time - of material included in the atlas.

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

After Franz Hogenberg's death, the atlas's typographic plates remained in Cologne, in Abraham Hogenberg's possession. 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, ownership of town maps with the publisher's imprint of de Wit passed to the publishing house of Covens and Mortier. The multiple reproductions of these 16th-century perspective views and maps by various publishers over the centuries can be explained by 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.

In addition to its historical, geographical, and cartographic significance, the Civitates is also of great artistic value. That is why, to this day, the town maps in the atlas have adorned the most exquisite interiors and attracted the attention not only of specialists in the field but of all admirers of fine art.