1588 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Ierusalem, et suburbia eius. . .

Plan of ancient Jerusalem and its suburbs as it looked at the time of Jesus Christ. TRANSLATION OF CAPTION: Jerusalem and its suburbs, as it flourished in the time of Christ; with the places where Christ suffered. Preserved with reverence by the Christians, they are still venerated today. Described by Christian Adrichom of Delft.

COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "Dear Reader, three parts of the city of Jerusalem are distinguished. The first is called the City of Justice (Isaiah 1), the second the Holy City (Isaiah 52), the third the City of Truth (Zechariah 8). And because the City of Justice in times past [...] was also the Daughter of Zion, it has for this reason also been called the new and different city and was between the new enceinte and the old or first city wall.

The Holy City, however, was so named because of the Temple there, the holiest of sites. This extended from the old wall to the Valley of Mello, which was also called the Water Gate Road and the Valley of the Cheesemakers (Tyropoéon).

The City of Truth is the third section of the city. It was also called Mount Zion and the City of David (who had sworn to tell the truth to God), after David, the first king chosen from the tribe of Judah. Just as the Promised Land itself was divided into three parts in the time of Christ, namely Galilee, Samaria and Judea, so is the chief city at the center, situated like the center point in a circle drawn with compasses, divided into three parts."

Looking north, this view of Jerusalem has been schematically rendered as the scene of events in both the Old and the New Testament. The tripartite division of the city refers to the historical enlargements recorded in Josephus: in the south, the City of David with Mount Zion (3); at the center the city as it was enlarged in the 10th-8th centuries BC with Mount Moriah, the Temple Mount and in the north the extensions made in Hellenistic and Roman times.

The almost rectangular shape of the city as depicted here might be interpreted as an allusion to the Heavenly Jerusalem of the Revelation of St John the Divine. Similarly, the Temple is represented as a square, open complex encompassed by concentric ring walls. In the south is the Cenacle (6), with Jesus and the Disciples depicted at the Last Supper; to the left, the Palace of Caiaphas (17); south of the Temple Mount, the palace (59) and the throne (113) of Solomon. The Palace of Herod, built-in 23 BC, is shown (137) in the north.

In the east is the Mount of Olives with Gethsemane (210); north of the Temple is the Antonia Fortress (29), the seat of the Roman governor. From there the Via Dolorosa, with the Stations of the Cross indicated, runs before the city to Calvary, situated in the northwest (Golgota, 235), the site of the Crucifixion.

At first glance, this illustration would almost seem to draw on the symbolic allegory informing medieval depictions of cities. Here, however, an effort has obviously been made to link the events of the Passion and the holy places mentioned in the Bible with the actual topography of Jerusalem, thus elucidating the nature of the place as the scene of historical events.

The formulaic quality of the present representation expresses the principle of the divine order.

Hence the map might also have been intended for use by contemporary readers as a devotional image for meditation. (Taschen)

From 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.

Reference: Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.344.

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.