1572 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Lisbona. Olisipo ... vulgo Lisbona Florentissimum Portugalliae Emporiv. [on sheet with] Cascale Lusitaniae Opp..[LISBOA & CASCAIS].

Two copper engraved panoramic views of Lisbon and Cascais, which first appeared in Braun and Hogenburg's 'Civitates Orbis Terrarum'. Lisbon is shown as a great port city, with many large ships in its harbor.
In the city, castles, churches, port buildings, and citizens can all be seen. Few, if any, of the buildings shown in this map survive to the present day due to a 1755 earthquake leveling much of the city.
Further down the Tagus from Lisbon lie two smaller towns, Cascais and Belem, as they are now known, both pictured in the lower map. These were successful trading and fishing cities, who used their proximity to Lisbon to their advantage. Belem was also particularly popular with royals, and the building the town appears to be built around was likely a royal palace or monastery.
The tower on an island in the Tagus predates that which was built by Peter II in the late 17th century. At present, almost all the region shown in this second map is occupied by the suburbs of Lisbon.

LISBON. TRANSLATION OF CARTOUCHE TEXT: Olisippo, or as can be read in inscriptions on ancient stones, Ulysippo, commonly known as Lisbon, is a flourishing trade center in Portugal.
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "Lisbon can be counted amongst the oldest Spanish cities. Originally founded on a high hill on the banks of the Tejo, the city now covers numerous mountains and valleys. On this site can be found an old and rambling royal palace, magnificently decorated: to the north lies an important convent belonging to the Poor Clares, somewhat secluded on the River Tejo."
Lisbon's appearance in second place in the Civitates is certainly no accident since by the start of the 16th century Lisbon already numbered 350,000 inhabitants and thus ranked amongst the largest of all the most famous cities. The densely packed houses in the engraving underline this fact.
Emphasis is also placed upon the harbor and shipyards, highlighting Lisbon's importance as a cosmopolitan center of trade. Lisbon was the Portuguese city that profited the most from the expansion of the Portuguese global empire, which began in 1499 after Vasco da Gama's voyages of discovery and led to the colonies in Asia and South America.
Pope Alexander VI also underlined Portugal's importance with the coronation of Manuel I as "Lord of the conquest, navigation and commerce of India, Ethiopia, Arabia and Persia."

CASCAIS AND BELÉM. COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "North of Lisbon lies the town of Cascale, which is particularly suitable as a safe harbor owing to its natural position with many inlets, since the big ships can find a sheltered anchorage here during rough seas and can wait for a fair wind. [...] In a winding bay on the same shoreline lies the small town of Belém with a mighty church that is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary."
Cascais and Belém are two small towns in the vicinity of Lisbon. They are seen in a low, bird's-eye perspective from the sea. The fishing village of Cascais, today a tourist destination and a popular beach resort, lies on a bay on the Atlantic coast some 25 km west of Lisbon. Belém was incorporated into Lisbon in 1885 and lies to the west of the city center. The church of Santa Maria mentioned by Braun served the former Hieronymite monastery (Taschen).

The Civitates Orbis Terrarum, or the "Braun & Hogenberg", is a six-volume town atlas and the greatest book of town views and plans ever published: 363 engravings, sometimes beautifully colored. It was one of the best-selling works in the last quarter of the 16th century.
Georg Braun wrote the text accompanying the plans and views on the verso. A large number of the plates were engraved after the original drawings of Joris Hoefnagel (1542-1600), who was a professional artist. The first volume was published in Latin in 1572, the sixth volume in 1617. Frans Hogenberg created the tables for volumes I through IV, and Simon van den Neuwel created those for volumes V and VI.
Other contributors were cartographer Daniel Freese, and Heinrich Rantzau. Works by Jacob van Deventer, Sebastian Münster, and Johannes Stumpf were also used. Translations appeared in German and French.

More about Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus [+]

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 2412; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.50.

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.