1572 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Monacum, nominatis sima Bavariae, Civitas [on sheet with] Ingolstadium [and] Frisingensis ... [and] Nordlinga ... [and] Ratispona ... [and] Straubinga .. [München, Ingolstadt, Freissing, Nördlingen, Regensburg and Straubing]

An old map with six German bird's-eye views by Braun and Hogenberg: München, Ingolstadt, Freissing, Nördlingen, Regensburg and Straubing. TRANSLATION OF CARTOUCHE TEXT: Munich, the most frequently mentioned city in Bavaria. COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Munich is a splendid city in Bavaria, situated on the Isar. It has a favourable location and possesses a magnificent palace, in which the Bavarian princes hold court in our own day."
The view of Munich across the banks of the Isar is the first of six small-format views of Upper German cities presented on a double page. The Dom Zu Unserer Lieben Frau, the so-called Frauenkirche, with its characteristic bulbous domes dating from 1525, can be identified at the center.

COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "In the beginning Ingolstadt was not exactly a large town, almost rectangular in shape, and within an area marked by the three ancient towers that still stand today: the Glockenturm in the cemetery of the minster of Our Lady, the Striegelturm beside the gaol and the Judenturm.
The old castle is also a clear indication of this. Ingolstadt was first expanded in 1312, when it grew to about double the size and took on a shape resembling that of an egg, apart from a few bulges in the southern part of the town."
Braun's text bears no relation to the plate: it shows a small part of Ingolstadt from an unusual perspective, looking from the church tower (visible on the right) across the fortified city wall at an animated battle field.
In 1537, Ingolstadt was made into a Bavarian fortress through the construction of a new wall with bastions. In 1546, during the Schmalkaldic War, the troops of Charles V fought those of the Schmalkaldic League before the gates of the city.
This view appears in only a few editions of the Civitates ; at this place in the first edition there is just an empty space to the right of Munich, in later editions there is a very schematic view of Innsbruck.

CAPTION: Picture of the episcopal city of Freising. COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Freising, the episcopal city in Bavaria, [...] is said to have been founded at the time of Roman rule, which extended from the Danube to the Alps, on a favourable site by the Moosach, which flows into the Isar close by. Beatus Rhenanus records that in the library of St Corbinian's he found a very beautiful book containing the four Gospels in Frankish."
The cityscape of Freising remains hallmarked even today by the Domberg hill with the cathedral of SS Mary and Corbinian. The red-brick basilica arose in the 12th century on the ruins of an earlier church dedicated to St Mary dating from the 8th century.
In the 17th/18th centuries it was remodeled in the Baroque style. As Braun notes in his text, in 1531 the German humanist and philologist Beatus Rhenanus discovered in the cathedral's important library the Gospel Harmony of Otfried von Weissenburg, dating from the 9th century, a very early example of Old High German (Frankish) poetry.

CAPTION: Nördlingen, imperial city in Lower Rhaetia, on the far side of the Danube, commonly called Ries. COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Nördlingen formerly lay on the Hohe Hart hill, above the present city, where the old parish church of St Emmeran can still be seen.
This town burned down in 1238 and due to the lack of water many lost their lives. Afterwards it was rebuilt in the valley beside the Eger, and ever since then the waters of the river have run through it."
Nördlingen is seen in side view from the northwest. The historical cityscape has survived right up to the present and is hallmarked by the late medieval city wall from the 14th century, which boasts five tower gates and 16 further turrets. The tower rising almost 90m high in the center is known as "The Daniel" and forms part of the late Gothic parish church of St George.
In front of it lies the town hall of 1382. Nördlingen was an imperial city from 1215 to 1803. In 1529 it signed the Protestant Confession at the imperial diet in Speyer and embraced the Reformation.

CAPTION: Regensburg, the oldest city in Bavaria, lies on the Danube. COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Regensburg is a magnificent and ancient city in Bavaria on the banks of the Danube, at a favourably situated point where four rivers converge. For the Laber and the Naab flow into the Danube above the city and the Regen below it. [...] Emperor Arnulf expanded the city and most importantly linked it to the settlement on the opposite bank by means of a sturdy stone bridge with many arches."
This plate offers a view across the suburb of Stadt am Hof and the stone bridge with its three towers towards the Gothic cathedral. As well as church steeples, the numerous family towers belonging to wealthy patrician houses are visible on the skyline. The highest tower is that of the town hall.

COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Straubing is a town in Bavaria that was founded by Duke Ludwig in 1218. The Danube runs near the town and thereby lends it importance."
Straubing is shown from the northeast looking across the Danube. The town's present-day cityscape bears a close resemblance to that in the early modern era and is dominated by the 68-m-high Gothic watchtower and the 14th-century town hall beside it. Also clearly recognizable are the largest church in the town, St James's, to the left of which is the Romanesque church of St Peter and on the right the Gothic red-brick church of St Veit.
Straubing, which received its charter in 1218, was initially a center of the Reformation in Lower Bavaria, but in the Counter-Reformation the Protestants were expelled from the town.

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 2893 State.4; Fauser, 9252; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.106-107.

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.