1575 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - NOVESIUM vulgo Neus. . .[on sheet with:] VERONA, nunc Bonna,. . .[and] BVRULA, vulgari idiomate Broell; 1575. [and] SONTINA, Zunss Oppidum ad Rheni ripas. . .

An antique map with four bird's-eye views by Braun and Hogenberg: Neuss, Bonn, Brühl and Zons.NEUSS. CARTOUCHE READS:" Novesium, in German Neuss, a Rhenish city of the Ubii, drawn true to nature in the year of our Lord 1575".
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Neuss lies four miles from Cologne; it is the site of a monastery and a convent, which is very famous because of the relics of St Quirinus, which are venerated there."
BONN.CARTOUCHE READS: "Verona, commonly known today as Bonna; Bonn. Famous town on the Rhine above Cologne. 1575".
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Bonn is a small town; the surrounding farmland is fertile for grain and wine, here the air has always been healthy, for this reason the nobility and the elector and archbishop of Cologne have resided here since the old days. The city has a very large marketplace with a beautiful fountain in the middle of it."
This view of the Rhine front from the right bank shows Bonn in the 16th century, when it had about 4,000 inhabitants.
On the left Bonn's Romanesque minster (St Martin's) can be seen, which was built in the 11th century as the collegiate church of SS Cassius and Florentius for the Cassius foundation. In 1597 Bonn became the residence and capital of the electors and archbishops of Cologne; the cityscape is characterised by the stately buildings from this era.

BRÃœHL/ CARTOUCHE READS: "Brula, in the local dialect Broell. 1575".
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "In Brühl, partly because of the charm of the region, but also because of a dispute with Cologne, the bishop of Cologne, Siegfried von Westenburg, built a castle and surrounded it with such sturdy walls that it was able to withstand a siege for four months in 1318. Since this time Brühl has generally been the seat of the electors of Cologne."
This view shows the city of Brühl, which was created capital of the Electorate of Cologne by Elector Rupert in 1469. The viewer's attention is drawn directly to the moated castle that was erected in 1284 by the Archbishop Siegfried of Cologne, as a bulwark against the city of Cologne, and which was reinforced during the following decades.
The castle remained unchanged until 1689, when it was blown up by the French. Today, the palace of Augustusburg and the Falkenlust hunting lodge, both built in the 18th century, stand on the site of the former moated castle.

ZONS.CARTOUCHE READS: "Zons, town in the bank of the Rhine, known as a customs station. In the year 1575".
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Zons is a charming little town on the left bank of the Rhine, which gained importance because of the Rhine and the toll station. Most of the inhabitants are farmers, for the land is good and yields abundant grain. The castle here was built by Bishop Siegffried."
This old Cologne customs stronghold is shown from the right bank of the Rhine, and the magnificent castle, built in the 14th-15th centuries, is depicted on the far left. When the Rhine toll was moved here in 1372, the fortifications were extended, and the town was laid out in rectangular form with fortified towers at each corner.
Archbishop Dietrich II von Moers gave the little town as a pledge to the Cologne cathedral chapter in the 15th century. The architectural history of Zons has been much affected by three devastating fires (1464, 1547 and 1620).

More about Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus [+]

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 3024, state 2; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.170.

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.