1572 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Nurnberga Florentissimum Germaniae Emporium . . [on sheet with] Ulma Imperialis in Suevia [and] Saltzburg Urbis Salisburgensis Genvina Descriptio [and] Lindaw. . .

A fine antique 'map' with four bird's-eye views on one sheet: Nürnberg, Ulm, Salzburg and Lindau, all by Braun & Hogenberg, from the: Civitates Orbis Terrarum, ... Part 1. Köln, 1572.

TRANSLATION OF CARTOUCHE TEXT: Nuremberg is a flourishing German trade city, widely famed for its excellent civic constitution, within the order of rank of burgraves in the Holy Empire, it occupies second place.
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Nuremberg is highly famed in all Germany and Europe as an important trade city and is embellished with splendid public and private houses. Nuremberg possesses a very old royal fortress on a hill in the middle of the city: from there one has a view of the city and far beyond it. Nuremberg is thought to have taken its name from this fortress, which in old books is called Nordgauburg or Nordburg [...]. Many astute craftsmen and prudent merchants, very many fine and creative inventors and masters, live there."
Source: Hartmann Schedel, Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493. The way the city of Nuremberg is perceived has been shaped by the showy double-sided view in Hartmann Schedel's 1493 'Chronicle'. Schedel presented an ideal picture of a city well fortified with a double ring wall, full of beautifully ordered patrician houses and boasting the church of St Sebald and the church of St Lawrence.
The high point of all this glorious urbanity in Schedel is definitely the imperial castle looming high above the city. In his text, Braun lays emphasis on the castle, which afforded superb views. The two pictures in Braun-Hogenberg, however, are not dominated by the steeply rising fortress; indeed the differences in elevation within the city have been considerably levelled off.

ULM CARTOUCHE: Ulm, imperial city in Swabia, famed for strong walls and moats, its magnificent church and the nearby Danube.
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Ulm is a splendid city in Swabia on the north bank of the Danube at its junction with the Iller and the Blau, whose additional waters make the Danube navigable. In this city there is a parish church that was built for the lofty sum of 900,000 gold guilders. The inhabitants live partly from commerce and partly from crafts. A special cloth made of linen, cotton and yarn is manufactured here, which they call fustian."
The view from Michelsberg hill shows Ulm well protected by high walls and its riverside location. The major landmarks are clearly captioned: Ulm's famous cathedral (Munster) - the largest parish church in Germany - and the Gothic town hall (Radhauss) slightly in front of it to the left can be easily identified, as can the smaller monasteries and the formidable city gates.
Ulm reached its chief industries, but it also conducted a flourishing trade in iron, wine and wood. The city was also famous for its artists and craftsmen and for book printing. The view is made after an etching by Georg Rieder the Younger, 1570.

SALZBURG CARTOUCHE: Faithful illustration of the city of Salzburg. COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Salzbourg is surrounded by lakes, plains, hills and mountains. The lakes provide fertile meadows, the mountains fowling and hunting [...]. Franciscus Irenicus ranks Salzburg in first place amongst the five bishoprics of Bavaria and expressly praises this episcopal city, which Enea Silvio Piccolimini even calls a capital."
This is a highly schematic view of Salzburg from on top of Kapuzinerberg. The 11th-century fortress of Hohensalzburg, the largest castle complex in Europe, is easily recognisable in its dominant position above the city, whereas the buildings below are condensed into narrow blocks in favour of wide streets and squares.
The impression of spaciousness does not correspond to the actual appearance of the city wedged between the Mönchsberg and the Kapuzinerberg. Braun refers to the legendary history of Salzburg, according to which it was founded by Julius Caesar. Salzburg is first mentioned in records in AD 755 as a trading settlement; in 996 it was granted the right to hold a market and mint its own coins; and in 1287 it received its municipal charter.
From the 16th century onwards Salzburg played an important role as a city of trade and as the residence of the prince-archbishops. Following a devastating fire in 1598, Archbishop Wolf Dietrich of Raitenau had 55 town houses demolished in order to make space for a new cathedral and a grander street plan. The new cathedral in the Baroque style continues to leave its stamp on the face of Salzburg even today.
The view is made after a drawing by an unknown artist, 1553, which was used both for the woodcut in Münster's 'Cosmographia' and the map of Austria in Ortelius's 'Theatrum orbis terrarum'.

LINDAU CAPTION: Lindau, imperial city on an island, surrounded all around by the waters of Lake Constance.
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Lindau is an imperial city that lies below Bregenz on Lake Constance, and which is surrounded by water like an island and is connected to the mainland only by a masonry bridge of 290 paces. [...] To the west lies a large and wide field that in normal years can produce some 100 tuns of wine."
A number of Lindau's historic sights are clearly recognisable in the engraving. On the left is St Stephen's church, begun in the 12th century and frequently altered, and on the right, as part of the city defences, the "Thieves' tower" (Diebsturm) of 1380 with its four overhanging turrets. Directly to its left is St Peter's, Lindau's oldest church, which dates from the 12th century and contains valuable frecoes by Hans Holbein the Elder.
Lindau goes back to a nunnery first mentioned in records in AD 822. The town was granted its charter before 1216 and from c. 1300 to 1803 was an imperial city. The view is made after a woodcut by Jakob Clauser in Münster's 'Cosmographia', 1550.

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 3136 (First plate), State 1; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.90.

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.