Petrinja-Croatia,- Petrina in ditione Turcarum.[on sheet with] Petrina in ditione Christianorum.

RARE only included in part VI of his town book. Two Bird's-eye town-views/plans of Petrinja-Croatia by G. Hoefnagel and son, 1617.

CAPTION LEFT: Petrinja. Under Turkish rule.

CAPTION CENTER: Received from a friend by Georg Hoefnagel, who finished painting it and passed it on in the year 1597.

CAPTION RIGHT: Petrinja. Under Christian rule.

CARTOUCHE: These fortifications are due to the skill and industriousness of the Italian architect Cesare Porta, in the year 1617.

COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "It became known only in the year 1592 that Sultan Murad, after having ended the war with the King of Persia, immediately afterward broke the peace he had concluded with the Christians. He ordered Hasan Pasha to invade Croatia and capture all fortified places, so that it would be easier to reach Italy from there. The Pasha obeyed his orders faithfully and conquered first Hrastovica by treachery and then Bihac by force, on which occasion he proceeded with excessive tyranny. Soon afterward he built the fortress of Petrinja in a very advantageous location with natural fortifications, and manned it with a large number of soldiers. Because this fort was very important, being as it were a key to Styria and Croatia.
His Majesty the Emperor appointed an experienced fortress builder by the name of Cesare Porta, who pulled down the old castle almost completely and in place of the walls and towers built earthen ramparts and bastions, and a new castle with a bridge on the other side of the Kupa."

After the Turkish conquests in the 16th century, western Croatia remained under the rule of the Habsburgs. In 1592 the Ottomans built a base near the town of Petrinja on the Kupa, the boundary river, and in 1593 Hasan Pasha, its commander, crossed the Kupa but suffered a crushing defeat soon thereafter at the hands of the Croatian Habsburg troops in the Battle of Sisak. The engraving on the left shows the Turkish fort and massive watchtowers in cavalier perspective from the northwest. A cannon is being fired from the tower in the middle ground. In the foreground is a couple in Turkish dress: the man, whose clothes identify him as a high-ranking Janissary (possibly Hasan Pasha), has planted the shaft of a crescent flag on the ground - a demonstration of the Ottoman claim to the regions on this side of the Kupa. In 1594 Petrinja was recaptured by the Habsburgs and a new, more modern fortress was erected. The engraving on the right must be seen as complementing the one on the left. It is an isometric plan of the moated castle. The most progressive fortress of its time is presented in the most modern cartographic form then existing. The river crossing is secured by two pentagonal bastioned ramparts of equal size, ensuring that there is no blind spot for the defenders. Petrinja was henceforth located within that defense belt of the Austrian military border known as Krajina, in which Serbian and Croatian soldier-farmers settled and lived together peacefully up to the early 1990s. (Taschen)

Braun G. & Hogenberg F. and the Civitates Orbis Terrarum.

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.

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 3375; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p. 472.