1577 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Tingis Lusitanis Tangiara [on sheet with] Tzaffin [and] Septa [and] Arzilla [and] Sala.

Five very desirable and early town-plans of Tangier, Safi, Ceuta, Asilah and Sala.
"TANGIER (TANJA) : "The engraving shows a fortified town, whereby only half the area within the walls is built up. The large building in the background may be the governor's residence. In 1471 the Portuguese attacked Asilah, whose inhabitants fled to Tangier. But that same year Tangier, too, was conquered, and remained in Portuguese hands until 1580. Tangier today belongs to Morocco and has a population of 670,000. ." . (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.123.)

SAFI : Tzaffin is a small town in Africa that is surrounded by mountains and a wall. It possesses a castle fortified with numerous turrets, many handsome houses and an extremely tall tower. This town was taken from the Moors in 1508 by King Manuel's commander-in-chief." (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.123.)

CEUTA : "The engraving shows that only a small promontory in the north of the peninsula was inhabited. Ceuta, which measures 18 sq. km, lies on a peninsula on the coast of North Africa, near the Strait of Gibraltar. There were three reasons for its conquest by Portugal in 1415: firstly, the peninsula had become a threat due to its location on the Strait of Gibraltar, where it could potentially provide the Muslims with a stepping-stone to Europe. Secondly, Ceuta was an important trading port via which goods from Africa, in particular gold, were brought to Europe. Thirdly, the peninsula offered Portugal a gateway to the unknown continent of Africa. Part of Spain since 1668, the autonomous city of Ceuta is today home to 4,000 inhabitants. .. " (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.123.)

ASILAH : "The entry on Asilah contains accurate information about the city's history and illustrates, for example, the difficult entrance to its harbor. Founded by the Romans under the name of Zilias, in the Middle Ages the town provided an important strategic base for the Portuguese, who wanted to penetrate deeper into the continent from here. They held the city between 1471 and 1541 and occupied it from 1577 to 1589. . .". (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.123.)

SALÉ : "The two settlements are depicted on either side of the river overlooking the sea. There are strikingly few houses within either city wall and no harbor facilities. Higher up the hillside rises the 44-m-high Hasan tower. Salé in Morocco is separated from its twin city of Rabat by the Bou-Regreg River. The New Sala (Sala nova) mentioned in Braun's text refers to modern-day Salé, and the Old Sala (Sala vetus) to Rabat, the political capital of Morocco.." . (Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.123.)

From volume one of the greatest publication in this genre!. The Civitates was compiled and written by George Braun, Canon of Cologne Cathedral. Braun gathered together vast amounts of information and draft plans to produce over 500 city views/maps published in six parts between 1572 and 1617. Most of these engravings were made by Simon Novellanus and Frans Hogenberg, many after drawings by Joris Hoefnagel.

Read more about the Civitates Orbis.

Reference: Koeman (1967-70) B & H 1-5, NMM III, i, 459 (1573-1618 ed.), Introduction', in: G. Braun and F. Hogenberg, Civitates orbis terrarum (Amsterdam: 1965). (2)

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.