1596 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Oitinense oppidulum et arx Episcopi Lubecensis sedes / Delineatio Civitatis Tonderensis. Tonder - Eutin

Two bird's-eye plans on one sheet: Tønder (Denmark) and Eutin (Germany) by Braun & Hogenberg.
From: Civitates Orbis Terrarum, ... Part 5. Köln, 1596

EUTIN
CAPTION: Eutin, small town with a castle, seat of the bishop of Lübeck.
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "The little town with the castle, in which the bishops of Lübeck now normally hold court, was built by Adolph II, Count of Holstein, Wagrien and Schauenburg, by whom the town was also granted its coat of arms and its charter. At the wish of Henry the Lion, around the year 1159 Adolph II made a gift of the castle together with 300 morgens of land to the bishopric of Oldenburg."

The bird's-eye view from the north illustrates how Eutin, which had no ring wall, drew it protection solely from the two lakes surrounding it, namely the Greater and the Lesser Lake Eutin. At the centre of the town, which is here depicted in a stereotypical manner, stands the church of St Michaell. In 1156 Eutin passed to the bishopric of Oldenburg and in 1300 became the episcopal see of the prince-bishops of Lübeck. The bishop's palace lies on a spit of land on the northeast side of the town (4). An episode from the battle over this palace is shown above: after the death of Frederick I of Denmark on 10 April 1533, the Lübeck bishops occupied Holstein; one year later, however, they were driven back by the troops of Christian III under his commander-in-chief Johann Rantzau, the father of Heinrich Rantzau, who was in turn one of Georg Braun's sources. From 1586 the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp supplied the prince-bishops of Lübeck and came into possession of Eutin. Frequent alterations were carried out on the palace, which had to be completely rebuilt after a devastating fire in 1689.

TØNDER
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "Tønder is a delightful little town in the Duchy of Schleswig in a fertile location with both arable land and pastures. Its convenience for shipping is adequately demonstrated by the coat of arms bearing a boat. In 1532 a storm caused the water to rise three and a half feet right up to the main church, in memory of which people have now carved crosses everywhere into the walls."

The plate shows a bird's-eye view of Tønder from the east, with the Vida River flowing around it. Documented as a port since 1017, the small town is surrounded by moated castles. On the left lies Tønder castle (Arx Tonderensis), and in the top left-hand corner the Møgeltøndernhus, documented since 1233, which lies 7 km west of Tønder near the settlement of Møgeltønder and was inhabited by Christoffer Rantzau. North of Tønder lies the magnificent moated castle of Troyburg, the residence of Peter Rantzau, beneath which is Sollwig castle, home to the Danish governor of Holstein-Gottorp, Melchior Rantzau. After the foundation of Dominican and Franciscan monasteries, the town proceeded to grow and was granted a municipal charter in 1243. As one of the few ports on the west coast of Schleswig, it profited economically from its geographical position, even if this also contained disadvantages: the town was visited frequently by floods. Tønder, which lies 4 km from the border with Germany, formed part of the German Empire until 1920, when it passed to Denmark.

More about Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus [+]

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 1286; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.385.

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.