1585 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Chilonium, vulgo Kyell

A rare, large, spectacular view of the German city of Kiel. From the famous 'Civitates Orbis Terrarum' of Braun & Hogenberg, with spectacular original colors and with French text on verso.

From an elevated imaginary point and looking southwards, this view shows the island situation of the city, which lay on Kiel Fjord, and was surrounded by the Kleiner Kiel and pasture land.
The center is dominated by the Gothic church of St Nicolas (A) finished in 1240; it was joined by the church of the Holy Spirit (D) in the 14th century. The Holsten gate in the south led to the mainland.

Founded by Count Adolf IV between 1233 and 1242, Kiel became a free city in 1242. Lacking links with inland waterways or good overland routes to larger cities, Kiel attained only regional importance as a trading port. One indication of modest circumstances is the dilapidated condition of the fortifications along the fjord (Taschen).

Georg Braun ( 1541 - 1622)

The Civitates Orbis Terrarum (Atlas of Cities of the World) by Hogenberg 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 work of the Antwerp school of cartographers.
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). Correspondingly, the maps show the systematic structure of the towns' building up, with perspective representations of various quarters and individual buildings.
The town is usually placed in the background, while the foreground shows its 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 pages of the Civitates with figures of local inhabitants to prevent the 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 are located 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, it is impossible not to be astonished at the huge quantity - by the standards of the time - of material included in the atlas.

Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates was an enormous success. It was republished and supplemented by new sections many times. The maps it contained became exemplary; other publishers frequently reproduced them in smaller formats as illustrations for books and maps.

After Franz Hogenberg's death, the atlas's typographic plates remained in Cologne, in Abraham Hogenberg's possession. 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, ownership of town maps with the publisher's imprint of de Wit passed to the publishing house of Covens and Mortier. The multiple reproductions of these 16th-century perspective views and maps by various publishers over the centuries can be explained by 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.

In addition to its historical, geographical, and cartographic significance, the Civitates is also of great artistic value. That is why, to this day, the town maps in the atlas have adorned the most exquisite interiors and attracted the attention not only of specialists in the field but of all admirers of fine art.