1581 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - MOGUNTIA, Germaniae Metropolis,. . .[on sheet with] HERBIPOLIS, comuniter Wirtzburg,. . .[and] SEDUNUM, primaria & Metropolitica.[MAINZ WUERZBURG SION]

A decorative map with three bird's-eye views on one sheet: Mainz, Würzburg and Sion (Sitten), by Georg Braun & Frans Hogenberg. MAINZ. TRANSLATION OF CARTOUCHE TEXT: "Mainz, a German capital, is highly famed and lies on the banks of the Rhine; it is renowned for its many merchants, its clergy and its university."
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Mainz is one of the noblest capitals in the land of Germany; it lies in a favourable location where the Main, arriving from Franconia, meets the Rhine from the uplands. On both sides of the Rhine there is fertile land and delicious good wine.
There is no other city on the River Rhine with more antiquities than Mainz. The city lies under the authority of the archbishop, who is also one of the seven Electors. Mainz also has a university, which was founded by Diether von Isenburg in 1477.
The art of printing was invented here, but one might dispute whether this has produced more good or bad."

The view of Mainz is seen from the Mainspitze, one of the loviest spots at the confluence of the Main and the Rhine. The city skyline is dominated by towers and steeples. Mainz's important Roman heritage from its 2,000-year-old past as Mogontiacum, a Roman legionary base, is not illustrated; instead we are shown the well-fortified city wall, whose towers - which include the Holzturm, Fischturm and Eisenturm fronting the Rhine - establish an interesting architectural contrast with the church spires.
Lying close together in the city centre are the Liebfrauenkirche, the Romanesque St Martin's cathedral and to its right St John's church. Beside the Rhine on the far right is the bishop's house, or Martinsburg.

WÜRZBURG. CARTOUCHE: "Herbipolis, commonly known as Würzburg, capital of East Franconia." COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "Würzburg is the capital of East Franconia and takes its name from the sweet grapes yielded by the surrounding fields. This city lies on a plain but is surrounded on all sides by hills, vineyards, gardens and meadows.
The city is very well furnished both with sacred and with secular buildings and has a large number of inhabitants." Würzburg is seen in cavalier perspective and is depicted so accurately that the streets of the present-day Old Town can be recognised without difficulty. The district on the far side of the Main is seen in side view.
Würzburg's most famous landmark is the Marienberg fortress (Unser Frawenberg) on the hill of the same name, which served as the residence of the prince-bishops from 1253 to 1720.
In a straight line below the old Main bridge is the Romanesque St Kilian's cathedral (Thum stifft), to the right of which is the Neumünster with its two choirs, and diagonally above the Gothic St Mary's chapel (Unser Frawyn Kapel) on Unterer Markt square.
In the 16th century Würzburg formed a major commercial hub within the Main-Franconia region. It is clear from both Braun's text and the engraving that the city's most important export was wine.

SION (SITTEN) CARTOUCHE: "Sion, first city and capital of the Valais, is famous owing to the frequent visits it is paid by the Germans and French." COMMENTARY BY BRAUN: "The hill on the right-hand side, with the Rhine running past it, is called Valeria; it was formerly a fortress, but is now an episcopal collegiate church.
The bishop's seat is on the left-hand hill, on whose summit stands a handsome and well-fortified castle, where the prince and his court take up residence when the lower palace becomes too hot. The countryside around Sion is extremely fertile and produces wine, saffron, cheese and other necessities of life."

The view of Sion is incorrectly drawn in terms of perspective. The skyline is dominated by the two mountains with the castles of Majoria and Valeria. On the right-hand summit lies the basilica of Notre-Dame-de-Valà¨re, which houses the oldest playable organ in the world, dating from the 15th century. As Braun notes, the highly valuable spice saffron was cultivated in the region around Sion in the Valais.
The city's history was shaped by the bishopric that was founded here in the 6th century AD and by Sion's position as capital of the Swiss canton of Valais.
The three views are engraved after a views in Münster's 'Cosmographia', in 1550.



More about Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus [+]

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 2581 State 2; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.100.

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.