1588 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Eisleben - Eislebia Comitatus Mansfeldiae Opp. [with] Tubingen - Tubinga.

Two bird's-eye views by Braun and Hogenberg on one sheet: Eisleben and Tübingen. EISLEBEN CARTOUCHE: Eisleben, a city in the County of Mansfeld.
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "In the vicinity of Eisleben, Manstein and Hettstedt are found, black stone that is easy to split. [...] Nor should what appears to be a marvel of cunning Nature be passed over in silence that the images and imprints of all kinds of beasts can be seen on said stone with its golden-hued petrifactions and each figure can be readily recognised.
Many are of the opinion that it merely shows the images of creatures from the lake at Eisleben, such as fishes, eels, carp and frogs; others however, say that figures of other animals can be seen on them, such as chickens, cockerels or salamanders. Indeed they say that the image of the Pope with his beard and tiara was found on one of these stones."

The cavalier perspective shows Eisleben in the Mansfelder Mulde from the northeast. At the centre is the seat of the Counts of Mansfeld, originally a moated castle with a high keep, and behind it the market church of St Andrew with its twin towers and in front of it the town hall (left).
Copper mining attracted so many immigrants that the city had to be enlarged several times. New churches were built: SS Peter and Paul (left) to the south, the church in which Martin Luther was baptised, and St Nicholas (right) to the north. St Catherine's hospice for elderly miners is visible in the right background.
The city owes to its native son Martin Luther (whom the theologist Georg Braun ignores along with the problem arising for exegesis of the biblical Creation by the discovery he mentions of fossils in cupriferous shale) the honour of being designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.

TÜBINGEN. COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "Eberhard, Duke of Württemberg, had learnt no Latin (this omission was due to the neglect of the guardians who brought him up) yet he sought the company of learned men. He read many German books, from which he drew much knowledge and insight. He also had many writings translated from Latin into German, his mother tongue.
Since he saw what esteem scholarly and pious men enjoyed and what good treatment they were accustomed to receive, but had no institution of higher learning in his duchy at which the scions of his subjects might be introduced to, and instructed in, the liberal arts, he had a university and an institute invested with papal and imperial privileges built in his city of Tübingen, in 1477."

This view from the south shows the university town of Tübingen on the Neckar, framed in vineyards. The foreground staffage is another allusion to wine-growing in Tübingen. Converted into a ducal residence in the 16th/17th centuries, Hohentübingen castle overshadows the town. It was one of the seats of the Dukes of Württemberg and the city grew up around it in the late 12th century.
To the right at the foot of the castle hill are the Lutheran chapter house, endowed in 1536 by Duke Ulrich, and the town hall. Further to the east, St George's collegiate church is visible.
At the centre, right on the river, a small tower stands out. Part of the fortified walls erected in the 14th/15th centuries, it became the retreat in which the poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1807-1843) spent the latter half of his life in retirement after the wellsprings of his lyricism dried up.
The view is made after a woodcut by Jonathan Sauter.

More about Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus.

Reference: Tashen.

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.