1617 BRAUN, G. / HOGENBERG, F. - Eisenstadium vulgo Eisnstat [EISENSTADTT], in ultimis finibus Austria Inferioris civitas.[on sheet with:] Mannersdorf.

A copper engraved sheet with 2 panoramic views of Eisenstadtt and Mannersdorf, Austria, by Braun & Hogenberg. These views come from the sixth and last volume of 'Civitates Orbis Terrarum' ("Theatri Praecipuarum Totius Mundi Urbivm Liber Sextus"), published in a much smaller edition than previous volumes, and are therefore rarer than most of Braun & Hogenberg city views.
From the 6th part of Latin ed. of Braun and Hogenberg's "Civitates Orbis Terrarum", published by A. Hierat in Cologne, 1617. With ornamental title-cartouche.

EISENSTADTT. CAPTION: Eisenstadium, in German called Eisenstadt, a town on the eastern border of Austria. CARTOUCHE: Procured by Georg Hoefnagel, drawn by his son Jakob in the year 1617.

COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "It seems as if this city is named after the iron. It lies in Lower Austria between the River Leitha, which separates Hungary and Austria from each other, and the Neusiedler Lake, near the Hungarian border, on fertile land, which produces sufficient corn and wine, and pasture for cattle."
This is a view from the north, from the Leitha Mountains. The densely crowded town houses are watched over by the 14th-century four-tower castle of Kanizai, today's Esterhazy palace, built on a hill, and the late Gothic cathedral church of St Martin with its Renaissance tower.
Fields, gardens and cattle indicate that the town was flourishing at the time. The wall constructed in 1371, following the granting of city wall rights, encloses an almost rectangular area. The two plainly dressed men in the foreground are carrying a hoe and a spear as symbols of the duties of soldier-farmers.
Documented for the first time in 1118 as a castrum ferreum, the town passed into the possession of the Kanizsai family in the mid-14th century.

MANNERSDORF AT THE FOOT OF MOUNT LEITHA. CARTOUCHE: Mannersdorf, a town on the border between Lower Austria and Hungary, famous for its hot springs or thermal baths. Below this hill an admirable plain stretches for miles, full of vines and grain, a part of the territory of Vienna, enclosed in the west on the left by the foothills of the Styrian Alps, and in the east on the right by the Hungarian mountains. It is covered with cities, towns, noble castles and countless villages, some of which are named below.
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "The town lies in a plain and is especially famous because of its thermal baths. To the south is a mountain from which one can see the whole plain. This plain, which is almost unique in Austria for its fertility, was sadly devastated by the Turks after the siege of Vienna in 1529 and many people were carried off into slavery.
In 1578 the Turks advanced as far as Mödling and captured the town by force and ravaged it with extreme tyranny and cruelty, but they soon lost it again."
This is a view towards the north over the Vienna Basin and includes the Styrian Alps in the west and the Hungarian Alps in the east. Some towns and castles, such as Baden (A), Mödling (D) or Vienna (N), are roughly sketched in. The prosperity and peace of the region, underlined by the almost idyllic depiction of a shepherd in the foreground, contrasts markedly with the devastation of the Turkish Wars alluded to above.
The Romanesque-Gothic parish church of St Martin stands out clearly on the left, in the middle the bathhouse and chapel, founded in 1517, can be identified. Mentioned for the first time in 1233, the town belonged to the Hungarian fiefdom up to end of the 15th century. After being devastated during the retreat of the Ottomans in 1529, the town was resettled by Croatian soldier-farmers.
Because of the limestone quarries in the south, Mannersdorf has been important for the stonemason industry since the Middle Ages, and today is a centre of the cement industry.

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.
More about Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus [+]

Reference: Van der Krogt 4, 1207; Taschen, Braun and Hogenberg, p.461.

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.