City Highlights (Part Three): Braun & Hogenberg's Cities of the World

The purpose of The Compass Rose is to raise awareness of Special Collections' resources and to foster the use of these resources. The blog series also reports significant new programs, initiatives, and acquisitions of Special Collections.

Note: This is Part Three of a series of Compass Rose posts on Special Collections' city views. Click here for City Highlights (Part One): African Cities from the Nuremberg Chronicle or Click here for City Highlights (Part Two): Munster's Cosmography.

The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Special Collections recently acquired rare, original examples from one of the most monumental and popular “virtual reality” books of the sixteenth century: Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg’s Civitates Orbis Terrarum  or “Cities of the World,” published in six Books in Cologne  from  1572-1617.  For many years Special Collections has owned a three-volume reprint set published in 1966¹, but the experience of viewing these just does not compare with the thrill of seeing the original hand-colored etchings on handmade paper. Now, thanks to another generous donation by Dr. Jack Franke (Distinguished UTA alumnus, class of 1987) as well as purchases with the Virginia Garrett Cartographic Endowment Fund, we can also show students, faculty, and visitors some of the 16th-century originals.

The Creators

Georg Braun (1541-1622) was a Catholic cleric from Cologne who was the main editor and administrator of the project. He wrote most of the text. His partner, Frans Hogenberg (1535-1590) was an engraver from the Flemish town of Mechelen (Malines)  near Antwerp. In addition to being the chief engraver for the Civitates  project, Hogenberg also engraved many of the maps for what is often considered the world’s first “true” atlas of maps: Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum or Theatre of the World, first published in Antwerp by Christoph Plantin in 1570.²

Two Views of Antwerp: A Special Case

Hogenberg, apparently a Protestant, fled Antwerp during the Dutch revolt, probably after 1565.³ Up to that time the city was the most important and prosperous Dutch city and a center for the book, print, and map trade. Spanish troops occupied Antwerp in the 1560s and sacked it in 1576, causing widespread destruction and the deaths of an estimated 6,000 of its citizens. In 1579 the city joined the Union of Utrecht and became the capital of the Seventeen Provinces. For over a year between 1584 and 1585 Antwerp was under siege. In these troubled times, many merchants, intellectuals, printers, and artisans like Hogenberg left, and other places like Cologne and Amsterdam assumed greater importance in the map, print, and book trade.⁴

A view of Antwerp published by Braun & Hogenberg in Book I of Civitates in 1572 together with a second view of the same city they published in book V in 1598 affords not only a spectacular idea of the city’s strategic position but also partially illustrates the working method of the two publishers. The first view, taken from south-southwest, looking north-northeast, shows the city's position along the Scheldt River, its principal buildings, and its vast fortifications. Oversized figures in the foreground model local costumes of the period and the dedication praises the city's benefactors and rulers, including some of Philip II's Spanish administrators. Several historians agree that this is most likely the work of one of Braun & Hogenberg's principal and most prolific artists: Joris (George or Georg) Hoefnagel (1542-1600). The son of an Antwerp diamond merchant, the younger Hoefnagel had traveled to southern France and Spain from 1561-1567 and to England in 1568-1569, sketching cities along the way. He was back in Antwerp between these trips and during the years 1570-1577, in time to create this view and witness the ruin of his father's business when Spanish troops sacked the city in 1576. Afterwards, the young Hoefnagel left and traveled to Italy in company with the older and by then famous atlas publisher Abraham Ortelius. Along the way Joris sketched cities in Bavaria and Italy. From 1590-1600 he worked in Prague and Vienna.⁵

The second view of Antwerp, a double-page etching and one of Braun & Hogenberg's best, was taken from the east-southeast looking west-northwest, and is credited in an inscription at the lower left to Hoefnagel. Nonetheless, Hoefnagel's view closely corresponds to a woodcut view of Antwerp attributed to Pauwels van Overbeke appearing in a book by Lodovico Guicciardini (1521-1589), a Florentine writer and merchant working in Antwerp, titled Descrittione … di tutti i Paesi Bassi ... [Description...of the entire Low Countries ...] (Antwerp, 1567). Both views resemble a view of the city by Flemish painter and etcher Hieronymus Cock (1518-1570).⁶  Whatever their varied sources and whomever their original creators, Braun & Hogenberg's city views, like those in Sebastian Munster's Cosmographei, drew from a variety of city view types.  There were profiles (drawn as if seen from a viewpoint on the ground or just above), bird's-eye views (seen obliquely from a higher elevation), plans (drawn from directly above), or a combination of these techniques. The Antwerp views are a combination of these techniques, or as Braun explained in the foreword to Book II, "drawn in such a manner that the viewer can look into all the roads and streets and see also the buildings and open spaces."⁷

African Cities

While Braun & Hogenberg's project had a decidedly European bias, they nonetheless attempted to include views of cities in other parts of the world.  Of 546 views, plans, or prospects, 18 relate to Africa, 5 to Asia, and 2 to America. As might be expected, accurate views from distant parts of the world were much rarer in Europe and hard to procure in the 16th century. The publishers purchased what prints and illustrated books they could and exchanged correspondence with people known to have traveled to these distant lands.⁸ Thanks to Dr. Franke, the African views can now be seen now at Special Collections.

This sheet from Book I, first published in 1572, depicts the cities of Aden (in present-day Yemen), Mombasa (in present-day Kenya), Quiloa (Kilwa Kisiwani, in present-day Tanzania), and Cefala (today known as Nova Sofala in present-day Mozambique):

All four views -- Aden, Mombaza, Quiloa, and Cefala -- ultimately derive from sketches made by Portuguese visitors who were among the first recorded Europeans in these areas since ancient times. Braun & Hogenberg probably based their view of Aden on an earlier Flemish woodcut that showed the 1513 Portuguese attack on that city. The views of Mombaza, Quiloa, and Cefala were part of the “towns of India, Asia, Africa and Persia, never portrayed before.” Braun also noted that the views were supplied by a correspondent and Hansa merchant named Constantin von Lyskirchen who apparently had access to an unidentified Portuguese illustrated manuscript.⁹

Braun & Hogenberg based their view of Cairo upon a large woodcut aerial view of the city originally compiled by Giovanni Domenico Zorzi and printed by the Venetian Matteo Pagano around 1546. The Zorzi/Pagano view was originally accompanied by a Latin text titled Descriptio Alchiriae written by Guillaume Postel. Authentic views of the city were so rare that Pagano’s view remained the standard view of the city available in western Europe for the next 250 years.¹⁰  The name “Babylon” in the title refers to the ancient fortress of Babylon on the Nile delta, located in an area known today as Coptic Cairo but also incorporated by old Cairo or the city of Fustat, founded in 751 by the Arab Muslim conquerors of Byzantine Egypt.  

The coloring on this sheet of five cities on the Moroccan coast demonstrates how widely differing color schemes could be applied to different sets of Braun & Hogenberg town views. 

Almost every Braun & Hogenberg city view attests to the violent nature of much of life in the late 16th century. Cities and towns required massive fortifications for protection. Even outwardly peaceful looking views contain details alluding to this violence or, at the very least, the predilection of artists to show such scenes. The struggle between western European Christian forces led by Spain and the Islamic forces led by the Ottoman Turks for control of the Mediterranean is a major theme of Braun & Hogenberg's views of Mediterranean cities in North Africa.

Braun and Hogenberg’s view of Algiers, seen below in this uncolored example, is an update of a view originally sketched during the unsuccessful Spanish siege of the city personally led by Emperor Charles V in 1541. The sketch was first printed by Antonio de Salamanca and other engravers before Braun & Hogenberg's update.¹¹ As in the first Antwerp view with its large foreground figures in local costume, the view of Algiers features a Turkish sultan or noble in full regalia with turban and tunics or robes.  Incidentally, some of the sources for the costumed figures included in the Braun & Hogenberg prints were illustrated books that specialized in costumes or clothing such as Abraham de Bruyn's Omnium poene gentium imagines (Antwerp, 1577) and Omnium pene... gentium habitus (Antwerp, 1581) or Hans Weigel and Jost Amman's Trachtenbuch (Nuremberge, 1577).¹²

Like other atlases and illustrated books at the time, patrons apparently bought the Civitates volumes as issued uncolored and could either leave them that way or take them to a colorist. In many cases the views were colored hundreds of years after their publication; sometime, to best determine "original color" or "old color" it may be necessary to make a chemical analysis. 

The following view from Book II, first published in 1575, depicts an important contemporary event of considerable significance: the Ottoman Empire’s victory over the Spanish Empire at the siege of Tunis and port of La Goulette (Haiq al-Wadi, also in present-day Tunisia) in 1574 during their struggle for control of the Mediterranean.¹³ As it turned out, the recapture of Tunis by the Ottoman Turks finally ended the Spanish conquista of North Africa that had begun after the fall of Granada in 1492 and, as a result, kept north Africa under Muslim rather than Christian control for centuries. 

Subsequent European artists, engravers, and publishers continued to copy Braun & Hogenberg's city views, often without credit, for many years after their first publication.¹⁴ Their influence was widespread and remained significant at a time when European travel to Africa was quite limited.

CLICK HERE FOR CITY HIGHLIGHTS (PART ONE): THE NUREMBERG CHRONICLE

CLICK HERE for CITY HIGHLIGHTS (PART TWO): MUNSTER'S COSMOGRAPHY

^{1 Braun & Hogenberg Civitates Orbis Terrarum 'The Towns of the World,' with an introduction by R. A. Skelton (3 vols.; Cleveland and New York: The World Publishing Company, 1966).}

^{2 Skelton, "Introduction," in Braun & Hogenberg Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1966), pp. vii-xi. Hogenberg was the son of an engraver from Munich who had settled in Mechelen or Malines. Frans studied engraving with his stepfather, the Dutch master Hendrik Terbruggen, and then, at the age of 20, accompanied Gerhard Mercator and Abraham Ortelius on a trip to France. Mercator, of course is the famed cartographer and inventor of the map projection that bears his name. Mercator was the first to use the term "atlas" for a compilation of maps. Although there were earlier books of maps, Ortelius’s Theatrum had maps representing the entire world in a similar format throughout. See also Peter H. Meurer, "Cartography in the German Lands, 1450-1650," in David Woodward et al, ed., The History of Cartography: Volume Three Cartography in the European Renaissance (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2007), part Ii, pp. 1234-1236.}

^{3 Skelton (1966), p. ix; Meurer in The History of Cartography Volume Three (2007), part 2, p. 1234, more specifically states that Hogenberg was of the Calvinist persuasion.}

^{4 On the 16th-century map and print trade in the southern and northern Netherlands see Kees Zandvliet, Mapping for Money (Amsterdam: Batavian Lion International, 1998) and Cornelis Koeman, Günter Schilder, Marco van Egmond, and Peter van der Krogt, "Commercial Cartography and Map Production in the Low Countries, 1500-ca.1672," in Woodward et al, ed., The History of Cartography: Volume Three (2007), part 2, pp. 1296-1383.}

^{5 Skelton (1966), pp.x-xiv; Henk Deys et al., Guicciardini Illustratus: De kaarten en prenten in Lodovico Guicciardini's Beschrijving van de Nederlanden ('t Goy-Houten, Netherlands: Hes & De Graaf, 2001), pp. 127-131.}

^{6 Skelton (1966), pp. xii, xxxi; Deys et al., Guicciardini Illustratus (2001), pp. 126-127.}

^{7 Skelton (1966), pp. x-xi.}

^{8 Skelton (1966), pp. xlii-xliii.}

^{9 Skelton (1966), p. xlii. UTA's engraving was printed from the second state, published in 1574, according to Peter van der Krogt, Koeman's Atlantes Neerlandici: New Edition, vol IV (Houten, Netherlands: Hes & De Graaf, 2010), IV-2, p. 676.}

^{10 Skelton (1966), p. xlii. On Zorzi, see Robert W. Karrow, Jr., Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps (Chicago: Newberry Library and Speculum Orbis Press, 1993), pp. 612-616. UTA's engraving is from the second state, published in 1572, 1574, or 1575, according to Van der Krogt (2010), vol. IV-2, pp. 802-803.}

^{11 Skelton (1966), p. xlii. Interestingly, Charles V’s siege was a disaster for the Spanish despite his large force and the presence of many of his most illustrious military commanders, including Hernan Cortes, recently returned from Mexico. The intervention of the Knights of Malta spared Charles V himself from capture, but thousands of his men were killed or captured and later sold as slaves.}

^{12 Skelton (1966), p. xvii.}

^{13 Skelton (1966), p. xliii, stated that Braun & Hogenberg's view was "after an Italian engraving of the Imperial attack on Tunis in 1573." The troops attacking the Christian-held forts in Braun & Hogenberg's view are clearly Muslim or Ottoman Turkish as seen by their ships, weapons, and costumes, suggesting this may be said more correctly to depict the successful Ottoman counterattack of 1574.}

^{14 For example, Johannes Janssonius acquired the plates for Braun & Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum from Abraham Hogenberg around 1653 or earlier, incorporating most of them into his own 500-plate Theatrum urbium or Town Atlases, published in Amsterdam in 1657.  See Van der Krogt, Koeman's Atlantes Neerlandici: New Edition, vol. IV-1 (2010), pp. 262-287.}