Posnania elegans Poloniae in finibus Silesiae Civitatis [on sheet with] Crosno

Bird’s-eye view plan of Poznan and Krosno, by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg. In the first bird's-eye view from the north, the magnificent 14th-century town hall rises imposingly in the centre of the walled city. On the left is the cathedral Island in the river Warta, with the cathedral of SS Peter and Paul.

The city of Krosno is shown from a south-westerly direction and not described in the city atlas, is constructed like a fortress with a double wall and mighty towers. A drawbridge over the Wislok is the only direct means of access to the city. The town hall (4), the parish church of St Mary (5) and the Franciscan monastery with its high-pitched roof (3) dominates the silhouette of the city.

The first volume of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum was published in Cologne in 1572. The sixth and the final volume appeared in 1617. This great city atlas, edited by Georg Braun and largely engraved by Franz Hogenberg, eventually contained 546 prospects, bird-eye views and map views of cities from all over the world. Fransz Hogenberg produced the plates for the first four books, and Simon van den Neuwel (Novellanus, active since 1580) those for volumes V and VI.

Georg Braun (1541-1622), a cleric of Cologne, was the principal editor of the work, and was greatly assisted in his project by the close, and continued interest of Abraham Ortelius, whose Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570 was, as a systematic and comprehensive collection of maps of uniform style, the first true atlas. The Civitates, indeed, was intended as a companion for the Theatrum, as indicated by the similarity in the titles and by contemporary references regarding the complementary nature of two works. Nevertheless, the Civitates was designs to be more popular in approach, no doubt because the novelty of a collection of city plans and views represented a more hazardous commercial undertaking than a world atlas, for which there had been a number of successful precedents. Franz Hogenberg (1535-1590) was the son of a Munich engraves who settled in Malines. He engraved most of the plates for Ortelius's Theatrum and the majority of those in the Civitates and may have been responsible for originating the project.

Over a hundred of different artists and cartographers, the most significant of whom was Antwerp artist Georg Hoefnagel (1542-1600), engraved the cooper-plates of the Civitates from drawings. He not only contributed most of the original material for the Spanish and Italian towns but also reworked and modified those of other contributors. After Hoefnagel's death his son Jakob continued the work for the Civitates.

The author set out to depict "non icones et typi urbium," that is, not generic and typified images, "sed urbes ipsae admirabili caelaturae artificio, spectantium oculis subiectae appareant": not intended to allude or idealize but to represent faithfully on paper, to reproduce exactly, and in real time, what the eye sees, as announced in the preface to the first volume of Civitates Orbis Terrarum.

Copperplate engraving with fine hand colour, in very good condition.

Bibliografia

Van der Krogt 4 - p. 1293, #3457; Taschen (Br. Hog.) - p.477; Fauser - #11168 & #7047; Niewodniczanski - K103/3.