Author: Braun, Georg and Frans Hogenberg.
Title: Saltzburgk [Saltzburg].
Description: Cologne: Braun & Hogenberg, 1572–1616. Hand-colored engraving 13” x 20.5” plus margins. CONDITION: Very good, three remnants of Japanese tissue along upper margin at verso.
A fine view of Salzburg during a pivotal moment in its history, produced by Braun & Hogenberg for their groundbreaking atlas of city views.
The city of Salzburg—then part of the Holy Roman Empire—is depicted here as a bustling trading hub along the Salzach River, during a time of significant transition. Under the rule of Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich von Raitenau (r. 1587–1617), the city underwent a sweeping Baroque architectural transformation, aligning it with the grandiose ideals of the Counter-Reformation. Seeking to reinforce Catholic power, Archbishop Wolf Dietrich oversaw the demolition of medieval structures and the construction of Baroque masterpieces.
The bottom right of the view contains a legend, which lists thirty-seven numbered landmarks, including the famous Hohensalzburg Fortress (#1), appearing prominently on the horizon atop Festungsberg mountain. In the city center is the old Salzburg Cathedral (#15), a gothic structure that was demolished in 1598 along with many of the surrounding buildings and replaced by a Baroque cathedral that stands today. The streets in this view are deliberately widened to show the rows of buildings more fully, which appear in oblique perspective. The Salzach River teems with numerous boats, some drawn by horses, illustrating a lively scene of trade and transport. A bridge spans the waterway, connecting the bustling city on both banks, which is fortified by a wall containing several gates. Both the city and river take their name from the region's historic connection to mining and salt trade (German “Salz”), an industry which was expanding in the late-sixteenth century. Peripheral regions depict neighboring towns, fields, animals, wooded areas, and mountains. Two noblewomen and a nobleman appear in the foreground as a means of illustrating local dress. The vantage point appears to be from Kapuzinerberg, a large mountain on the western bank of the Salzach.
The view is richly hand-colored in its entirety, and is titled in Latin: “RECENS, ET ACCURATISSIMA VRBIS SALISBVR GENSIS DELINEATIO [A recent and most accurate depiction of the city of Salzburg].” Both the legend (bottom left) and title panels (bottom right in Latin, top reading “Saltzburgk”) feature colorful ornamental borders. In the sky appear two similarly-decorated frames—the left one empty, the right one illustrating a castle—that may represent dual ecclesiastical and secular authority.
This view appeared in Civitates Orbis Terrarum, a landmark atlas of city views from around the world produced by the Cologne-based duo Braun & Hogenberg—writer Georg Braun and engraver Frans Hogenberg—along with their large team of writers and artists. Its authors intended the atlas as a supplement to Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (Antwerp, 1570), which is considered the first modern atlas. The work spanned six volumes, published between 1572 and 1617. The exhaustive compilation of some 546 city views represented a significant contribution to the legitimacy of local geography (then known as ‘chorography’) within the field of geography as a whole. The authors claim to have relied exclusively on first-hand information when compiling the atlas, reflecting their stated commitment to accuracy and truthfulness. In the late sixteenth century, a view was considered more ‘truthful’ if it provided more information about a place, even at the expense of scientific perspective. Engravers, including Hogenberg, used differing perspectives across scales to create composite views from imagined vantage points. The result was a clearer, more legible depiction of the city as a cohesive whole, easily understood by both rulers and general readers.
Georg Braun (1541–1622) was a Catholic cleric and writer from Cologne who edited Civitates Orbis Terrarum. Inspired by Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, he spearheaded the information-collecting initiative behind the project and was responsible for writing nearly all the descriptions of cities. Braun assembled an extensive team of artists and writers to help complete his vision. He died in 1622, being the only member of the original team to live to see the atlas’s completion.
Frans Hogenberg (ca. 1540–1590) was born in Mechelen and spent his early career in Antwerp, illustrating a wide variety of subjects including portraits, historical events, and allegorical scenes. Around this time he worked on Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, published 1570. A Protestant, Hogenberg was banned from Antwerp (then part of the Spanish Netherlands) in 1568 for producing anti-Catholic works, after which he is known to have lived in England. By 1570, Hogenberg was working in Cologne, a religiously tolerant city in the Holy Roman Empire, where he spent the rest of his career engraving portraits, scenes and views, including the majority of the works in Civitates Orbis Terrarum.
REFERENCES: Rumsey 12126; Nuti, Lucia. “The Perspective Plan in the Sixteenth Century: The Invention of a Representational Language,” The Art Bulletin Vol. 76, No. 1 (1994), pp. 105–28; Keuning, Johannes. “The ‘Civitates’ of Braun and Hogenberg,” Imago Mundi Vol. 17 (1963), pp. 41–44; “Haerlem (Haarlem) by Franz, or Frans, Hogenberg” at Library of Congress online.
Item #3586
Seller ID: 3586
Subject: Maps