Ducatus Brunsvicensis fereque Lunaeburgensis..

Title

Ducatus Brunsvicensis fereque Lunaeburgensis..

Description

Map shows the Duchy of Brunswick and Lüneburg between Celle, Aschersleben, Nordhausen and the Weser of Hann. Title cartouche with Demeter (Roman god name Ceres) and the coat of arms of Brunswick. Edited by Nicolao Joannis Piscatore.

c. 1650

Artist

Visscher (1587-1652)

Claes Janszoon Visscher (1587 – 1652) Amsterdam, was a Dutch Golden Age draughtsman, engraver, mapmaker and publisher. Visscher, who was born and died in Amsterdam, was also known as Nicolas Joannes Piscator or Nicolas Joannis Visscher II, after his father who lived ca. 1550–1612. He learned the art of etching and printing from his father, and helped grow the family printing and mapmaking business to one of the largest in his time. It was a family business, Nicolaes Visscher I (1618–1679), and Nicolaes Visscher II (1649–1702) were also mapmakers in Amsterdam. This became a very successful family business, with collaboration with many respected draughtsmen of the day. A new translation of the bible was underway in the Netherlands, and until then, the new German translation done by Johannes Piscator, published in 1602–1604, was translated into Dutch. Aside from bibles, Claes Visscher II primarily etched and published landscapes, portraits and maps. He etched over 200 plates and his maps included elaborate original borders. Their map plates were reused for a century by other printers who unknowingly copied the entire plates, including the tell-tale fishermen. The trademark of the Visschers was a fisherman which would be strategically placed somewhere near water. If the subject was a landscape without a stream or pond, then often a figure walking with a fishing rod can be seen.

Historical Description

The name Saxony is derived from that of the Germanic confederation of tribes called Saxons. Before the late Middle Ages there was a single duchy of Saxony. The term "Lower Saxony" was used after the dissolution of the original duchy in the late 13th century to distinguish the parts of the former duchy that were ruled by the House of Welfare, on the one hand from the electorate of Saxony and from the duchy of Westphalia on the other. The name and coat of arms of today's state go back to the Germanic tribe of the Saxons. During the migration period, some of the Saxon peoples left their homeland in Holstein around the 3rd century and advanced south across the Elbe, where they expanded into the sparsely populated regions in the rest of the lowlands in today's northwestern Germany and the northeastern part of today's Netherlands. From the 7th century onwards, the Saxons occupied a settlement area that roughly corresponds to today's federal state of Lower Saxony, Westphalia and a number of areas in the east, for example in today's west and north Saxony-Anhalt. From the 14th century onwards it referred to the Duchy of Saxony-Lauenburg (as opposed to Saxony-Wittenberg). When the imperial districts were created in 1500, a distinction was made between a district in Lower Saxony and a district in Lower Rhine-Westphalia. The latter comprised the following areas, which today belong wholly or partially to the state of Lower Saxony: the Diocese of Osnabrück, the Diocese of Münster, the County of Bentheim, the County of Hoya, the Principality of East Friesland, the Principality of Verden, the district of Diepholz, the district of Oldenburg, the district of Schaumburg and the district of Spiegelberg .The close historical links between the domains of the Lower Saxon Circle now in modern Lower Saxony survived for centuries especially from a dynastic point of view. The majority of historic territories whose land now lies within Lower Saxony were sub-principalities of the medieval, Welf estates of the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg. All the Welf princes called themselves dukes "of Brunswick and Lüneburg" despite often ruling parts of a duchy that was forever being divided and reunited as various Welf lines multiplied or died out.