Abriss der Statt Bergen op Zoom Sampt dem Spanischen Läger im Jahr 1622.

Title

Abriss der Statt Bergen op Zoom Sampt dem Spanischen Läger im Jahr 1622.

Description

Bird's eye view of the city of Bergen in Norway, including the Spanish camps in 1622.

ca. 1635

Artist

Merian (1593-1650)

Matthäus Merian (1593 – 1650) , born in Basel, learned the art of copperplate engraving in Zurich and subsequently worked and studied in Strasbourg, Nancy, and Paris, before returning to Basel in 1615. The following year he moved to Frankfurt, Germany where he worked for the publisher Johann Theodor de Bry. He married his daughter, Maria Magdalena 1617. In 1620 they moved back to Basel, only to return three years later to Frankfurt, where Merian took over the publishing house of his father-in-law after de Bry's death in 1623. In 1626 he became a citizen of Frankfurt and could henceforth work as an independent publisher. He is the father of Maria Sibylla Merian, who later published her the famous and wellknown studies of flowers, insects and butterflies.

Historical Description

Bergen is also known in Norway as Syvfjellsbyen (German for "City of the Seven Hills"). This nickname is said to go back to the poet Ludvig Holberg, presumably in reference to the Seven Hills of Rome. According to information in the King's Sagas, Bergen was founded in 1070 as Bjørgvin ("mountain meadow") by King Olav Kyrre. From the 12th century it was the Norwegian coronation city; later it was replaced in this function by Trondheim. In 1360, a Hanseatic trading post "Tyske Bryggen" opened in Bergen. Although Bergen is often referred to as a "Hanseatic city", it was not an equal member city. In 1665, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, English warships attacked a Dutch merchant fleet in Bergen harbour. The battle in Bergen Bay ended in defeat for the English. Until 1880, Bergen was Norway's most important port and largest city. In 1873, the Norwegian doctor Gerhard Armauer Hansen discovered the pathogen Mycobacterium leprae in Bergen. The oldest leprosy hospital, St. Jørgens Hospital, opened in the 15th century, treated lepers until the 1940s and today houses the Bergen Leprosy Museum and the Leprosy Archive, which is part of the UNESCO Memory of the World programme.