Freyburg in Üchtlandt.

Title

Freyburg in Üchtlandt.

Description

General view of the city of Freibug in Üechtland from a bird's eye view with the city coat of arms and a compass rose at the bottom left.

ca. 1640

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

Fribourg was founded in 1157 by Duke Berthold IV of Zähringen in a strategically well-protected location on a rocky promontory above the Saane and endowed with generous liberties. The Zähringers were thus able to consolidate and expand their position of power in the Swiss midlands in the area between the Aare and the Saane. From its beginnings, Fribourg formed a city state, i.e. a city dominion, to which hardly any territory from the regional hinterland belonged. When the Zähringer dynasty died out in 1218, Fribourg passed by inheritance to the Counts of Kyburg. By purchase, the city came to the House of Habsburg in 1277 for 3040 marks of silver, becoming its westernmost base in competition with the House of Savoy for power in the region, and was repeatedly involved in wars with the Dukes of Savoy and Bern. Already since the middle of the 13th century, trade and commerce flourished. The period around the middle of the 15th century was marked by various warlike conflicts. First of all, major losses were suffered in the war against Savoy. From the end of the 14th century, various rich families emerged from the cloth and leather trade, among them Gottrau, Lanthen, Affry, Diesbach. This, however, was an important reason for the decline of cloth production, because the families that had once risen through trade and commerce now increasingly took care of the town government and the administration of the acquired and from then on continuously rounded up landed property. A milestone in the city's politics was the year 1627, when the patriciate of the time declared itself the sole regent with a new constitution and thus claimed the active and passive right to vote for itself. This sealed the oligarchy with restrictive organizational structures that had already become apparent in the course of the 15th century.