Abcontrafethung der Schönen und weitberümpten Statt Leon.

Title

Abcontrafethung der Schönen und weitberümpten Statt Leon.

Description

Map shows the city of Leon (now Lyon) from a bird’s-eye view, with the rivers Saône and Rhône. With a coat of arms held by two putti, an index from A–O, and an ornate decorative border. Verso with a German description of the city of Lyon.

ca. 1550

Artist

Münster (1489-1552)

Sebastian Münster (1489–1552) was a leading Renaissance cosmographer. His most famous work, the Cosmographia (1544), was a comprehensive description of the world with 24 maps, based on research dating back to 1528. Continuously revised, the 1550 edition already included many new maps. It was the first scientific yet accessible world description published in German, illustrated with numerous woodcuts by artists such as Hans Holbein the Younger. Between 1544 and 1650, the Cosmographia appeared in 46 editions (27 in German) and was translated into several languages. Münster’s work combined the knowledge of scholars, artists, and travelers and remained influential long after his death.

Historical Description

Fernand Braudel remarked, ;Historians of Lyon are not sufficiently aware of the bi-polarity between Paris and Lyon, which is a constant structure in French development...from the late Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution;.In the late 15th century, the fairs introduced by Italian merchants made Lyon the economic countinghouse of France. Even the Bourse (treasury), built in 1749, resembled a public bazaar where accounts were settled in the open air. When international banking moved to Genoa, then Amsterdam, Lyon remained the banking centre of France In 1572, Lyon was a scene of mass violence by Catholics against Protestant Huguenots in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacres.