Bavarie olim vindeliciae delineationis com pendium

Title

Bavarie olim vindeliciae delineationis com pendium

Description

Map of Bavaria. From the famous atlas ,Theatrum Oris Terrarum' by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp 1595, At the right side, in the centre a large decorative title cartouche, above with a cartouche of the Bavariancoat of arm. In the lower right corner a mileage scale. The map of Bavaria is issued after the Landtafeln by Phillip Apian. An important early map of Bavaria, Regensburg and the Danube. Regensburg is located at the geographical northest point of the river Danube. The map shows Bavaria with the neighboring Bohemia, also in the north towards the 'Fichtelgebirge' and Nürnberg. In The cities and towns on the map are shown as miniature views in form of silhouettes.

ca. 1590

Artist

Ortelius (1527-1598)

Abraham Ortelius, (1527 - 1598) Antwerp, comes from an Augsburg family and was born in Antwerp, Spain, where he lived throughout his life. After thorough training, he joined the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1547 as a card painter. In 1554 he took over an antiquarian bookshop that mainly deals with the coloring, distribution and publishing of maps. Basically he is more of a publisher than a scholar. And so he also made the acquaintance of another great man of his time, Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594), who encouraged him to draw cards and to make maps of the most varied of countries. His first cartographic work of his own is a large 8-sheet map of the world that appears in Antwerp in 1564. This is followed by a two-sheet map of Egypt (1565) and another of Asia (1567). The great achievement of Ortelius, who was one of the most famous European cartographers of his time, and the enthusiastic reception of his theater, mark a decisive turning point in the history of the world map. The new path is mapped out with the Theatrum. For the general view of the world, the appearance of Ortelius-Theatrum is important insofar as it emphatically confirms that America is a completely independent continent, which is also not connected to the Asian mainland mass at its northern tip. Ortelius was the first to come up with the idea of ​​producing a handy collection of reliable maps, all kept in the same format and only by the same author for each country. These sheets could also be bound into a book for easy storage and use. Mercator, who also realized the idea of ​​a world atlas from 1569, persuaded his friend to publish the famous Theatrum Orbis Terrarrum. Ortelius collected, traveled, corresponded and negotiated for 10 years before he could have his work printed in the best European printing house (Plantijn / Amsterdam). In addition to technical difficulties, Ortelius had to submit to the political / religious conditions, since maps were also subject to strict scrutiny during the Inquisition. Biblical scenes are pleasant, portraits of outstanding Catholics are welcome, but not family coats of arms or other emblems that could be politically suspect. On May 20, 1570, his first edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first collection of maps in book form, was published, financed and edited by Gillis Hooftman, an Antwerp merchant, banker and shipowner. Atlases did not yet have this name at that time. This collection was published between 1570 and 1612 in 42 editions and in 7 languages: Latin, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, English and Italian. Unlike his professional colleagues, he clearly referenced the sources of his maps and texts. The work contains, among other things, an illustration of the world known until 1492 and was therefore already looking back at the time the map was created.

Historical Description

The existence of a Bavarian tribal duchy has been documented since 555, which became part of the Frankish domain under the Merovingians. From 1180 to 1918 Bavaria was ruled by the Wittelsbachers as a territorial duchy. Bavaria experienced a period of numerous divisions into individual duchies from 1255 to 1503. Shortly before the first reunification, Ludwig IV. In 1328 became the first Wittelsbacher to become emperor, which meant a new high point in power for Bavaria. At the same time, however, the prince-archbishopric of Salzburg finally separated from the mother country Bavaria. In 1429, after the Straubing-Holland line became extinct, the Duchy of Bavaria-Straubing was divided between the Munich, Ingolstadt and Landshut lines. In 1447, Bavaria-Ingolstadt fell to Bavaria-Landshut, which in turn was won by Bavaria-Munich in the War of Succession in Landshut in 1503. The division of the country came to an end through the Primogenitur Act of Duke Albrecht IV of 1506. Bavaria took a leading position in the Counter-Reformation and emerged from the Thirty Years' War with territorial gains and the rise to the Electorate. In 1620, the troops of the Catholic League, under the leadership of the Bavarian general Tilly, defeated the Protestants in the Battle of the White Mountains near Prague. Then Tilly had the Palatinate occupied. As a thank you, Maximilian I received the electoral title in 1623 and the Upper Palatinate he occupied as war compensation in 1628. After the war, Elector Ferdinand Maria devoted himself to the reconstruction of the devastated country and pursued a cautious neutrality policy. During the War of the Spanish and Austrian Succession and in the course of Maximilian II. Emanuel's great power policy and later his son Karl Albrecht, Austria was twice temporarily occupied by absolutist Bavaria. In 1705 the Bavarian people rose against the imperial occupation. Only the battle of Aidenbach on January 8, 1706 ended with the complete defeat of the popular uprising. After Karl Albrecht's coronation, large parts of the electorate were occupied again until 1744. Karl Albrecht's son Maximilian III. Joseph finally ended the great power policy of his predecessors in 1745 and devoted himself to internal reforms. After the extinction of the old Bavarian line of the Wittelsbacher, the double electorate of Kurpfalz-Bavaria was created in 1777 under the reign of the Elector Karl Theodor from the Palatinate line of the Wittelsbacher. At the time of Napoleon, Bavaria was initially on the side of France and was able to record large territorial gains through secularization and mediatization. Salzburg, Tyrol, Vorarlberg and the Innviertel region, which was lost in 1779, fell temporarily to Bavaria. In the Peace of Pressburg, which was concluded on December 26, 1805 between France and the German Emperor Franz II, Bavaria, allied with Napoleon, was proclaimed a kingdom. King Max I. Joseph's Minister Maximilian Graf von Montgelas is considered the creator of the modern Bavarian state. In 1806 Napoleon Bonaparte elevated Bavaria to a kingdom. At the Vienna Congress in 1814, Bavaria was able to retain a large part of the area's profits as a victorious power, including what was now northern Bavaria, parts of Swabia and the Palatinate. In 1918 the Wittelsbach monarchy collapsed in the November Revolution. King Ludwig I, who had ruled since 1825, developed the Bavarian capital Munich into an art and university city. After the occupation by American troops, Bavaria became part of the newly founded Federal Republic in 1949.