Bohemia

Title

Bohemia

Description

Map shows the whole of Bohemia with title cartouches, the Bohemian lion and the double-headed eagle from heraldry.

ca. 1628

Artist

Kaerius (1570-1630)

Pieter van den Keere, or Petrus Kaerius (1570-1630). He was born in Ghent, and in 1584 moved with his family for religious reasons to London. From his time in England there is a map of Ireland from 1592, Hyberniae novissima descriptio. It was published by Hondius and served as a model for later editions of the Theatrum of Abraham Ortelius. Keere also contributed to John Norden's Speculum Britanniae of 1593. He also worked with Petrus Bertius, Cornelis Claesz, Petrus Plancius, the House of Visscher, and Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer. In 1595, there appeared a large wall map of Europe in 10 sheets, Nova totius Europae descriptio. From 1603, Keere began creating large urban panoramas, including Utrecht, Cologne, Amsterdam, and Paris. Around 1604, he was preparing the publication of the atlas Germania Inferior id est Provincuarum XVII. This first appeared in 1617, with a foreword by Petrus Montanus.

Historical Description

Bohemia is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech lands in the present-day Czech Republic. In a broader meaning, Bohemia sometimes refers to the entire Czech territory, including Moravia and Czech Silesia, especially in a historical context, such as the Lands of the Bohemian Crown ruled by Bohemian kings. Bohemia was a duchy of Great Moravia, later an independent principality, a kingdom in the Holy Roman Empire, and subsequently a part of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Austrian Empire. After World War I and the establishment of an independent Czechoslovak state, Bohemia became a part of Czechoslovakia. Between 1938 and 1945, border regions with sizeable German-speaking minorities of all three Czech lands were joined to Nazi Germany as the Sudetenland.