Buda/ oder Ofen

Title

Buda/ oder Ofen

Description

Map shows the whole of Budapapest on the Danube with the old Hungarian coat of arms. On revers shows a portrait of Karl of Mannsfeldt.

ca. 1550

Artist

Münster (1489-1552)

Sebastian Münsters (1489-1552) is one of the famous cosmographers of the Renaissance. Its real importance in the field of cartography is based on its famous cosmography, which he published in 1544 with 24 double-sided maps (including Moscow and Transylvania). The material for this came largely from research and the collection of information from around 1528, which he initially only wanted to use for a description of Germany, but was now sufficient for a map of the entire world and ultimately led to a cosmography. He constantly tried to improve this work, i.e. to replace or add to maps. In the edition of 1550, only 14 maps were taken over from the earlier editions. The 52 maps printed in the text were also only partially based on the old maps. The great success of this cosmography was also based on the precise work of the woodcuts mostly by Hans Holbein the Younger, Urs Graf, Hans Rudolph Deutsch and David Kandel. It was the first scientific and at the same time generally understandable description of the knowledge of the world in German, in which the basics of history and geography, astronomy and natural sciences, regional and folklore were summarized according to the state of knowledge at that time. Cosmography is the science of describing the earth and the universe. Until the late Middle Ages, geography, geology and astronomy were also part of it. The first edition of the Cosmographia took place in 1544 in German, printed in Heinrich Petri's office in Basel. Heinrich Petri was a son from the first marriage of Münster's wife to the Basel printer Adam Petri. Over half of all editions up to 1628 were also published in German. However, the work has also been published in Latin, French, Czech and Italian. The English editions all comprised only a part of the complete work. Viktor Hantzsch identified a total of 46 editions in 1898 (German 27; Latin 8; French 3; Italian 3; Czech 1) that appeared from 1544 to 1650, while Karl Heinz Burmeister only had 36 (German 21; Latin 5; French 6; Italian 3; Czech 1) that appeared between 1544 and 1628. The first edition from 1544 was followed by the second edition in 1545, the third in 1546, the fourth edition in 1548 and the fifth edition in 1550, each supplemented by new reports and details, text images, city views and maps and revised altogether. Little has been known about who - apart from the book printers Heinrich Petri and Sebastian Henricpetri - were responsible for the new editions after Münster's death. The 1628 edition was edited and expanded by the Basel theologian Wolfgang Meyer. With Cosmographia, Sebastian Münster has published for the first time a joint work by learned historians and artists, by publishers, wood cutters and engravers. The numerous vedute are usually made as woodcuts. Sebastian Münster obtained his knowledge from the travel reports and stories of various scholars, geographers, cartographers and sea travelers. Long after his death, "Kosmographie" was still a popular work with large editions: 27 German, 8 Latin, 3 French, 4 English and even 1 Czech editions appeared. The last edition appeared in Basel in 1650.

Historical Description

The Hungarians, who later became Christianized and settled, lived in villages with churches and farmed and raised cattle. Pest became more and more important in the center of important traffic routes. Already at this time there was a lively ferry traffic across the Danube (around today's Elisabeth Bridge) to the opposite Buda. With the coronation of Stephen I around 1000 as the first king of Hungary, the Hungarians expanded their dominance. The Mongol invasion in 1241 almost completely destroyed the Battle of Muhi. The royal residence was first relocated to Visegrád. The city was renewed in 1308 and capital of the kingdom in 1361. A peasant uprising took place in 1514. From 1446 the Ottomans repeatedly attacked Hungary, which culminated in the occupation of most of the country. So Pest fell in 1526 and Buda protected by the castle, 15 years later. The capital of the still unoccupied Hungary, which consisted almost entirely of Upper Hungary (essentially the area of today's Slovakia), was from 1536 to 1784 Bratislava (Bratislava). While Buda became the seat of a Turkish pasha, Pest received little attention. Finally, the Habsburgs, who had been Kings of Hungary since 1526, succeeded in driving out the Ottomans and restoring Hungary. Pest was the seat of the administrative administration of the kingdom since 1723. One of the main reasons for the boom in Budapest was the existence of a bridge in summer, which consisted of boats attached to each other. The chain bridge (Hungarian Széchenyi Lánchíd) spans the Danube here in Budapest. It was built between 1839 and 1849 as the first fixed bridge at the suggestion of the Hungarian reformer Count István Széchenyi.The merging of Buda, Óbuda and Pest had already been enacted under the Hungarian revolutionary government in 1849.