Contrafehtum der Vestung Tokan/ samt Ihrer Belegerung vom Mayvoden Beschehen/ im jahr 1566

Title

Contrafehtum der Vestung Tokan/ samt Ihrer Belegerung vom Mayvoden Beschehen/ im jahr 1566

Description

Representation of the fortress Tokan, on reverse represantation of the civil was in Hungary

ca. 1570

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 Kingdom of Hungary existed in changing borders from 1001 to 1918 and 1920 to 1946, originating in what is now western Hungary and subsequently expanding its domain to include the entire territory of present-day Hungary, as well as the territory of Transylvania, the Kreish and Maramures (both in the Romanian part of the Partium), Slovakia, Vojvodina, the Romanian part of the Banat, Carpatho-Ukraine, Burgenland, Prekmurje, Croatia (except Dalmatia and Istria) and some smaller territories. The first king of the kingdom was Stephen I the Saint from the ruling dynasty of the Árpáds, who was formally recognized as king of Hungary in 1001, when Pope Silvester II granted him the title of "Apostolic Majesty". In 1396, the Ottomans had to face a crusader army under the Hungarian king and later emperor Sigismund, which was crushingly defeated at the Battle of Nicopolis. The European powers, first and foremost the Holy Roman Empire, which had not considered the Ottomans as a serious threat for too long, were faced with the ruins of their policies concerning the Ottoman Empire at the latest with the fall of the medieval Kingdom of Hungary (1526). In the following decades, therefore, the only thing that mattered was to prevent, as far as possible, the further advance of the Ottomans towards Central Europe. In 1526 the decision in the fight against the Ottoman Empire followed in the Battle of Mohács. The Hungarian King Louis II fell in the battle. The following Hungarian Civil War, in which John I was supported by the Turks, ended in 1538 with the Peace of Grosswardein. John Zápolya and Ferdinand were both allowed to continue to use the Hungarian royal title and to rule a part of Hungary. To forestall Habsburg claims, Suleyman I intervened and occupied Buda and central Hungary. Hungary was divided into three parts after 1540 according to the power relations created. The exact demarcation of the borders between the individual parts varied considerably. After the Habsburgs and their allies had pushed the Ottoman Empire back to the territories south of the Danube and the Sava and fixed this in the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699, the Kingdom of Hungary, which had never disappeared de jure, was also restored de facto. The k.u.k. Monarchy existed until its defeat in World War I, when Hungary denounced the Real Union as of October 31, 1918. A short time later, the Hungarian Republic was proclaimed. The kingdom was under several foreign dominations in its history and regained its sovereignty in 1867 as a federal (partial) state of Austria-Hungary.