Contrafehtung der Statt Lütich.

Title

Contrafehtung der Statt Lütich.

Map showing the city of Liège in Belgium with three heraldic representations. Below is a depiction of Ascension Day with lightning striking the church tower.

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

The name in Roman times was Leodicum or Vicus Leodicus. In 717 the town developed as an episcopal see and in the Middle Ages it was an important political and cultural center. At the end of the Middle Ages it belonged to the territory of the Liege High Diocese. The ruling prince-bishops of Liège mostly came from the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire. n 1789, partly in connection with the French Revolution, the so-called Liège Revolution took place. It was directed against the absolutist rule of Prince-Bishop Caesar Constantin Franz von Hoensbroech and was put down in early 1791 by troops commissioned by the Holy Roman Empire. Liège is a cradle of the continental European coal and steel industry. In 1795, Liège was occupied by French troops, assigned to the Département de l'Ourthe and became part of the First French Republic. After the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, it became part of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands in 1815 and became part of the independent Kingdom of Belgium in 1830. As early as 1720, the first steam engine on the European mainland had started operation in a coal mine near Liège. From here, industrialization spread across the entire continent from the beginning of the 19th century. In particular, the steel company Cockerill-Sambre had its headquarters near Liège.