Franckenladt in Germania wo die Francken zum ersten herkommen sindt

Title

Franckenladt in Germania wo die Francken zum ersten herkommen sindt

Description

Map shows Franconia with Nuremberg, Coburg and Frankfurt. Reverse with coat of arms.

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 Franconia fell to today's Franconia region with their victories over the Alemanni and Thuringians in their core areas in the 6th century. After the Franconian divisions, the Francia orientialis from the areas of the dioceses of Mainz, Worms, Würzburg and Speyer was added, and later the diocese of Bamberg was added. In the 7th century, the Slavs began to populate the northeastern parts of the region from the east, since the areas of today's Upper Franconia were sparsely populated (Bavaria Slavica). Charlemagne developed the areas around the Main into a royal province. From the middle of the 9th century, the Duchy of the Tribes, one of the five Duchies of the Eastern Franconian Empire, was established. From the 12th century, the Nuremberg Castle was the seat of the castle county of Nuremberg. From around 1190, the burgrave was ruled by the Zollern, the Frankish line of the later Hohenzollern, who represented the German emperor in the 19th and 20th centuries. Franconia already played an important role for the kingship in the time of Rudolf von Habsburg, the Itineraries of the following kings attested to the favoritism of the Rhine-Main region. In 1376 the Swabian Association of Cities was founded, which later also included several Franconian imperial cities. In July 1500, during the reign of Emperor Maximilian I, the empire was divided into imperial circles in the course of the imperial reform movement, which led to the creation of the Franconian imperial circle in 1512. From today's perspective, the Franconian Imperial Circle is sometimes considered to be an important basis for the development of a Franconian sense of community that still exists today. Franconia played an important role in the expansion of Martin Luther's Reformation. From 1552, the margrave Albrecht Alcibiades tried to break the supremacy of the mighty imperial city of Nuremberg and to secularize the possessions of the princes in order to create a duchy that he ruled. Large areas of Franconia were finally devastated in the fighting until King Ferdinand I, with several dukes and princes, decided to subjugate Albrecht. In 1608, Protestant sovereigns united in the Reich to form the so-called Union. The Catholic side reacted in 1609 with a counter-alliance, the league. The contrasts between the two camps eventually led to the Thirty Years' War, which became the greatest burden of cohesion within the Franconian Empire. From 1803 the later Kingdom of Bavaria received large parts of Franconia with the main deputation of the Imperial Deputation under the pressure of Napoleon Bonaparte through secularization and mediatization. Through the Rhine Confederation, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and other areas became more closely linked to France, which disintegrated the Holy Roman Empire and the Franconian Empire in 1806.