Germaniae Populorum inter Rhenum et Albim amneis, ut a Trajani imperio, et circa Marcellini..

Title

Germaniae Populorum inter Rhenum et Albim amneis, ut a Trajani imperio, et circa Marcellini..

Description

Map shows Germany between the Rhine and the Elbe with a title cartouche and a mileage scale. Engraved by Nicol. Geilkerckig.

ca. 1631

Artist

Cluverus (Clüver) (1580-1622)

Philipp Clüver (Philippus Cluverius) 1580- 1622 was an Early Modern German geographer and historian. Clüver was an antiquary, who was given a special appointment at Leiden as geographer and put in charge of the university's library, but his life's project, it developed, was a general study of the geography of Antiquity, based not only on classical literary sources, but — and this was his contribution — supplemented by wide travels and local inspections. He became virtually the founder of historical geography. Clüver's Germaniae antiquae libri tres (Leiden, 1616) depends on Tacitus and other Latin authors. A volume on the antiquities of Sicily, with notes on Sardinia and Corsica (Sicilia Antiqua cum minoribus insulis ei adjacentibus item Sardinia et Corsica), published at Leiden by Louis Elsevier in 1619, is a useful source, with many reference from writers of Antiquity and maps that are often detached and sold to map collectors.

Historical Description

The concept of Germany as a distinct region in central Europe can be traced to Roman commander Julius Caesar, who referred to the unconquered area east of the Rhine as Germania, thus distinguishing it from Gaul (France), which he had conquered. In the High Middle Ages, the regional dukes, princes and bishops gained power at the expense of the emperors. Martin Luther led the Protestant Reformationagainst the Catholic Church after 1517, as the northern states became Protestant, while the southern states remained Catholic. The two parts of the Holy Roman Empire clashed in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648). 1648 marked the effective end of the Holy Roman Empire and the beginning of the modern nation-state system, with Germany divided into numerous independent states, such as Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony.