Hungariae Regnum

Title

Hungariae Regnum

Description

Map shows the whole of Hungary with title cartouche and the coat of arms of Hungary.

ca. 1635

Artist

Janssonius (1588-1664)

Johannes Janssonius (Jansson)( 1588- 1664) Amsterdam, was born in Arnhem, the son of Jan Janszoon the Elder, a publisher and bookseller. In 1612 he married Elisabeth de Hondt, the daughter of Jodocus Hondius. He produced his first maps in 1616 of France and Italy. In 1623 Janssonius owned a bookstore in Frankfurt am Main, later also in Danzig, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin, Königsberg, Geneva and Lyon. In the 1630s he formed a partnership with his brother in law Henricus Hondius, and together they published atlases as Mercator/Hondius/Janssonius. Under the leadership of Janssonius the Hondius Atlas was steadily enlarged. Renamed Atlas Novus, it had three volumes in 1638, one fully dedicated to Italy. 1646 a fourth volume came out with ""English County Maps"", a year after a similar issue by Willem Blaeu. Janssonius' maps are similar to those of Blaeu, and he is often accused of copying from his rival, but many of his maps predate those of Blaeu and/or covered different regions. By 1660, at which point the atlas bore the appropriate name ""Atlas Major"", there were 11 volumes, containing the work of about a hundred credited authors and engravers. It included a description of ""most of the cities of the world"" (Townatlas), of the waterworld (Atlas Maritimus in 33 maps), and of the Ancient World (60 maps). The eleventh volume was the Atlas of the Heavens by Andreas Cellarius. Editions were printed in Dutch, Latin, French, and a few times in German.

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.