La situation, et figure de la cité de Francfort, comme elle est auio ard’huy.-

Title

La situation, et figure de la cité de Francfort, comme elle est auio ard’huy.-

Description

Half bird show view of the city of Frankfurt am Main, with a splendid border and depiction of the 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

Frankfurt am Main was first mentioned on 794 in a document by Charlemagne for the St. Emmeram monastery in Regensburg. A settlement of the cathedral hill has already been proven for the Neolithic period. As a result, a Roman military camp and a Franconian royal court were probably built at the same location.The Golden Bull of 1356 confirmed Frankfurt from 1356 as the permanent electoral city of the Roman kings, after most of the royal elections had taken place here since 1147. From 1562 the imperial coronations also took place in Frankfurt, most recently in 1792 that of the Habsburg Franz II.In 1742 Frankfurt became a residence for almost three years. Since Emperor Charles VII, who came from the House of Wittelsbach, could not return to his homeland, the Electorate of Bavaria occupied by Habsburg troops, after his coronation, he was forced to live in the Barckhaus an der Zeil until October 1744. With the end of the Old Reich, the sovereignty of Frankfurt as an imperial city also ended. In 1806 it fell under the rule of Prince Theodor von Dalberg, who united it with the Principality of Regensburg and the Principality of Aschaffenburg as well as the Imperial City of Wetzlar to form an independent state within the Confederation of the Rhine, the state of the Prince. In 1810 Dalberg ceded the Principality of Regensburg to Bavaria, received the Principality of Hanau and the Principality of Fulda, and became Grand Duke of Frankfurt. With the collapse of the Napoleonic system, Dalberg abdicated as Grand Duke of Frankfurt in 1813. In 1813 the independence of the city and its territory was restored and its imperial city constitution was reinstated. The previous prefect Friedrich Maximilian von Günderrode took over the provisional management of the administration as the city school hotline. At the Vienna Congress, the Kingdom of Bavaria planned to annex Frankfurt, but on June 8, 1815 the Congress decided to restore Frankfurt as a free city within the German Confederation. Along with Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck, it was one of four free cities that were able to maintain their traditional urban freedom up to the modern era.