Penigk Misniae Oppidum.

Title

Penigk Misniae Oppidum.

Description

Depiction of the town of Penig near Chemnitz. Drawn by Georg Hoefnagel, published by Braun and Hogenberg.

dated 1617

Artist

Hoefnagel (1542-1600)

Georg Hoefnagel,(1542-1600) was a Flemish miniature painter and illuminator or book painter. He is known for his illustrations of natural history subjects, topographical views, illuminations, and mythological works. He was one of the last manuscript illuminators and made an important contribution to the development of topographical drawing. During his travels in Europe, Hoefnagels made many landscape drawings. These later served as models for engravings for Ortelius' Theatrum orbis terrarum (1570) and Braun's Civitates orbis terrarum (Cologne, 1572-1618). The Civitates orbis terrarum, with its six volumes, was the most comprehensive atlas of its time. Hoefnagel worked on the Civitates intermittently throughout his life, possibly acting as an agent for the project by commissioning views from other artists. He also produced more than 60 illustrations himself, including various views in Bavaria, Italy, and Bohemia. He enlivened the finished engravings with a mannerist sense of fantasy and wit, using dramatic perspectives and ornamental cartouches. Through topographical accuracy, he heralded the realistic trend in 17th-century Dutch landscape art. In 1617, his son Jacob revised designs by his father for the sixth volume of the Civitates, published in Cologne in 1618. Volume 6 contains a homogeneous series of images of cities in Central Europe (in Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, and Transylvania) that are very uniform in their graphics. The views are perspective and only in a few cases isometric, and are characterized by the accuracy of the indications, the particular attention to the faithful representation of the territory, the landscape, the road conditions, and the observational skill and refinement of interpretation. A topographical masterpiece is also the miniature of a "View of Seville" with rich framing in the Royal Library in Brussels. Hoefnagel was also instrumental as an illustrator for Georg Braun's views of cities and Abraham Ortelius' World Theater.

Historical Description

Saxony-Wittenberg, in modern Saxony-Anhalt, became subject to the margravate of Meissen, ruled by the Wettin dynasty in 1423. This established a new and powerful state, occupying large portions of the present Free State of Saxony, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Bavaria (Coburg and its environs). Although the centre of this state was far to the southeast of the former Saxony, it came to be referred to as Upper Saxony and then simply Saxony, while the former Saxon territories were now known as Lower Saxony. In 1485, Saxony was split. A collateral line of the Wettin princes received what later became Thuringia and founded several small states there (see Ernestine duchies). The remaining Saxon state became still more powerful and was known in the 18th century for its cultural achievements, although it was politically weaker than Prussia and Austria, states which oppressed Saxony from the north and south, respectively.