Salisburgum

Title

Salisburgum

Description

Map shows a map of the area around the city of Salzburg with Chiemsee, the Zillertal, and an overall view of Salzburg.

ca. 1595

Artist

Ortelius (1527-1598)

Abraham Ortelius, (1527 - 1598) Antwerp, comes from an Augsburg family and was born in Antwerp, Spain, where he lived throughout his life. After thorough training, he joined the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke in 1547 as a card painter. In 1554 he took over an antiquarian bookshop that mainly deals with the coloring, distribution and publishing of maps. Basically he is more of a publisher than a scholar. And so he also made the acquaintance of another great man of his time, Gerhard Mercator (1512-1594), who encouraged him to draw cards and to make maps of the most varied of countries. His first cartographic work of his own is a large 8-sheet map of the world that appears in Antwerp in 1564. This is followed by a two-sheet map of Egypt (1565) and another of Asia (1567). The great achievement of Ortelius, who was one of the most famous European cartographers of his time, and the enthusiastic reception of his theater, mark a decisive turning point in the history of the world map. The new path is mapped out with the Theatrum. For the general view of the world, the appearance of Ortelius-Theatrum is important insofar as it emphatically confirms that America is a completely independent continent, which is also not connected to the Asian mainland mass at its northern tip. Ortelius was the first to come up with the idea of ​​producing a handy collection of reliable maps, all kept in the same format and only by the same author for each country. These sheets could also be bound into a book for easy storage and use. Mercator, who also realized the idea of ​​a world atlas from 1569, persuaded his friend to publish the famous Theatrum Orbis Terrarrum. Ortelius collected, traveled, corresponded and negotiated for 10 years before he could have his work printed in the best European printing house (Plantijn / Amsterdam). In addition to technical difficulties, Ortelius had to submit to the political / religious conditions, since maps were also subject to strict scrutiny during the Inquisition. Biblical scenes are pleasant, portraits of outstanding Catholics are welcome, but not family coats of arms or other emblems that could be politically suspect. On May 20, 1570, his first edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first collection of maps in book form, was published, financed and edited by Gillis Hooftman, an Antwerp merchant, banker and shipowner. Atlases did not yet have this name at that time. This collection was published between 1570 and 1612 in 42 editions and in 7 languages: Latin, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, English and Italian. Unlike his professional colleagues, he clearly referenced the sources of his maps and texts. The work contains, among other things, an illustration of the world known until 1492 and was therefore already looking back at the time the map was created.

Historical Description

The territory of the town has been continuously inhabited since the Neolithic period until today. Since the Battle of Mühldorf in 1322, the archbishopric was at enmity with the motherland Bavaria. As a result, Salzburg became an independent archbishopric in the Roman-German Empire. The economic prosperity of the city in the 15th century led to a self-confident bourgeoisie with increasing rights and duties. Archbishop Leonhard von Keutschach, who was economically very successful, ended this autonomy by force. A few years after Martin Luther's posting of the theses, the majority of the town's population was close to Protestantism; the unbending Protestants were then all expelled from the country by 1590. In 1525, rebellious squires and peasants laid siege to the fortress of Hohensalzburg, where Archbishop Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg had entrenched himself. Around 1600, the archdiocese was one of the richest principalities in the Roman-German Empire thanks to salt and gold mining. Paris von Lodron succeeded in keeping Salzburg out of the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) through a clever policy of neutrality. The city was developed into one of the best fortified cities in Europe. In 1803, by order of Napoleon Bonaparte, Salzburg became a secularized electorate. In 1805, together with Berchtesgaden, it was annexed to the new Empire of Austria, and in 1810, it was reincorporated into the Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1816, with the Treaty of Munich, most of the province of Salzburg again fell to the Austrian Empire and thus under Habsburg rule.