Turingiae Novis Descript.” und “Misinae et Lusatiae Tabula

Title

Turingiae Novis Descript.” und “Misinae et Lusatiae Tabula

Description

Thuringia and Meissen, two maps on one sheet, each with a title cartouche and a mileage indicator.

ca. 1570

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

Named after the Thuringii tribe who occupied it around AD 300, Thuringia came under Frankish domination in the 6th century. The Thuringian tribe formed during the Migration Period. The Saxon Otonen and the Sangerhausen became a center of the Holy Roman Empire in the 10th century. A separate Duchy of Thuringia cannot develop in this way. Greatest power in the Thuringian war at that time was the county of Weimar. It was only the Ludowinger rights that brought parts of Thuringia under their control. In the 12th century, the process of expanding the state in Thuringia was secured. It is called the first climbed cities such as Mühlhausen. The important noble families of medieval Thuringia were next to the dominant Wettin and the Ludowingern. In 1485, with the division of Leipzig, the wet lands were sold to the Albertiner rights in the east and the Ernestiner administration in the west. With the Reformation at the beginning of the 16th century, Thuringia became the center of German politics. Martin Luther made announcements of responsibility at the University of Erfurt and in the Augustinian monastery before he went to Wittenberg and the Reformation began. In 1640, two main Ernestine lines emerged: the House of Saxony-Weimar and the House of Saxony-Gotha. Subsequently, the phase of humanism began in Thuringia, in which the University of Erfurt also had a heyday. A center of German humanism was formed around Ulrich von Hutten and the reformers. It was only around 1780 that the ruling Duchess Anna Amalia and her son Karl August left the region again. They called poets such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe or Friedrich Schiller and their court, where they established Weimar Classicism as a German version of the classic literary movement. In 1833, the Customs and Trade Association of the Thuringian States was founded, which spurred industrial revolution in the country. As a result of industrialization, Thuringia became the cradle of social democracy. 1869 Greater August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht in Eisenach the Social Democratic Workers 'Party, in 1875 merged with the General German Workers' Association in Gotha to form the SPD. The Gotha program and the Erfurt program subsequently defined the goals of social democratic politics in Germany.