Tybur

Title

Tybur

Description

Map shows the city Tivoli, on the backside a representation of a punishment of a citizen and a beacon.

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

Central Italy is the central section of the Italy peninsula, which is divided into northern Italy, central Italy and southern Italy. It stretches from the Apennine ridge between La Spezia and Rimini to the historic northern border of the Kingdom of Naples. The southern boundary today runs along the rivers Tronto and Garigliano after changes in the provinces in the 1920s. Central Italy is formed by the regions of Tuscany, Umbria, Marche and Lazio, whereby only Tuscany can be linguistically and culturally uniformly classified as Central Italy. Within these borders, central Italy also forms one of the five Italian macro regions. In ancient times, in northern Italy, unlike in southern Italy, there was hardly any Greek colonization. For the Roman Empire, Northern Italy was initially Gallia cisalpina. Since the Middle Ages, northern Italy has been characterized by remarkable trading cities, which, starting from the Veronese Confederation, united in the Lombardenbund against Emperor Barbarossa. The history of Italy, documented by written sources, begins only after the settlement by Italian peoples. Alongside them, the culture of the Etruscans, whose origin is unknown, was experienced around 600 BC. Their heyday. In the 8th century BC The Greek colonization of the southern Italian mainland and Sicily had begun, and Phoenicians settled on the west coast of the island. These colonies later belonged to Carthage. From the 4th century BC began the expansion of Rome. From the 5th century Italy came under the rule of Germanic tribes, the population declined drastically until around 650, and Ostrom briefly conquered the former core area of the empire in the 6th century. In the 8th century, the north, ruled by the Lombards for about two centuries, was annexed to the Franconian Empire, later to the Holy Roman Empire, while Arabs and Byzantines ruled in the south from the 11th century onwards. In most regions, feudalism prevailed in the early Middle Ages. The northern Italian municipalities, which came together in the Lombardenbund, were able to free themselves from the influence of the empire in the 12th and 13th centuries and establish their own territories. Of this multitude of territories, the most important were Milan, the sea powers Genoa and Venice, Florence and Rome, and the south of Italy, which was partly French and partly Spanish. After four centuries of fragmentation and foreign rule, the peninsula became politically united in the course of the Risorgimento national movement. The modern Italian state was founded in 1861.