Von dem Teütschen land. / Zäringen.

Title

Von dem Teütschen land. / Zäringen.

Illustration of Zähringen Castle near Freiburg in Baden-Württemberg with description of the duchy and the monasteries of Gengenbach, Münsterschwarzach and Sulzberg.

ca. 1550

Artist

Münster (1489-1552)

Sebastian Münster (1489–1552) was a leading Renaissance cosmographer. His most famous work, the Cosmographia (1544), was a comprehensive description of the world with 24 maps, based on research dating back to 1528. Continuously revised, the 1550 edition already included many new maps. It was the first scientific yet accessible world description published in German, illustrated with numerous woodcuts by artists such as Hans Holbein the Younger. Between 1544 and 1650, the Cosmographia appeared in 46 editions (27 in German) and was translated into several languages. Münster’s work combined the knowledge of scholars, artists, and travelers and remained influential long after his death.

Historical Description

Zähringen Castle is the ruin of a hilltop castle on a spur of the Roßkopf near Gundelfingen in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald in Baden-Württemberg. Traces of settlements on the Zähringen castle hill can already be found from the Neolithic Michelsberg culture, followed by Celts of the Hallstatt period. The first secure mention of Zähringen Castle was in 1128, when a document was issued in the Rotulus Sanpetrinus apud castrum Zaringen. Berthold II now called himself "Count of Zähringen" or from 1097 "Duke of Zähringen" after his new castle and thus gave his name to the ruling house of Zähringen. In 1091, however, he already began building Freiburg Castle on the Schlossberg, as its location seemed more advantageous from a military and trade strategy point of view. After the extinction of the Zähringers in 1218, Emperor Frederick II confiscated Zähringen Castle as an imperial fiefdom. In 1815, the castle, which had already been finally destroyed in the Peasants' War of 1525, passed completely into the possession of the House of Baden. Since 1851, the Freiburg fraternity Teutonia has celebrated its foundation festival at Zähringen Castle. Today, the castle complex is owned by the city of Freiburg; it is preserved as a ruin with an 18-meter high crenellated round tower from the 13th century with a viewing platform.