Weissenburg mit umbligender Landschafft/ auff das aller fleissigst nach aller Gelegenheit und Contrafactur ( Wissembourg)

Title

Weissenburg mit umbligender Landschafft/ auff das aller fleissigst nach aller Gelegenheit und Contrafactur ( Wissembourg)

Map shows the town of Wissembourg in Alsace with the St. Peter and Paul Church.

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

The community of Weißenburg developed from a steadily growing settlement around a monastery founded in the 7th century, which soon gained importance and became an abbey. From 1306 to 1697 Weißenburg was an imperial city. It belonged to the ten-town confederation of Alsatian imperial towns founded in 1354. In 1440, the Weissenburg citizen Eikhart Artzt began writing down his "cronick" of the town. In 1522, the Reformation was introduced by Heinrich Motherer, the pastor of St. John's Church, and Martin Bucer. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, large parts of Alsace came under French rule, and France was also granted the bailiwick over the Alsatian League of Ten Towns. With his reunion policy, Louis XIV had the ten towns conquered in 1673 and 1674, had their fortifications ground down, and placed them under French provincial administration. In the Peace of Rijswijk in 1697, France had to return all the conquests and reunions of the previous wars outside Alsace, but thus finally received the rule over Strasbourg. With the French Revolution, the integration into the modern administrative and legal system of the country took place.