Byzantium, Nunc Costantinopolis

Important early bird’s-eye-view of Istanbul, from Braun and Hogenberg's monumental town book.

This is the second state of the view, with the roundel at the right filled with the portrait of Sultan Murad III. This roundel is blank in state one.

This is a derivation of the map published in Venice by Giovanni Andrea Vavassore and attributed to Giovanni Domenico Zorzi, circa 1520/30. Also known as Domenico delle Greche he lived in the then Constantinople for a period, beginning in 1525.

Zorzi-Vavassore's depiction of the city was to be the reference model taken up by all the mapss published in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some scholars speculate that for the drawing Vavassore may have been inspired by an earlier representation, now lost, perhaps by Florentine cartographer Francesco Roselli, or Venetian artist Gentile Bellini. It is also related to the manuscript map preserved in Düsseldorf, attributed to Buondelmonti, because both depict the city as it must have been toward the end of Mehmed II's reign, around 1480. Particularly striking are the coincidences in the depiction of the area outside the walls of Pera: in both plans there are cemeteries, canyons, fenced enclosures, and even written references such as "aguas frescas" or "vineyards of Pera." The two also reflect similar shipyards, docks, and arsenals in terms of location and type of activity. Vavassore also includes old and new palaces in his plan, defining elements of Ottoman power. However, he forgets some important mosques, such as Eyüp or Rum Mehmet Paşa, and instead fills the spaces with rows of buildings and a road network and incorporates erroneous elements, including a church about whose existence there is no historical evidence.

The Braun and Hogenberg view is one of the finest and most sought-after depictions of Istanbul. Viewed across the Bosphorus from the village of Scutari (Üsküdar), the city is shown with an emphasis on its fortifications and famous buildings. Pera-Galata is across the Golden Horn, to the right of the view.

Many of the great buildings of the city are evident, including the Topkapi Palace. The Hagia Sophia is near to the palace, while the many-domed Fatih Mosque complex sprawls toward the western city walls. Just outside the city walls, at left, is the rising Tekfur Palace. In Pera are the new shipyards.

Along the view’s lower edge, Suleiman the Magnificent rides at the center. The Ottomans sultans have their portraits on either side of him, from Osman Bey to Murad III.

The work is included in the Civitates Orbis Terrarum, the first atlas devoted exclusively to plans and views of the world's major cities. Printed in six volumes between 1572 and 1617 it was so successful and widespread that several editions translated into Latin, German and French were printed.

The first volume of the Civitates Orbis Terrarum was published in Cologne in 1572. The sixth and the final volume appeared in 1617. This great city atlas, edited by Georg Braun and largely engraved by Franz Hogenberg, eventually contained 546 prospects, bird-eye views and map views of cities from all over the world. Fransz Hogenberg produced the plates for the first four books, and Simon van den Neuwel (Novellanus, active since 1580) those for volumes V and VI.

Georg Braun (1541-1622), a cleric of Cologne, was the principal editor of the work, and was greatly assisted in his project by the close, and continued interest of Abraham Ortelius, whose Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570 was, as a systematic and comprehensive collection of maps of uniform style, the first true atlas. The Civitates, indeed, was intended as a companion for the Theatrum, as indicated by the similarity in the titles and by contemporary references regarding the complementary nature of two works. Nevertheless, the Civitates was designs to be more popular in approach, no doubt because the novelty of a collection of city plans and views represented a more hazardous commercial undertaking than a world atlas, for which there had been a number of successful precedents. Franz Hogenberg (1535-1590) was the son of a Munich engraves who settled in Malines. He engraved most of the plates for Ortelius's Theatrum and the majority of those in the Civitates, and may have been responsible for originating the project.

Over a hundred of different artists and cartographers, the most significant of whom was Antwerp artist Georg Hoefnagel (1542-1600), engraved the cooper-plates of the Civitates from drawings. He not only contributed most of the original material for the Spanish and Italian towns but also reworked and modified those of other contributors. After Hoefnagel's death his son Jakob continued the work for the Civitates.

The author set out to depict "non icones et typi urbium," that is, not generic and typified images, "sed urbes ipsae admirabili caelaturae artificio, spectantium oculis subiectae appareant": not intended to allude or idealize but to represent faithfully on paper, to reproduce exactly, and in real time, what the eye sees, as announced in the preface to the first volume of Civitates Orbis Terrarum.

Etching with magnificent contemporary coloring, slight color oxidation, otherwise in excellent condition.

Bibliografia

Bifolco-Ronca Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo (2018), pp. 570-571, tav. 172, I/II; Ayşe Yetişkin Kubilay, Maps of Istanbul Haritalari 1422-1922 (Istanbul: Denizler Kitabevi, 2010).