Jerusalem in Old Maps and Views

Jerusalem in Old Maps and Views

  • 9/14/1998
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     JERUSALEM IN OLD MAPS AND VIEWS
     INTRODUCTION  |  6TH-13TH  CENTURY  |  15TH-16TH  CENTURY  |  17TH-18TH  CENTURY  |  19TH  CENTURY
     
     

    		 
       BERNHARD VON  BREYDENBACH'S  MAP  OF  THE  HOLY  LAND  (1486) 
     
    In 1483 Bernhard von Breydenbach, a nobleman and deacon of Mainz cathedral, Germany, made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. After returning home he published a
    description of his voyage together with this map by Erhard Reuwich. The country is seen from the west (with a pilgrim's vessel near the coast at Jaffa) towards the east. However, the most important feature in the map is Jerusalem, drawn in minute detail as seen from the Mount of Olives westward, since this is the best viewing angle of the Holy City.

     
       THE FIRST PRINTED  MAPS,  BY  LUCAS  BRANDIS  (1475)
    		 
     
    In 1475 (some 25 years after the invention of printing from moveable type) Lucas Brandis published an encyclopaedic work about Christianity to which he added two maps which thus became the first
    printed maps, all previous maps having been manuscripts. One is a circular world map centered on the Holy Land. The other, shown here, is a map of the Land of Israel with Jerusalem at its center. In common with most mediaeval maps it, too, describes the Bible lands not geographically but symbolically.

     
    		  
       VIEW OF JERUSALEM  BY  BRAUN  AND  HOGENBERG  (1575) 
     
    This view of Jerusalem by Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg belongs to the genus of views of Jerusalem which portray the Holy City not as seen personally, but by a mixture of imagination and reliance on the Bible and other
    literary sources. Within the nearly circular (and imaginary) city walls some buildings, such as the dome of the Rock and the Holy Sepulchre, are depicted quite realistically, following e.g. Breydenbach's map.

     
       BÜNTING'S  CLOVER-LEAF  MAP,  1581
    		 
     
    "The whole world in a clover leaf, which is the crest of the city of Hannover, my beloved fatherland." This caption was given by Heinrich Bünting, native of that city, to one of his allegorical maps. The three continents of the Old
    World are shown well-divided by the seas, but connected by Jerusalem as the hub of the world because of its religious importance, especially at the time of the European wars of the Reformation. The blue ocean is titled "The Great Mediterranean Sea of the World"; only the Red Sea is colored red and shown separately.

    		 
     
     
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