Apian, Philipp: Bairische Landtafeln 1568 - Gesamtkarte

Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

Description

In 1554, Philipp Apian, professor of mathematics at the Bavarian University in Ingolstadt, received from Duke Albrecht V (1528-1579; duke from 1550) the commission to create an exact map of Bavaria. Up to 1561, he and his companions, therefore, travelled systematically up and down the country and undertook countless surveys during the summers. The result of this land survey was the coloured map, which was completed in 1563 and had a size of 25 square meters. It was stored in the ducal library until it was destroyed in 1782 for its bad state of conservation. Based on this large map in a scale of 1:40.000 Apian later created a smaller version in a scale of 1:144.000. This map Apian divided into 24 parts plus a general overview, which he had turned into woodcuts by Jost Amman (1539-1591) in 1567. The printing blocks are today at the Bayerische Nationalmuseum München (Bavarian National Museum, Munich). In 1568, the maps were first published by Apian’s printing press, shortly before he had to leave Ingolstadt and Bavaria for being Protestant. The land survey of Bavaria by Apian was the most precise of its time; the charts remained the foundation for all cartographical depictions of Bavaria. The Topographische Atlas des Königreichs Bayern (Topographical Atlas of the Kingdom of Bavaria) became the first real successor of Apian’s map.

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