Braun, Georg (1541-1622) and Franz Hogenberg (c. 1538-1590).

6 volumes bound in 3, folio (414 x 280mm.), [2]; [30]; [18]; [4]; [26]; [10]pp., Latin text, illustration: 6 engraved allegorical titles, 362 (of 363) double-page plates (showing 575 cities, 2 folding), all coloured by a contemporary hand, binding: contemporary Dutch vellum, lacking map of Luxembourg in volume 5, title and preliminaries in volumes 3 and 5 creased and becoming loose, a few small tears, some occasional marginal soiling, lacking ties, vellum somewhat worn at edges

Koeman II, B&H 1-6; Phillips, Atlases 59; Shirley, British Library T.BRA-1b

the first systematic city atlas and “one of the best-selling works in the last quarter of the 16th century” (Koeman, II, p.10). The text is by Georg Braun, canon of Cologne Cathedral, and the engravings by Franz Hogenberg and Simon Novellanus, many after the drawings of Joris Hoefnagel, the remainder after Abraham Ortelius, Heinrich Rantzau, Jacob van Deventer and others. The work took over 45 years to publish and even longer in its preparation. Although not strictly an atlas, the work is so close in style and name to the atlases of Ortelius, De Jode and Mercator that it is generally considered part of this great tradition.

As Koeman notes, the popularity of the work led to a great number of editions; because of erratic dating (or an absence of dates altogether), these are sometimes difficult to distinguish from one another. The present copy carries the following sequence of dates: no date, 1575, no date, no date, no date, 1617.