Georg Braun (1541 - 1622) And Frans Hogenberg

Braun and Hogenberg are known for the production of an atlas of cities entitled 'Civitates Orbis Terrarum'. One of the most important works in the history of both cartography and topography.
Georg Braun, Canon of Cologne Cathedral, compiled the text and Frans Hogenberg was mainly responsible for the engravings, many of which were based on drawings by Joris Hoefnagel, a professional topographical artist. Together they worked for over twenty years to produce the first systematic collection of views and plans of the world's cities.

The first volume was published in 1572 and the final volume in 1617.
The systematic approach to the overall design of the work was very similar to that of Ortelius's Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of 1570 and can be seen very much as a companion piece to the Ortelius. Indeed, Hogenberg had produced work for the Ortelius atlas.

The Civitates, which proved to be one of the major works of the Renaissance, used a combination of three types of representation : The pictorial panoramic view showing the arrangement of a town's buildings situated in their topographical surroundings ; the town plan - a straightforward scaled map and the Bird's -eye view which is more or less a combination of panorama and plan as seen from above. Ultimately the six volumes contained over 500 city views and maps together with a huge amount of textual information.

After 1618 there were a number of re-issues and the plates were eventually aquired by Jan Jansson who published an eight volume edition. Thereafter the maps were re-issued a number of times in various forms and were published for the last time in 1750.