Leuven Map 1599 Braun & Hogenberg Bird's-Eye View Print - Leuven, Louvain, Brabant, City Fortifications

This detailed city map of Leuven, titled Lovanium, Brabanticarum urbium caput, comes from the famous Civitates Orbis Terrarum of Georg Braun and Franz Hogenberg and was published in Cologne in 1599. The map presents a bird's-eye view of the city and shows its streets, buildings and fortifications with remarkable precision. Agricultural fields surround the urban area, and a Latin cartouche in the lower left corner describes Leuven and celebrates its cultural and intellectual significance. Decorative elements include the city's coat of arms and figures in contemporary attire, and the reference is given as Van der Krogt 4. It is a handsome sheet to hang, since the dense roofs, the fortification lines and the fields around them give the eye a great deal to follow across the whole page.

Georg Braun was a Catholic cleric of Cologne, canon and dean at the church of St. Maria ad Gradus for thirty-seven years, and the chief editor of the Civitates, the greatest book of town views ever published. Frans Hogenberg was a Flemish and German engraver born in Mechelen, who worked in Antwerp with Abraham Ortelius and engraved most of the 546 views of the work. The six volumes appeared in Cologne between 1572 and 1617, and Braun lived long enough to see the sixth. The title of this sheet calls Leuven the head of the cities of Brabant and the sole seat of the Muses and the finest arts, a description that fits a university town.

A collector of city views, a graduate or family with roots in Leuven, or a reader of the Low Countries' history will find a distinctive gift here. TheMapVault's view of Antwerp from the same Civitates shows the great port, whereas this sheet shows the scholarly town of Brabant at the same date. Like every print in the collection, it ships unframed and is available in a full range of sizes, from a compact desk piece to a large-format statement print.