Books and Manuscripts

Braun, Georg, and Frans Hogenberg
Londinum, Feracissimi Angliae Regni Metropolis
(Cologne, 1574). Engraved hand-colored map. Second state (with “Westmester” changed to “Westmuster" and the Royal Exchange inserted). Latin text on verso. 15 1/2 x 21 1/2 in. (394 x 546 mm). A few scattered very small repaired holes, with painted infilling; small rust burn at bottom center recto, sello tape along verso edge below same. In mat and in frame, 23 1/2 x 29 in. (597 x 737 mm). Howgego 2

An early bird's-eye view of London, from Braun & Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum. This view, reduced in size, likely derives from a 1553-59, 15-sheet plan of the city called the “Copperplate” map. Only three printing plates of that map survive and no prints, making this engraving “the first surviving printed map of the whole of London and Westminster” (Whitfield, London A Life in Maps, p. 35).