Bird's eye view of Szczecin

The first bird's eye views of Szczecin were created in the 16th century. Perspective views allowed for including more information, showing the whole city with the course of the streets and the most important buildings. They were often commissioned by the dukes of the Pomeranian Griffin dynasty. In the 17th century, works of this type, published in geographic and historical works, were more accurate, although still far from being faithful to the actual topography. Their authors used depictions of the city created in earlier years. One of them is a bird's-eye view of Szczecin coloured in watercolour by Petrus Bertius (1565-629), a theologian, historian and geographer. In 1600, he was commissioned by the French king Louis XIII (1601-1643) to publish an atlas entitled Commentariorum Rerum Germanicarum libri tres. The publication appeared in Amsterdam and was based on maps by the famous 16th century cartographer and engraver Mercator. The view of Szczecin included in Bertius' publication was a simplified version of a print made by Frans Hogenberg (1535-1590), a Flemish engraver, cartographer and publisher, and his colleague Georg Braun (1542-1622), a German theologian, geographer, cartographer and printer. Hogenberg produced the copperplate, while Braun was the author of the text for it. The graphic was included in Braun's multi-volume work Civitates orbis terrarum, containing maps and descriptions of world cities. The drawing by Braun and Hogenberg was the first depiction of Szczecin with its entire urban layout and surroundings. The main emphasis was put on showing the city buildings. The first version of this work was soon corrected, thus gaining credibility. The second version of Braun and Hogenberg's copperplate depiction of Szczecin was used in Petrus Bertius’ work.

Małgorzata Peszko