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Description

Finely engraved birdseye view of Antwerp, engraved by Franz Hogenberg, from the 1588 edition of Michael Aitzinger's important early history of the Low Countries.

Michael Aitzinger was an Austrian nobleman, diplomat, historian, and publicist, who wrote and published several works, including a renowned volume that states the principles of a genealogical numbering system. His most famous cartograph work was Novus de Leone Belgico, first published in 1583 that included the first cartographic representation of the Low Countries as Leo Belgicus. The lion motif was inspired by the heraldic figures that appear in the coats of arms of several Dutch constituencies, as well as in the arms of William of Orange. The map was published during the period when the Netherlands was fighting the Eighty Years' War for independence from Spain.