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Description

Scarce early map of the region from Slovenia to Serbia, engraved by Johann Bussemacher and published by Quad.

The map is centered on Croatia and Bosnia Herzogovina, extending south to Split on the coastline and east to Belgrade.

Includes a large portrait of Rudolf II, the Holy Roman Emperor (1576-1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572-1608), King of Bohemia (1575-1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576-1608). He was a member of the House of Habsburg. Described by a noted contemporary as "the greatest art patron in the world," raised court patronage in post-Renaissance Europe to a new level of breadth and extravagance.

Rudolf's legacy has traditionally been viewed in three ways an ineffectual ruler whose mistakes led directly to the Thirty Years' War; a great and influential patron of Northern Mannerist art; and an intellectual devotee of occult arts and learning which helped seed what would be called the scientific revolution.

Matthaus Quad was a German cartographer based in Cologne. The map appeared in several geographical works published by Quad and Johann Bussemacher at the end of the 16th and beginning of the 17th century.

 

Matthias Quad Biography

Matthias Quad (1557-1613), a map publisher based in Cologne, was trained in the Netherlands by Johannes van Doetecum, who also worked with the De Jodes. Quad used many De Jode maps as a base to which he added additional information and decorations. Quad was best known for his atlases, which were part of the first boom in atlases best characterized by Abraham Ortelius’ Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. In 1592, Quad released an atlas of Europe that had 38 maps. He expanded it in 1594 to 50 maps. In 1600, he expanded the collection of maps further still, this time to 82 maps, and called the atlas, Geographisch Handtbuch. All three were small in size, allowing them to compete as cheaper alternatives to the larger atlases of Ortelius, Mercator, and the De Jodes. Quad released one other atlas, in 1608, with 86 maps, the Fascilus Geographicus.