bavarikon4UMaps and Plans from the Holdings of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library) guards a substantial hoard of historical maps from around the world. Numerous of these maps document the political, economic and spatial development of Bavaria.
The oldest maps originated in the sixteenth century. The most important part of the holdings consists of maps and atlases of the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, among these one of only two known exemplars worldwide of the Carta Marina of Olaus Magnus (1539) as well as rare atlases by Ortelius, Mercator, Blaeu, Homann, Seutter, Lotter and Probst. The selection for bavarikon included next to substantial works of cartography also maps to single regions and historical territories as well as themed maps and city plans.
An early project of cartography were the Landtaflen (Bavarian Maps) by Philipp Apian (1531-1589), at the time professor of mathematics at the Bavarian university in Ingolstadt. These consist of 24 segments of maps as well as of a survey map which Apian had created based on his systematic measuring journeys taken between 1554 and 1561 and had produced as a woodcut in 1567. In 1568, the Landtaflen were first published through the print shop of Apian. The surveying of Bavaria by Apian is the most precise of its time: up to the Napoleonic period, the Landtaflen formed the foundation for all cartographical representations of Bavaria. It would take until the publication of the Topographischer Atlas vom Königreiche Baiern (Topographical Atlas of the Kingdom of Bavaria) that a qualitatively worthy successor project of Apian's cartographical works would be found.
The Topographischer Atlas as well belongs to the great cartographical works displayed on bavarikon and is based on the systematic surveying of Bavaria as conducted by the Statistisch-Topographisches Bureau (Statistical-Topographical Office) founded in 1801 and called today Landesamt für Digitalisierung, Breitband und Vermessung (Agency for Digitisation, High-Speed Internet and Surveying). The handmade surveying records prompted Elector Maximilian IV Joseph (1756-1825), from 1806 King Max I, to order the creation of the atlas at a scale of 1: 50.000. The sheets of the atlas which would today be called by another term were made in the technique of copperplate prints and published between 1812 and 1867.
Further extraordinary historical maps on bavarikon are the maps by Georg Philipp Finckh (1608–1679) whose collection of materials were meant to update Apian's Landtaflen but led to the creation of dedicated map of Altbayern (Old Bavaria, former Electorate of Bavaria). The incomplete Strom-Atlas (River Atlas) by Adrian von Riedl (1746-1809), the large-format sheets with maps and images of which are dedicated to Bavarian rivers and lakes as well as to the respective bridges and monuments, and the numerous maps of Munich as well as the maps of the most important Bavarian publishing houses Homann und Seutter.
Manuscripts and prints from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek's collection on the subject "Geography" have their own section in bavarikon.
The part collections of the "Maps and Plans from the Holdings of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek" available on bavarikon
- Topographic Maps
- Sets of Topographic Maps
- Atlases
- Maps on Traffic and Travelling
- Military Maps
- Maps concerning Church and Religion
- Maps concerning History and Administration
- Hydrological Maps
- Maps of the Upper Palatinate
- Maps of Upper Franconia
- Maps of Central Franconia
- Maps of Lower Franconia
- Maps of Swabia
- Maps of Lower Bavaria
- Maps of Upper Bavaria
- Maps of the Palatinate
- Maps of Bavarian Cities
- Maps on Geology
>> This collection is part of the holdings of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library)
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