Antique Map of the Danube River and surroundings by Homann Heirs (c.1730)

Description: Antique map titled 'Danubii Fluminus (a fontibus prope Doneschingam usq Posonium urbem defignati) Pars Superior, in qua Suevia, Bavaria, Asutria, Stiria, Carinthia, Carniola, Tyrolis et Helvetia com magna parte Italiae exhibentur a Ioh. Bapt. Homanno S.C. M. Geographo Norimbergae.' Map of the northern part of Italy, Switzerland, and parts of Germany. Covers from Rome in the south, north as far as Bavaria and Bohemia, to Provence in the west, and modern day Albania in the east. This highly detailed map was constructed to illustrate the western extant of the Danube River. Source unknown, to be determined.

Artists and Engravers: Made by 'Homann Heirs' after an anonymous artist. Made by an anonymous engraver after 'Homann Heirs'. Following the long period of Dutch domination, the Homann family became the most important map publishers in Germany in the eighteenth century, the business being founded by J.B. Homann in Nuremberg about the year 1702. Soon after publishing his first atlas in 1707 he became a member of the Berlin academy of Sciences and in 1715 he was appointed Geographer to the Emperor. After the founder's death in 1724, the firm was continued under the direction of his son until 1730 and was then bequeathed to his heirs on the condition that it trades under the name of Homann Heirs. The firm remained in being until the next century and had a wide influence on map publishing in Germany. Apart from the atlases the firm published a very large number of individual maps. The Homanns produced a Neuer Atlas in 1714, a Grosser Atlas in 1737, and an Atlas Maior with about 300 maps in 1780. They also issued a special Atlas of Germany with full sized plans of principal cities, school atlases and an Atlas of Silesia in 1750 with 20 maps.