Original antique engraving by Mattias Merian, published in 1691 showing a bird’s-eye view of the fortress city of Buda (German: Ofen) under siege during the 1684 Holy League campaign against the Ottomans, drawn from the Alt Ofen looking along the Danube.
Three settlements which were to later join into the city of Budapest are obvious in this view: Obuda and Buda, on the western bank of the Danube, and Pest on the eastern bank.
Issued in “Theatrum Europaeum”, the long-running Frankfurt-based chronicle of European wars and politics originally begun by Matthäus Merian the Elder and continued by his heirs, this engraving was printed in 1691 to illustrate the first major setback in the Habsburg effort to drive the Ottomans from Hungary.
The view looks southeast down the Danube River (Danubius Fl.), with Pest on the left bank and the fortified city of Buda on the right, clinging to Castle Hill. Ottoman mosques with tall minarets dominate the skyline. At the base of the hill lies a dense Christian suburb, where the Holy League army under Charles of Lorraine and Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, constructed trenches, redoubts, and batteries during the siege. In the distance, stylized marching formations and encampments show the mass of allied troops arrayed against the city.
On the left, a curled scroll cartouche provides a twenty-item key identifying major features of the battle: the Schloss, the Juden-Kirch (Jewish synagogue), Christian and Turkish baths, military positions including the breach and batteries, cemeteries, gardens, and several burned bridges.
Though the 1684 siege failed, the image kept the Holy Roman and German public educated about the campaign after the fact. Buda would not fall until 1686, in a far bloodier assault.
Matthäus Merian, the leading German illustrator of the 17th century, was born in Basel in 1593. He learned the art of copperplate engraving in Zurich and subsequently worked and studied in Strasbourg, Nancy, Paris, and the Low Countries. In 1618 he went to Frankfurt, wherein in 1618, he married the eldest daughter of J.T. de Bry, publisher and engraver. After de Bry died in 1623, he took over his business. De Bry’s business remained in Merian’s family until 1726, when a fire destroyed it.
In 1635 he began the series “Theatrum Europaeum”. Between 1642 and 1688, he published Martin Zeiller’s “Topographia Germaniae”, with more than 2,000 plates etched and engraved by himself and his sons Matthäus and Caspar.
He also took over and completed the later parts and editions of the Grand Voyages and Petits Voyages, initially started by de Bry in 1590.
