KøbenhanskeMotiver_1587-1807

landscapes, and genre- and flower pieces. The town often constituted the back­ ground for a crucifixion scene - thus serving as the symbol of the heavenly Jerusa­ lem. Apse mosaics and frescoes frequently have Bethlehem on one side and Jeru­ salem on the other. It is unlikely that the artists ever saw either of these cities, at least not the heavenly Jerusalem, and they depicted them entirely according to temperament and imagination, the towns consequently resembling towns that they knew - indeed, at times they even chose the very town in which they lived. It has been said that topographical painting - and with this term we mean the portraying of recognizable towns, streets, or buildings - came into existence when, shortly after 1400, Brunelleschi painted his famous plates from Piazza del Duomo and Piazza della Signoria in Florence. Naturally, this was connected with the rediscovery of perspective. With the invention of the arts of wood engraving and printing arose the possibilities of spreading information about other places, and this was exactly what the Renaissance - the age of discovery - needed. The oldest multiplied representations of towns go back to the last quarter of the 15th century; the first example is Werner Rolewinck's Faciculus temporum (1474), with a panorama over Cologne, while the second edition also included a view of Venice. With Hartmann Schedel's Weltchronik from 1493 the series of cosmographies was initiated. One of the most famous was the Civitates orbis terrarum by Georg Braun & Franz Hogenberg - published in Cologne from 1580 and on. In volume IV of this work, dedicated to King Christian IV, there is a large number of Danish towns, among them Copenhagen, which is seen from no less than two angles. While Braun & Hogenberg and other similar works, for example Merian's Theatrum europeam, showed the towns in panorama from without - often in bird's-eye view - there also existed an Italian tradition of depicting the towns, especially in Venice and Rome, from within. It was not only the totality which was of interest, but to a large extent also particularly characteristic buildings and sights, in Rome primarily of course the many relics of antiquity. It was first of all the Netherlanders who struck upon this path, among others Maerten van Heems- kerck, whose sketchbooks contain numerable Roman views. Then followed en­ gravings with archeaological-topographical characteristics; among others I here think of Antonio Lafrery's colossal folio Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae from the 1570s. We have engravings from the 17th century with titles such as Palazzi di Roma, Giardini di Roma, etc. But the peak was reached in the 18th century with Vasi's and Piranesi's magnificent volumes of print, among others the latter s Vedute di Roma from 1748. This the classical period within the art of views also produced a number of painters such as van Wittel in Rome, Carlevaris, Canaletto,