A fine full-color example of Seutter's plan of the city of Jerusalem, based on the 16th-century map of Christian van Adrichom. Most buildings shown are numbered and can be referenced to an index included with some copies of this map. The view is a very detailed portrayal of Jerusalem which reads as a history of the city from biblical to Medieval times.
Van Adrichom's plan was originally issued in Theatrum Terrae Sanctae by Christian van Adrichom (1533-1595) in 1584 in Koln, with a booklet describing Jerusalem. It was subsequently added to all the editions of the Theatrum.
The plan contains sites and scenes of Jerusalem, both within and outside the city, each depicting information described in Scripture along with other historical and traditional sources. There is no chronological order to the scenes, as ancient scenes and characters are displayed alongside European buildings and characters of the sixteenth century.
Van Adrichom's plan was later copied by Jodocus Henricus Kramer in the late 17th century and also forms the basis for Braun & Hogenberg's two-sheet vertical plan of Ancient Jerusalem (c 1588) and by Jan Jansson in his 1657 town book. Moreover, Adrichom's influence can be seen in many of the plans of Jerusalem published in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Adrichom (1533-1585) was a Dutch priest whose scholarly research of the Bible and writings of pilgrims and Josephus made him the acknowledged expert on Holy Land geography. Josephus was a Jewish historian who was employed by the Romans to write about the history of Roman Palestine during the Jewish revolt of 60-70 AD. Many of his works contain accurate geographic details based on his firsthand observations. Adrichom was assigned to Cologne during the time it was a thriving center for cartography and atlas publishing.
Matthäus Seutter (1678-1757) was a prominent German mapmaker in the mid-eighteenth century. Initially apprenticed to a brewer, he trained as an engraver under Johann Baptist Homann in Nuremburg before setting up shop in his native Augsburg. In 1727 he was granted the title Imperial Geographer. His most famous work is Atlas Novus Sive Tabulae Geographicae, published in two volumes ca. 1730, although the majority of his maps are based on earlier work by other cartographers like the Homanns, Delisles, and de Fer.
Alternative spellings: Matthias Seutter, Mathaus Seutter, Matthaeus Seutter, Mattheus Seutter