Deventer – Joan Blaeu, 1649

“Daventria vernacule Deventer”, copper engraving published in Amsterdam in 1649 by Joan Blaeu, as part of his Tooneel der Steden van de Vereenighde Nederlanden [Theatre of the Cities of the United Netherlands]. Coloured by a leter hand. Latin text on verso. Size: 41 × 51 cm.

Deventer originated as a trading settlement at the point where the old route from Holland to Germany crossed the river IJssel. A striking feature on the map is the large Brink, the central market square, situated between the old town and the later-developed Bergkwartier.

At the end of the fifteenth century, a pile bridge was built across the IJssel. This bridge was destroyed in 1578 during the siege of the city by Count Rennenberg, and was only replaced in 1599 by a pontoon bridge built further to the south — the bridge depicted on this map.

In 1595, the fortification engineer Adriaan Anthonisz. designed a plan to provide Deventer with modern defensive works. Between 1599 and 1621 these were constructed according to a revised plan by David van Orliens. The city was surrounded by an earthen rampart with a deep moat and eight bastions. Between the bastions lay five ravelins. The two southern bastions, intended to protect the harbour, were built some distance away from it. In this way, the Raem — the area with the drying frames used by the city’s cloth industry — came to lie within the new defences. When this map was made, the old city wall and moat were still largely intact.

The Amsterdam cartographer and publisher Joan Blaeu sought to fulfill the ambitions of earlier mapmakers Abraham Ortelius and Georg Braun & Frans Hogenberg by adding a series of town books to his multi-volume world atlas.

Blaeu’s Toneel der Steden van de Vereenighde Nederlanden appeared in a Latin edition in 1649; the Dutch edition was printed in 1652. Some of the maps included in the work had already been published in earlier atlases—21, for instance, in Marcus Boxhorn’s Theatrum Hollandiae of 1632—while others were newly engraved specifically for Blaeu’s town book.

It is known that Blaeu sent letters to city councils requesting that they provide him with a city plan and a written description to include in his work.

Blaeu’s map contains a few inaccuracies. The depiction of the Bergkerk (legend no. 4) and the Mariakerk (no. 3) is incorrect. Both churches have only a single nave, but they are shown as a three-aisled and a two-aisled hall church.

In the cartouche at the lower right, Blaeu dedicates the map “to the most noble, most distinguished and most learned gentlemen, the burgomasters, aldermen and councillors of the free imperial city of Deventer.” In the upper corners appear the coats of arms of Overijssel and Deventer.

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