De Jode Gerard: Zemljovid Hrvatske

Gerard de Jode: Map of Croatia

The map shows the situation before the Battle of Sisak in 1593. On the territory of Croatia, we see larger army formations, Turkish units around the Una, and Christian units around the Kupa. It is important because it is one of the few maps that shows Croatia in its smallest spatial extent. Although no new Turkish borders are drawn on it, the border can be seen based on the crescent mark on the forts that were conquered. Čazma is designated as the westernmost stronghold of the Turks, and south of Sava Hrastovica and Drežnik, which were conquered in 1592. Given the topicality of the data, it is obvious that some Habsburg military report or military sketch served as a template. The title of the map is in the lower right corner in a Renaissance cartouche. the map was published in Cornelis de Jode's atlas.

GERARD DE JODE (1509-1591), famous Dutch graphic artist, printer, publisher and cartographer. In preparation for the publication of the atlas after 1555, de Jode published individual maps: in 1560 Jacob Gastaldi's large map of the world, in 1563 a map of Portugal, in 1564 Ortelius' map of the world, and in 1569 a series of maps of the German provinces. A fierce competitive struggle developed between Ortelius and de Jode. Although eighteen years more experienced and older, de Jode was not as skillful a publisher as Ortelius. Only eight years after the first edition of Ortelius's atlas "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum", when Ortelius had already established dominance on the market, in 1578 de Jode published his atlas "Speculum Orbis Terrarum". The Atlas was published in two volumes. The first contained 27 maps of different countries and provinces, while 38 maps of the second work entitled "Geographicum Germaniae Imperium Repraesentants" are dedicated to German countries. Due to the dominance of Ortelius's editions, de Jode's atlas saw only two editions during his lifetime (the second in 1579). After Gerard's death, his son CORNELIS DE JODE (1568-1600) supplemented his father's work and in 1593 published a new atlas with 83 maps called "Speculum Orbis Terrae".  De Jode's atlas is very rare today (only 12 copies are known).