Ierusalem et suburbia: Van Adrichom 1584 [1682]

• Title: Ierusalem et suburbia
• Author: Christian van Adrichom
• Date: 1584 [1682]
• Medium: Copperplate engraving
• Condition: A crisp and dark impression on four sheets joined as published, on thin paper. A few short tears into image, some marginal repaired chips and very small splits, narrow marginal addition lower left outside neatline, one or two old folds reinforced with no loss of image, all expertly done. Light age toning. An excellent example of a scarce map.
• Inches: 20 x 29 1/2 [Paper]
• Centimeters: 50.8 x 74.93 [Paper]
• Product ID: 311016

Ierusalem et suburbia eius, sicut tempore Christi floruit, cum locis, in quibus Christus passus est: quae religiose a Christianis obseruata, etia nu venerationi habetur descripta per Chritianum Adrichom Delphum

This map of Jerusalem, first published in 1584, is considered by renowned antiquarian book- and map-dealer Kenneth Nebenzahl to be “the most dramatic and important of the sixteenth century." Oriented with north at the left-hand side of the piece, this large-scale view is filled with Biblical drama. Over 250 place names and events are enumerated and described in a text that would have originally accompanied the map. The fourteen stations of the cross depicted here became the officially-accepted locations in the Catholic faith. Prior to Adrichom’s scholarly interpretation and this map, the stations of the cross numbered from eleven to thirty-one, with no consensus in regard to their location. The City of David and Mt. Sion are found to the south, while the camps of invaders and Mt. Cavalry are located to the north. 

Christian von Adrichom was born in Delft and was the nephew of the famous Dutch humanist Martin Dorp, who counted Erasmus and Thomas More among his friends. He studied theology at Louvain and became a priest in 1561. During the wars between Spain and the Low Countries, he fled to Cologne where he became rector of an Augustine cloister. He began work on his magnum opus, Urbis Hierosolyma Depicta, the first part of a planned three-part history of the Holy Land.  It contained his large plan of Jerusalem, illustrating not only the city, but the history of the Holy Land. Sadly, Adrichom died after publishing just the first volume, however the subsequent volumes were published posthumously.