Braun & Hogenberg Orvieto & Loreto

Braun & Hogenberg.
Orvieto; Lauretum.
Cologne, 1581. 350 x 484mm. Original colour.
£680
Two Italian town plans, published in the 'Civitated Orbis Terrarum', the first series of printed townplans. Orvieto is in central Tuscany and Loreto in Ancona. It appears here because it was a famous pilgrimage site, with a basilica containing the house that the Virgin Mary had been born. Apparently angels carried the basilica from Nazareth to protect it from the Turks, first to Dalmatia in 1291, then to this hill in 1295. BRAU0075