Philipp Apian

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Portrait of Philipp Apian
Portrait of Philipp Apian, woodcut by Joachim Lederlin based on the above template by HU Alt from Erhard Cellius: Imagines Professorum Tubingesium , 1596
Section from the map by Philipp Apian, 1568
Today's city of Munich on the Bavarian country tables - the comparison reveals the high accuracy of the maps
Bust of Philipp Apian in front of the main entrance of the State Office for Digitization, Broadband and Surveying in Munich

Philipp Apian ( humanist name ; actually Bennewitz or Bienewitz ; born September 14, 1531 in Ingolstadt ; † November 14, 1589 in Tübingen ) was a South German mathematician , doctor , cartographer and heraldist . He was a university professor in Ingolstadt and Tübingen and was also known for the first land survey of Bavaria .

Life

Philipp Apian was born as Philipp Bienewitz (or Bennewitz) in Ingolstadt and was the fourth child of the mathematician, astronomer and cartographer Peter Apian from Leisnig in Saxony . His mother was called Katharina. At the age of seven he received lessons with Prince Albrecht, who later became Duke of Bavaria and who would later become his important patron. At the age of eleven he began studying mathematics at the University of Ingolstadt ; at the age of 18 he continued his studies in Burgundy , Paris and Bourges .

After his return in 1552, Philipp Apian took over his father's print shop . At the age of 21 he became professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Ingolstadt, succeeding his deceased father. He taught here from 1552 and began to attend lectures at the medical faculty in addition to his own teaching activities. He finally completed his medical studies a few years later during a trip to Italy with visits to the universities of Padua , Ferrara and Bologna. He stayed at the University of Ingolstadt until he had to leave Ingolstadt in 1569 as a staunch Protestant during the Counter Reformation at the instigation of the Jesuits .

Apian found a new home in Tübingen , but lost his post in 1583 after teaching for fourteen years because he refused to condemn Calvinism .

Until the end of his life, Apian devoted himself to completing his topographical work.

Apian's tomb is located in the collegiate church in Tübingen .

Life's work

Big map of Bavaria

In 1554, Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria commissioned Apian to map Bavaria . The cards were intended to complement the Bavarian Chronicle of Johannes Aventinus from 1526 to 1533 .

In seven summers Apian traveled to Upper and Lower Bavaria , the Upper Palatinate , the Archdiocese and Monastery of Salzburg and the Diocese of Eichstätt and carried out land surveys . He used astronomical localization, measured bus bars and applied a kind of graphic triangulation . Distances were measured on foot or on horseback. Information from the population was a welcome addition. After two years of elaboration, he created a 6 × 6 meter map on a scale of 1: 45,000, which was colored by the painter Bartel Refinger . During a joint survey trip, Apian's brother Timothy died after falling from his horse, and Philip had the so-called Timothy cross erected at the scene of the accident .

The map, completed in 1563, was a unique specimen that was not reproduced and placed in the residence's library. It showed much finer details than the land panels. In the middle of the 18th century, the engineer lieutenant Franz Xaver Pusch made a replica of the large map. When he died in 1782, the original of the large map, which had since been badly damaged, was burned. Pusch's replica was burned in bombings towards the end of the Second World War.

Bavarian country tables

On the basis of the “large map”, Philipp Apian had Jost Amman make woodcuts on a smaller scale of 1: 144,000 in 1566 . These so-called Bavarian country tables , divided into 24 woodcuts , were published by Apian in his own print shop in Ingolstadt. The accuracy of the maps, which for the first time depicts the whole of Upper and Lower Bavaria in detail (and is therefore the first special atlas of a European country), was not exceeded until the 19th century; Napoleon still used it to invade Bavaria.

An original print of the map is exhibited in the Ingolstadt City Museum, the printing blocks are now in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich . The hallmark of the first edition from 1568 ("Bairische Landtaflen") is a monogram by the woodblock cutter on panel 24 with a signature at the bottom left, as well as milestones and information on the places on the back of the woodcuts. The map made up of the individual prints is as big as a decorative tapestry.

Abraham Ortelius distributed colored copper engravings of these country tables in book form "ex tabula Philippi Apian"

Terrestrial globe

On behalf of Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria , Philipp Apian made a terrestrial globe that was completed in 1576 and placed in the library room on the upper floor of the antiquarian hall of the Residenz in Munich .

Bavarian coat of arms collection and Descriptio Bavariae

The Apian coat of arms collection , cut in wood as early as 1562, comprised a total of 646 coats of arms of the Bavarian clergy, the nobility and the cities and markets of Bavaria. Together with a description of the state of Bavaria, the collection should complement and complete the representation of the state on the state boards. Apian passed away from work on the collection and description. As far as it has survived, the coat of arms collection, together with the almost complete Latin text of the description of the country, was first published in 1880 by the Historic Association of Upper Bavaria on the occasion of the celebration of the seven hundredth anniversary of the Wittelsbach rulership .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Apian exhibition 2013/2014 in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, accessed on May 27, 2014
  2. ↑ Ralf Kern: Scientific instruments in their time . Volume 1: From astrolabe to mathematical cutlery . Cologne, 2010. pp. 332–333.
  3. ^ Klaus Mohr: A guided tour through the collegiate church in Tübingen on July 19, 2007. Tübingen-Kilchberg. ( Full text )
  4. ↑ Hans Wolff: Bavaria in the image of the map - Carthographia Bavariae . Ed .: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. 2nd Edition. Anton H. Konrad Verlag, Weißenhorn 1991, ISBN 3-87437-301-0 , p. 89 .
  5. ^ Heinrich Grimm: New contributions to the "fish literature" of the XV. to XVII. Century and through their printer and bookkeeper. In: Börsenblatt for the German book trade - Frankfurt edition. No. 89, November 5, 1968 (= Archive for the History of Books. Volume 62), pp. 2871–2887, here: p. 2876.
  6. ↑ Digitized version of the Bavarian State Library online (BLO)
  7. ↑ Otto Happ: Cartographia Bavariae - Bavaria in the image of the map . In: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Ed.): Exhibition catalog . Munich 1988, p. 40 .
  8. ↑ Bavarikon .
  9. ^ Historical Association of Upper Bavaria (ed.): Philipp Apian's Topography of Bavaria and Bavarian Coat of Arms Collection. To celebrate the seven-hundredth anniversary of the ruling of the illustrious House of Wittelsbach . C. Wolf, Munich 1880. ( digitized version )

literature

Web links

Commons : Philipp Apian  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Apian, Philipp
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bennewitz, Philipp (real name); Bienewitz, Philipp (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German mathematician, physician, cartographer of Old Bavaria and heraldist
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1531
PLACE OF BIRTH Ingolstadt
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1589
Place of death Tübingen