Bidspirit auction | Conimbriae civitas (Coimbra). Colónia, c.

Conimbriae civitas (Coimbra). Colónia, c. 1598. - [COIMBRA]. Illius Fretis civitatis Conimbriae in Lusitania ad flumen Mondanum effigies. Georg BRAUN; Frans HOGENBERG (eds.). [Cologne, Georg Braun & Frans Hogenberg, c. 1598]. Coloured engraving; 425 × 535 mm (sheet). View of the city of Coimbra taken from the left bank of the Mondego, with the bridge in the foreground and the urban fabric arranged amphitheatrically up the slope to the citadel and university area. At the centre of the upper part, a large coat of arms of Portugal; below, a bilingual cartouche with descriptive text and, in front of it, two male figures dressed in the learned fashion of the 16th century, reinforcing the city’s character as a university centre. The engraving highlights churches, colleges, convents and civic buildings marked with numbers, as well as gardens, vineyards and houses outside the walls. Verso printed in Latin under the heading CONIMBRIA , with historical and topographical description, belonging to volume I of the Civitates orbis terrarum . The composition, based on a drawing by Joris Hoefnagel, is one of the earliest panoramic views of Coimbra and one of the most widely disseminated images of the 16th-century city, fixing in lasting form its identity as the kingdom’s university capital.