Copper engraving, 350x490 mm, hand painted. Fascinating bird's eye view of the Russian metropolis. The city is captured very schematically, surrounded by a wall. Taken from "Civitates Orbis Terrarum", a milestone in landscape painting, printed from 1572 to 1617 in 6 volumes published in different years in various languages, compiled and written by Georg Braun, while Frans Hogenberg was the author of the engravings together with Simon Novellanus, generally from subjects by Georg Hoefnagel. Good copy even if the sheet is slightly wavy. (Taschen): "Moscow is shown very schematically in a bird's-eye view; between the groups of identical houses are and few people and some very simplified large buildings. In contradiction to the text, the city is surrounded by a wall. According to legend, Moscow was founded in 1147 by Yuri Dolgoruki; by the 15th century it had become a large city with decisive wordly and religious power. The symbol of wordly power is the Kremlin, which was constructed from 1485 to 1495 and extended in several stages up to 1530. In 1472, through the marriage of Ivan III with the Byzantine Princess Sophia Palaiologos, the niece of the last East Roman emperor, Moscow also became the center of the Russian-Orthodox church, which is incongruous with the vegetation, and the foreground Russian soldiers, here called "Moscovites", are depicted”