Tabula Hungariae (also ''Lázár's map''Lázár térképe
/ref>) is the earliest surviving printed map of

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

, which has supposedly been made by Hungarian Lázár deák before 1528. It was inscribed on

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Memory of the World Register Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered ...

in 2007.{{cite web , title= Tabula Hungariae , url= http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=22451&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html , date=2008-05-16 , publisher=UNESCO Memory of the World Programme , accessdate=2009-12-15

Description

The map is approximately 65×85 cm in size and is oriented in southwest–northeast direction. It shows the settlements and landmarks of the

Kingdom of Hungary The Kingdom of Hungary was a monarchy in Central Europe that existed for nearly a millennium, from the Middle Ages into the 20th century. The Principality of Hungary emerged as a Christian kingdom upon the coronation of the first king Stephen ...

in the early 16th century. The southern areas occupied by the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

are marked with different colors. As the only covered parts outside the border are in the south, it is thought that the purpose of the creation of the map was the preparations for the war against the Ottomans. Some of the settlements shown on the map vanished during the years of Ottoman wars and oppression. The most valued information on the map are the names and descriptions of settlements. There are approximately 1400 geographical names on the map, of which 1270 are names of settlements (365 on the territory of post-Trianon Hungary.) At the bottom of the map is the description of the country in German and Latin.

Names of settlements

The geographical names were transcribed differently from today. For example, today's ''é'' was written ''ee'', today's ''ö'' was ''ew''. It is also noted that ''c'' is sometimes written ''tz'', which is a characteristic of the

Old High German Old High German (OHG; german: Althochdeutsch (Ahd.)) is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 750 to 1050. There is no standardised or supra-regional form of German at this period, and Old High ...

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

. These may be created by contributors, who prepared the work for printing. However, with some other names, Lázár used the pronunciation of

Hungarian dialects Hungarian has ten dialects. These are fully mutually intelligible, and do not differ significantly from standard Hungarian except for the Csángó dialect. They are mostly distinguished by pronunciation; although there are differences in vocab ...

Printing

The map was printed with the aid of

Georg Tannstetter Georg Tannstetter (April 1482 – 26 March 1535), also called Georgius Collimitius, was a humanist teaching at the University of Vienna. He was a medical doctor, mathematician, astronomer, cartographer, and the personal physician of the empero ...

, was paid by

Johannes Cuspinianus Johannes Cuspinianus (December 1473 – 19 April 1529), born Johan Spießhaymer (or Speißheimer), was a German-Austrian humanist, scientist, diplomat, and historian. Born in Spießheim near Schweinfurt in Franconia, of which ''Cuspinianus'' is ...

, in the press of

Petrus Apianus Petrus Apianus (April 16, 1495 – April 21, 1552), also known as Peter Apian, Peter Bennewitz, and Peter Bienewitz, was a German humanist, known for his works in mathematics, astronomy and cartography. His work on "cosmography", the field that de ...

Ingolstadt Ingolstadt (, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an independent city on the Danube in Upper Bavaria with 139,553 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2022). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area. Ingolstadt is the second largest city in Upper Ba ...

Legacy

There were only a few maps printed, almost all of them lost through history, so researchers could only know it from descriptions. However, in the early 1880s, one map was unexpectedly found. It was bought by collector Sándor Apponyi in 1882. The map was transferred in 1924 to the

National Széchényi Library The National Széchényi Library ( hu, Országos Széchényi Könyvtár) (OSZK) is a library in Budapest, Hungary, located in Buda Castle. It is one of two Hungarian national libraries, the other being University of Debrecen Library. History The ...

, and is also there currently.

Later versions

There had been made several copies of the original map until 1552 but these did not survive. However, there were maps made using Lázár's map also after 1552, with title ''Tabula Hungariae'', illetve ''Nova descriptio totius Hungariae''. Six different versions are known: * Giovanni Andrea Vavassore (worked 1510–1572),

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, 1553 * Pirro Ligorio (1496-1583),

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, 1558 (lost), 1599 * Antonio Lafreri (1512-1577), Rome, 1558, 1559, 156? *

János Zsámboky János Zsámboky or János Zsámboki or János Sámboki, (with his humanist name la, Johannes Sambucus, or Johannes Pannonicus Sambucus; 1 June 1531 – 13 June 1584) was a Hungarian humanist scholar: physician, philologist and historian. Sam ...

(1531-1584),

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, 1566 * Claudio Duchetti (1554-1597), Rome, 1577 * Giovanni Orlandi (worked 1600–1604), Rome, 1602

References

A site on the Tabula Hungariae és változatai by the National Széchényi Library
( OSZK)
A Tabula Hungariae és változatai
( OSZK)
Dokumentumörökség lett Magyarország első nyomtatott térképe
– UNESCO portál (en:, fr:)
Lázár térképe és változatai

Lázár deák
* Wolfgang Lazius (Lázi Farkas) Historic maps of Europe Maps of Hungary Geographic history of Hungary Memory of the World Register 16th-century maps and globes