A lovely bird’s eye view of Bergen by John Thornton, based on Braun and Hogenberg’s View. The sailing ships are anchored in the harbour, dominated by the Tyska Bryggen (German Quay). This is the quarter with the old mercantile houses. For 400 years the Hanseatic League, established in 1360, dominated the economic fortunes of the North and Baltic Sea, with an almost complete monopoly in the trade of stockfish and fish oil.
Bergen, founded in 1070 by King Olav Kyrre, was the seat of the Norwegian kings in the 13th Century. Norway’s greatest export in the Middle Ages was fish products, and as Bergen lay between the large fisheries in northern Norway and its European trading partners, it became an important centre of import and export goods.
Copperplate engraving from “Millar’s new Complete and Universal System of Geography, published Alexander Hogg, 1785.
Size 34 x 22 cms. Condition Poor
