Peter PIŠÚT, Martin ČIČO
The “Gonzaga” plan of fortifications of the town and castle of Pressburg (Bratislava) from 1656 – 1658 and changes of the Danube floodplain
Pišút, P., Čičo, M.: The “Gonzaga” plan of fortifications of the town and castle of Pressburg (Bratislava) from 1656 – 1658 and changes of the Danube floodplain. Kartografické listy, 2025, 33 (1).
Abstract: In the General State Archives in Karlsruhe (Germany) there is a bound album containing 75 sheets of plans of fortifications and objects of defense of the border anti-Ottoman defense line of the then Lower and Upper Hungary (Hfk. Planband, Bd. XIII, inv. 1024). The album is associated with the name of Annibale Gonzaga, a field marshal, who from 1657 served in the Habsburg Imperial War Council (Hofkriegsrat), eventually as its president. Folio 4 in the aforementioned volume of maps presents a little-known plan of the fortification of the castle and the city of Pressburg (Bratislava), which was probably surveyed in 1656 – 1658 by military engineer Gerhard Graaß. This is one of the oldest plans of the city that were created by direct geodetic surveying. In this article, we present a detailed analysis of this valuable plan not only in terms of cartographic accuracy, but also in terms of a factual representation of the situation at the time. The plan captured not only the appearance of individual elements of the then still medieval fortification of the city and castle (towers, turrets, city moat), but also parts of the sub-castle and suburban settlement towards the Danube. A previously unknown element is the drawing of the fortification line to protect the suburb of Vydrica, dating back to 1619. The drawing of the remains of the Danube side channels and part of the main stream is of great importance for the refinement of the reconstruction of the development of the Danube riverbed, the localization and changes of its islands (Engerau, Rosenwerd and Gresling), as well as the position of bridges across the Danube in the 16th – 18th centuries. The plan is also important for understanding and better interpreting some graphic sources from the 16th and 17th century, e. g. vedute from 1588, coronation leaflets from 1608 and 1655, Merian's (1638) or Priami's engraving (1663).
Keywords: plan of fortifications, Danube River, reconstruction, Bratislava, accuracy