Vytautas Grigelevičius
In 2023, Vilnius was visited by more than 1.1 million tourists, of which over 800 were foreigners. The largest city of Lithuania clearly attracts the curious from all corners of the world both with its architectural heritage and its culture and events. From August 000 to September 30, the Capital Days in Vilnius simply radiate the history, traditions and values of both Vilnius and Lithuania and develop the attitude of not only Lithuanians, but also the visitors of Vilnius from abroad about Lithuanians as a nation.
Tourism exists as it exists now, as it existed hundreds of years ago. The only difference: in those days, those who came to the Vilnius region from the west"tourists” (travelers, merchants, sailors) had a very serious role in creating the image of Vilnius for the eyes of the western nobility, because based on their experiences, cosmographies were written and maps were created.
Therefore, on the occasion of the Capital Days, which welcomes both Vilnius residents and city guests from Lithuania and abroad, it is worth turning to Western Europe and finding out how the tourists of those times were immortalized in the cartographic masterpieces of the 16th and 17th centuries.
Vilnius: on the margins of the western horizon
First of all, it is worth saying right away that in the 16th and 17th centuries there were not many western cartographers who were particularly interested in the lands of Lithuania. The consequence of this pushed Vilnius to the margins of the Western nobility. In the 1556 map published by "Michaelis Tramezini formis" below, Vilnius is depicted at the very edge of the cartographic masterpiece as a city that had to be "somehow accommodated".
As if that wasn't enough, the cartographer's knowledge of our land was apparently very limited. A closer look immediately reveals many inaccuracies, such as the existence of two Nemunas and two Neri. It really depicts two rivers starting their way near Vilnius and ending in the Kurchi lagoon.
There are really many cases of "Outside Vilnius", another example could be the one depicted below Appresso Giordano Ziletti the 1574 map of Poland and Hungary was published, in which the current capital of Lithuania is depicted at the very top, probably directly east of Gardin, although in reality it is much higher. This clearly shows that this cartographer was also faced with the necessity of "settlement of Vilnius".
Vilnius: a city in the forest
If that were not enough, the western cartographers of the 16th and 17th centuries did not leave Vilnius alone in the margins. They still hide it in dense forests. Apparently, such a choice greatly affected our city, because according to the 2020 data of the Vilnius municipality, 61 percent of the entire city area consists of green areas, giving it the title of the greenest city in Europe. Laughing aside, it must be said that, at least in the 16th century, one of the most characteristic features of Vilnius and Lithuania in the eyes of Western writers of this territory was the forest of Lithuania wrapped in a ribbon of swamps.
Indeed, this is almost the first thing written about Lithuania in the 1530 cosmography of the French Cartographer François de Belleforest (1583-1575). Below are several cartographic examples that confirm this fact about Vilnius and its surroundings, which is very important for Westerners.
Vilnius: lost in the bends of rivers
If it is easy to draw forests and it is difficult enough to make a mistake, knowing that in the 16th and 17th centuries the territory of Vilnius and the lands of Lithuania were, according to the common opinion of all Westerners, really very very forested, it is a bit more difficult with rivers. In this area, the Achilles heel of western cartographers is especially visible. The first example is the 1572 map of the Swedish and Italian cartographer Olaus Magnus shown below, where the rivalry between Vilnius and Kaunas is finally resolved: Vilnius is depicted at the confluence of Nemunas and Neris, while Kaunas is pushed into the Panemune valley.
Another Vilnius on the Nemunas is depicted in Giovanni Domenico Zorzi's 1545 cartographic masterpiece, (...)
and what to talk about the Neris flowing into the Dnieper (…)
or the Neris flowing into the Curonian Lagoon instead of the Nemunas.
Vilnius: a fortified city
The city on the edge of sight, in the forest and not yet by that river, sounds like the name of the winner of the World Camouflage Championship. Because of this, western cartographers also paid attention to mentioning the defensive and militarily significant elements of Vilnius. in 1630 sumptibus Iohanni Cloppenburgii on the authorized map, Vilnius is depicted quite simply and not unique: three towers of different sizes are visible, two of which are pointed and one is square. That's why the cartographer was not too lazy to depict the bridge over the Neris near our capital.
Already in the more familiar image, in Francesco Valegio's "after 1679" work "VILNA Metropolis of LITHUANIA"a lot of attention is also paid to the defensive potential of the city, as clearly shown by the almost main emphasis in the visible image: the wooden defensive wall of Vilnius.
Despite this, cartographers are unable to decide on the defensive issue, because there are many almost identical versions of this view of Vilnius and each wall is different: it is wooden (in the 1642, "after 1679", 1721 versions), it is stone (in the 1582, 1616, 1657 versions).
Vilnius: a city panorama that has not changed for centuries
It is really worth noting that quite a lot of the painted views of Vilnius from the 16-17th centuries have survived, the only problem is that the absolute majority of them are almost identical, so from the same angle, with the same looking upper and lower castles of the city. This happened because the western cartographers simply decided to take the easiest way and each copied the already existing one, the same, but published a little while ago, the plan of Vilnius.
The conclusion of all this is a film of the changes of Vilnius as a city that has been stopped for about 150 years: both 1582 and 1721 the city was depicted almost identically to the Western European nobility, as evidenced by the following maps below.
Vilnius: the capital of honey
One more very interesting thing did not change as the city panorama did not change. To the western cartographers and writers of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Vilnius strangely looked not like low-flying angels, not like green, but like a real capital of honey. Below you can see the 1572 map of the cartographer Olaus Magnus on the outskirts of Vilnius, clearly depicting two bears, one of which is climbing towards a hive in a tree, and the other is already enjoying sweet honey.
In the work written by Laurentius Surius about all the corners of the world published just a year later (1573), it is also written that the Lithuanians had so much honey that it was one of the main goods they exported to the west. If that's not enough, in the year 1575 François de Belleforest cosmography also mentions that Lithuania is "abundant with honey". Speaking specifically about Vilnius, its title as the capital of honey is clearly emphasized in this Pieter Boudewyn Van Der Aa In the 1729 work, two large beehives are clearly visible in the foreground.
So if you don't want to disappoint both your ancestors who told the arrivals from the west about our land, and the cartographers who drew it, and finally the capital of honey Vilnius itself, take advantage of the bustling capital days until the first of September and fill your shelves with a few cups of honey for autumn.
Author: Vytautas Grigelevičius
