Eisleben - Eislebia Comitatus Mansfeldiae Opp. [with] Tubingen - Tubinga.

Two bird's-eye views by Braun and Hogenberg on one sheet: Eisleben and Tübingen. EISLEBEN CARTOUCHE: Eisleben, a city in the County of Mansfeld.
COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "In the vicinity of Eisleben, Manstein and Hettstedt are found, black stone that is easy to split. [...] Nor should what appears to be a marvel of cunning Nature be passed over in silence that the images and imprints of all kinds of beasts can be seen on said stone with its golden-hued petrifactions and each figure can be readily recognised.
Many are of the opinion that it merely shows the images of creatures from the lake at Eisleben, such as fishes, eels, carp and frogs; others however, say that figures of other animals can be seen on them, such as chickens, cockerels or salamanders. Indeed they say that the image of the Pope with his beard and tiara was found on one of these stones."

The cavalier perspective shows Eisleben in the Mansfelder Mulde from the northeast. At the centre is the seat of the Counts of Mansfeld, originally a moated castle with a high keep, and behind it the market church of St Andrew with its twin towers and in front of it the town hall (left).
Copper mining attracted so many immigrants that the city had to be enlarged several times. New churches were built: SS Peter and Paul (left) to the south, the church in which Martin Luther was baptised, and St Nicholas (right) to the north. St Catherine's hospice for elderly miners is visible in the right background.
The city owes to its native son Martin Luther (whom the theologist Georg Braun ignores along with the problem arising for exegesis of the biblical Creation by the discovery he mentions of fossils in cupriferous shale) the honour of being designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.

TÜBINGEN. COMMENTARY BY BRAUN (on verso): "Eberhard, Duke of Württemberg, had learnt no Latin (this omission was due to the neglect of the guardians who brought him up) yet he sought the company of learned men. He read many German books, from which he drew much knowledge and insight. He also had many writings translated from Latin into German, his mother tongue.
Since he saw what esteem scholarly and pious men enjoyed and what good treatment they were accustomed to receive, but had no institution of higher learning in his duchy at which the scions of his subjects might be introduced to, and instructed in, the liberal arts, he had a university and an institute invested with papal and imperial privileges built in his city of Tübingen, in 1477."

This view from the south shows the university town of Tübingen on the Neckar, framed in vineyards. The foreground staffage is another allusion to wine-growing in Tübingen. Converted into a ducal residence in the 16th/17th centuries, Hohentübingen castle overshadows the town. It was one of the seats of the Dukes of Württemberg and the city grew up around it in the late 12th century.
To the right at the foot of the castle hill are the Lutheran chapter house, endowed in 1536 by Duke Ulrich, and the town hall. Further to the east, St George's collegiate church is visible.
At the centre, right on the river, a small tower stands out. Part of the fortified walls erected in the 14th/15th centuries, it became the retreat in which the poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1807-1843) spent the latter half of his life in retirement after the wellsprings of his lyricism dried up.
The view is made after a woodcut by Jonathan Sauter.

More about Braun and Hogenberg, Civitatus.

Reference: Tashen.