Days gone by - Corputius Plan

1566: executed in quadrant form
1894: rediscovery of the original
1897: a copy is made
The original has been lost since 1945

Days gone by
Corputius plan

The "Corputius plan", the oldest plan of the city of Duisburg, was drawn up in 1566 by a Dutch pupil of Gerhard Mercator, Johan van den Corput, latinised as Johannes Corputius. The plan, in colours, shows the city from the so-called oblique angle. Corputius presented the city itself within the area of the walls with considerable exactness and at the correct scale. For this he made use of bearings taken with a quadrant. However, since he also wished to record everything of importance in the vicinity, he was compelled to reduce the distances considerably, and this resulted in distortions. Nevertheless, in the area within the city walls there is a truly amazing correspondence with modern plans of the city. Corputius had dedicated the plan to his sovereign, Duke Wilhelm von Jülich-Kleve-Berg, and to the city of Duisburg. The city also received the plan and had it framed, as we know from an entry in the City accounts for 1566-1567. How long the original plan remained in Duisburg cannot now be determined. In the 18th century four reproductions in black and white were discovered in a booksellerís shop in Dordrecht, but the original remained lost It was not until 1894 that the original of the Corputius plan was rediscovered in the map collections of the Breslau City Library. In 1897 the city of Duisburg had a copy made for Duisburg. The original plan remained in Breslau and was lost during the Second World War. The only black and white copy now known is in the Kultur- und Stadthistorischen Museum.