Deák Antal András: A Duna fölfedezése
Tartalom - III.A DANUBIUS PANNONICO-MYSICUS, 1726
T II E DISCOVERY OF THE DANUBE not want to accept the invitation although he was bored of being closed up in a room and incessantly drawing maps, and as a young man he wished for a more varied life. He tried to convince Marsigli in a letter that he would also benefit if he accepted the invitation to Vienna, because he could charge Pfeffer with the engraving of the Danube sections and he would be there to control this work. Soon after Marsigli fell into disgrace, Müller arrived in Vienna. The next time we read about frontier section map 39 (41) is 7 years later in documents from Bologna. By this time Müller s patron, as Marsigli was called in Nürnberg, had returned to Bologna and bequeathed his valuable property to his native town. Marsigli sent his testimony to the magistrates of the town on the 3 r d of February 1710. 5 9 He asked the Senate to turn over the collection of maps that Müller had drawn on his initiative and from his money to the Austrian emperor after his death. He gave his reasons as well: first the collection contained very important information for the Christian world and, second, he wanted to demonstrate to the Austrian emperor that he was not angry with him for being disgraced. His letter containing his testimony was read out in the Senate on the 11 t h of August 1731, the year following his death. They immediately decided to prepare an accurate copy of the map before complying with Marsigli's wishes. There were several candidates for this work. We learn from a letter written to Manfredi Rondelli, the secretary of the university, that on the 14 t h of June, 1732 F. Vandi was chosen. Nevertheless, he was only to prepare the summary sheet. 6 0 The original one, that is, the summary sheet, the 39 sections and the two sheets with the locations of the 91 border markers were handed over to the Austrian envoy in Venice enclosed in a ornamental box. 6 1 This is how the entire pioneering work of frontier maps came to the National Library of Vienna. As soon as it arrived, the Military Council had a copy made, which is preserved today in the Military Archives in Vienna. 6 2 Maps separated from the frontier reports. 6 3 More than a dozen frontier maps are kept in the Staatsarchiv in Vienna, and neither their authors nor when they were made have been exactly known until recently. The ones cited in the previous chapter also belong here. The open questions concerning the author, the dating and their purpose were answered by the drafts of Müllers maps. Namely Müller, who drew the maps, stuck a label on each draft with the number of the report the final version of the given map was to be attached to, the name of the courier who took it to the emperor and the day it was sent. The maps that illustrated and helped the interpretation of Marsigli's reports will be described in the following chapters. The translations of the sometimes lengthy Latin legends can be read in the footnotes. 1. Map of the Transylvanian frontier 6 4 Marsigli charged Visconti, his fellow-citizen, with the survey of the Transylvanian mountains, although he had to be pressed to accomplish it. From the material compiled by Visconti, 5 9 Archivio di Stato, Bologna, Assunteria di Istituto, Diversorum B. n. 7. fasc. 3. 6 0 Archivio di Stato, Bologna; Assunteria di Istituto - Diversorum - B. 20 n. 8. fasc. 3. We can deduce from the letter that only the summary map was redrawn, not the 41 sections. And really, we have found a copy only of the summary map. It is evident from Marsigli's cited testimony that the map was made not in 1706, as it is accepted in the technical literature, but in 1702-1703 and not on Eugene of Savoy's order but on Marsigli's. So the mystery how and why one of Chr. Müller s nicest map got in Vienna has been solved. Complying with Marsigli's last will, the Senate of the University of Bologna sent it in a box to the emperor's envoy in Venice in 1732. A list was made of the content of the box dated from 28. October 1732. 6 1 Archivio di Stato, Bologna, Assunteria di Istituto, Diversorum B. n. 8. 6 2 The original: Vienna, Nationalbibliothek, C. P. Min. 85; apart from the summary sheet a copy of which is kept in Bologna, the only copy is: Vienna, Kriegsarchiv, Kartenabt. B IX c. 634. 6 3 Sec note 77-81 6 4 Vienna, ÖStA KA Kartensammlung. B IX. C 743. Measurements: 74 x 237 cm. Legends: According to Müllers note in German on the draft kept in Bologna, the map was sent to Vienna attached to Relatio IV. Two copies were made of it, one taken by courier to Vienna on December 14,1700, while the other one was sent to General Rabutin to Transylvania on the 23 r d of December. Another note is an instruction: The Iron Gates must be drawn using a larger scale.. (Biblioteca Universitaria, Mss di Marsigli, Vol. 49. p. 40) 107
