Deák Antal András: A Duna fölfedezése

Tartalom - III.A DANUBIUS PANNONICO-MYSICUS, 1726

T II E DISCOVERY OF THE DANUBE kind of barrage.

.., the principle of mutual friendship and goodwill also demands that the subjects of the Turkish Empire can also freely pass with their fishing ships and boats on these rivers. As an added protection, the building of water mills was strictly limited so that the traffic of the imperial ships should not be disturbed. For the sake of sailing, it was prohibited to divert the water of the Maros either to drive a mill or for any other purpose. The same principle was also effectuated on the boundary stretch of the Sava (from the mouth of the Bossut river to the mouth of the Unna) and on the boundary stretch of the Unna (from the mouth to approximately Novi). Turks and Austrians were both interested in Balkan, especially Croatian, commerce. In article V of the treaty a remark was added about Brod: this place is especially suitable for trading, a town can be built there with proper defences... (Although the castle rebuilt and fortified by the imperial forces had to be demolished). The peace treaty signed for 25 years on 26 January 1699 did not exactly define the location of the frontiers. Accurate lines were demarcated by a Turkish and an Austrian border commission. The work had to be started on 22 March 1699, so that the boundaries would be clearly set up and staked out as soon as possible according to the mutual decisions of the commissions for the sake of the peace and security of the subjects,

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6 The head of the frontier commission Marsigli was appointed head of the Austrian commission. He prepared for the negotiations with the Turkish delegate on the demarcation of the 850 km long stretch of frontier between the two empires that meandered from Transylvania to Croatia down to nearly the Adriatic Sea by obtaining maps and studying the present and past of the peoples living in the relevant territories. His quest included Dávid Rosnyai's History of Transylvania, which was translated from Turkish into Latin especially for him by an eminent scholar of old Hungarian literature as well as maps and diplomas about Croatia. When later, in his Treatise, he outlined the possibilities of establishing trading routes

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7 or wrote about the history of the region in his Danubius, he drew not only on his many personal experiences in the Balkans, Turkey, Transylvania and Hungary but also on a profound historical knowledge of the region. All these were complemented by Marsigli the cartographer's brilliant notion of having military engineers survey and map supervised stretches of the boundaries. In this manner, he could defend himself against the malicious attacks and intrigues made against him every now and again by rivals in Vienna. At the same time, he could present a concrete document to the Austrian emperor and military leadership that would help them avoid future border skirmishes between the two empires. As soon as an agreement was reached on the exact position of a stretch of frontier, he marked it on a map. This was signed and sealed by the leaders of both parties. We know from one of Marsigli's letters that he sometimes had a copy of these maps made for the Turkish side as well.

48 Marsigli invited Johann Christoph Müller, a cartographer from Nürnberg, to Hungary in 1696 with the definite purpose to draw maps under his direction.

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9 They drew maps of the frontier, not only when an agreement was reached on a stretch of border, but also when he wanted to visually depict the debated problems described in his reports. He sometimes indicated 3 or 4 boundary versions in 4

6 The text of the peace treaty was published in István Katona: História critica regnum Hungáriáé (Buda, 1805. 106-125. p.) 4

7 Mappa Geographica facta in usum commerciorum... Bécs, ÖStA KA HKR Akten 1701 BLG. Juli/42. Relation 10. 4

8 BUB Mss di Marsigli Vol. 49. p. 10. („Mappa commissario Turcico communicata") 4

9 Johann Christoph Müller [1673, Wöhrd (outskirts of Nürnberg) - 1721, Vienna]. He showed great attraction to science and art in his early childhood and received a solid education in Latin and the humanities, J. G. Doppelmayr wrote about him in his book titled Historische Nachricht von den Nürnbergischen Mathematics und Künstlern.

.. (Nürnberg, 1730). For four years from 1692, he was a student of Georg Christoph Eimmart. He studied mathematics, theoretical and practical astronomy and the draftsmanship. From 1696 to 1703, he worked in Marsigli's service in the territory of the Hungarian Kingdom as cartographer, astronomer, draftsman and personal secretary. From 1704, he surveyed first Moravia then Bohemia as imperial cartographer. He prepared the Large Hungary map, which appeared in 1709 and which served as a example for western cartographers throughout the century. (Deák A. A.: Johan Christoph Müller = Dunakanyar, 1987/2). 104