Georg Balthasar Probst

Bird's eye view of Jerusalem based on the 1660 view by Wenceslaus Hollar after the drawings of the Jesuit Juan Battista Villalpando.

In 1745 Probst issued his panorama of Jerusalem based on Hollar's view but with additional pilgrims and caravans. Hollar had in turn based his panorama on the depictions of Jerusalem by the Jesuit writer and architect Villalpando in his Ezechielem  1596-1604, a commentary on the Book of the prophet Ezekiel which was highly influential on the artists and architects of his time.

One of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem has repeatedly been sacked, rebuilt and sacked again. At the beginning of the 16th century internal conflicts between Mamluks and Ottomans led to further destruction until the Mamluks’ final defeat at the Battle of Rid Aniya. In 1535 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent began building the walls around the city that when completed in 1542 would be ten feet thick, more than fifteen feet high and nearly three miles long.

Suleiman’s reign would usher in an age of religious accord; ten years later Phillip II of Spain would fund the restoration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre with the Aedicula and the tomb of Christ and by the beginning of the next century passage for pilgrims would become more secure beginning with Henry IV of France’s first Protectorate of Missions in 1604. Probst’s panorama shows Jerusalem at that time, fifty years after the completion of the new walls and greater access for pilgrims, with the Old City constituting what was Jerusalem until its expansion in the mid-19th century.