Tallinn Trip – Niguliste Museum (Tallinn As It Was in the 1590s)

Tying in relatively well time-wise with my last post (H is the church in which Bogislaus von Rosen was buried), this is Tallinn (known as Revalia or Revel in official use until Estonian independence 1918 when they settled for Tallinn as the authorities liked that the best) from the sea in the late sixteenth century. It looks a well fortified city, but then again that was fairly essential and it was attacked time after time with the Livonian Wars (1558-1583), the Polish-Swedish War (1600-1629) and the Russo-Swedish War (1656-1658) to name just a few. This engraving was done in the 1640s by Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593-1650) but based on imagery from the 1590s. Although many have had to be repaired on numerous occasions, a surprising number of these buildings are still standing given all the conflicts that have taken place in the region.