The 1551 Herberstein—Wernher Description of Lake Cerknica

Abstract

In 1551, Georg Wernher sent into print in Vienna his work De admirandis Hungariae aquis hypomnemation, which included a description of Lake Cerknica. Baron Sigismund von Herberstein, on whose initiative the work had been written, had conveyed to Wernher an oral description of the lake; the question whether he had written it down as well, as might be inferred from the references in J. W. Valvasor (1689), can no longer be answered. Herberstein may be considered to have not only alerted Wernher to the lake, but also to have (co)authored the report on the lake. There is nothing in the text to suggest that Wernher had ever visited or investigated the lake himself. In addition, Herberstein commissioned a woodcut showing a map of the lake, presumably based on a drawing by Augustin Hirschvogel. The paper cites the relevant passages both in the Latin original and in an English translation.