Though medieval descriptions of Timişoara are scarce – the most consistent of all being that of the Ottoman traveller Evlyia Celebi and of the Austrian traveller Henrik Ottendorf – the reconstitution of the epoch, i.e. of the features of a medieval town and city, can only rely on extremely diverse information. The lack of documents that describe directly and without any exaggeration aspects of life, corroborated with a very large number of indirect evidence can result in a proper, edifying global image on the ground of an engraving and of a map of the streets of medieval Timişoara that are unique in the historiography of this town. The general engraving of Timişoara, published in the revue Magazin istoric by the Romanian Ioan Haţegan, confirms the information supplied by Henrik Ottendorf which, confronted with those supplied by Evlyia Celebi and with the drawing made by the Austrian F. Watthay, coincide. In addition, it is confirmed that in the middle Ages the name of the river flowing through the ditches of the city was the Timişul Mic. A problem that could be confusing in Henrik Ottendorf’s description is that of the location of the Castle, which he locates south from the city, not in the narrowest part of the fortification, but right in the middle of it.

Timişoara; city; image; engraving; other localities in the Banat area; the 15th; the 17th centuries

Presentation: oral