420 x 558 mm. Long tear closed, made of two pieces of paper joined, light toning, affecting tiny pieces of engraved surface, old folds flattened, some wrinkling.

The map depicts Vienna at the moment of its near-annihilation by the Ottoman army in 1683, recording the city's massive enceinte, ravelins, bastions, demi-lunes, and covered ways, together with the surrounding suburbs and cultivated lands. The positions of the Turkish encampments—densely arrayed to the north and east—are delineated with notable clarity. Within the city, St. Stephen’s Cathedral is shown as the principal point of reference, with lines radiating outward to the surrounding defenses. A set of numbered references, keyed to the copious explanatory text below, identifies strategic works, lines of fire, enemy batteries, mines, and other remarkable features of the siege.

The French text, titled Description très exacte de Vienne en Austriche, situates the viewer within the historical circumstances of the siege, summarizing its chronology and the composition of the Ottoman forces. It describes the blockade of the city beginning 14 July 1683 and the multinational character of the besieging army—Turks, Tatars, rebellious Hungarians, Moldavians, Wallachians, and Transylvanians—commanded by Kara Mustafa Pasha. The text highlights the extraordinary suffering of the defenders and the precarious condition of Vienna before the relief army's arrival. A long Explication des nombres follows, elucidating in detail each numbered feature on the map: principal bastions and gates, destroyed suburbs, Turkish batteries, entrenchments, mines, and the positions from which the besiegers launched their principal assaults.

A concluding address Au Lecteur frames the map as a corrective to misinformation circulating in earlier printed accounts, emphasizing its derivation from the testimony and surveys of officers who served in Vienna during the siege—implicitly underscoring its authority and the novelty of Anguissola’s effort.

As an early post-siege printed plan—produced in Vienna and authored by an engineer who witnessed the conflict—this broadside constitutes a significant cartographic record of one of the defining military engagements of the seventeenth century. Its separate publication, hybrid letterpress–engraved format, and extremely limited survival render it a rare and important artifact of both the Habsburg–Ottoman struggle and the early modern news media that transmitted such events to a European readership.

Extremely rare, we note only the example at the BNF. Unlocated elsewhere.