Africa. Descrittione dell’ Africa. Libro Secondo.

  • Translation

Article ID AF0376

Title

Africa. Descrittione dell’ Africa. Libro Secondo.

Description

Map shows total Africa, after A. Ortelius. Early map of Africa based on Ortelius and D'Anian.

Year

ca. 1590

Artist

Botero (1544-1617)

Giovanni Botero (1544 – 1617) was an Italian thinker, priest, poet, and diplomat, best known for his work Della ragion di Stato (The Reason of State). Through the 1590s, Botero continued in the employ of Federico Borromeo, who would become Archbishop of Milan in 1595. Botero mixed in the high society of Rome and Milan in these years, and published another work for which he was to become quite well known, the Relazioni Universali. Released in four volumes between 1591 and 1598 (a fifth volume was finally published in the late nineteenth century), the 'relations' of the title referred to those of the universal (Catholic) church in various parts of the world, a treatise on- The Strength of all the Powers of Europe and Asia-, and even includes the Americas. The work marks the beginning of demographic studies. Finishing his employment with Federico Borromeo in 1599, Botero returned to the House of Savoy, to be tutor to three sons of Charles Emmanuel. He would tour Spain with his three charges from 1603 to 1607, no doubt associating with the closest of Philip III's advisors, from whom his ideas would be passed on to Philip IV's most trusted policy-maker, the Count-Duke of Olivares. Here is where Botero's work began to have an influence. Olivares seems to have used Botero's Reason of State to outline the strategy for preserving the Spanish Empire in his famous Memorial on the Union of Arms. There is also evidence that Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, one of the staunchest political supporters of Catholic reform and a leading figure of the Thirty Years' War, had discussed the Reason of State with his advisors. Thus, Botero's thought was able to shape at least some of the policy among the European states of the very troubled seventeenth century. Boter's work would also influence the next generation of political and economic thinkers.

Historical Description

According to the "Out-of-Africa theory", Africa is considered the "cradle of mankind", where homo development led to the development of the anatomically modern human Homo sapiens. One of the earliest advanced civilizations in mankind was formed in ancient Egypt. Over the millennia, various "great empires" such as the Empire of Abyssinia emerged on the continent. There were other kingdoms in West Africa, such as the Ashanti and Haussa, but they emerged much later. There were also some important cultures in East and South Africa, as in the area of today's Sudan, then called Nubia or Kush. Nubian pharaohs ruled all of Egypt for a dynasty. For example, the inhabitants of Greater Zimbabwe were important cultures in southern Africa. This stone castle was architecturally a masterpiece at that time and important for trade between the peoples of the south and east. The Swahili were known in East Africa. North Africa was connected to Europe and the Near East by the Mediterranean rather than separated. Carthage, a foundation of the Phoenicians in what is now Tunisia, was around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The dominant power in the western Mediterranean until it was replaced by Rome in the Punic Wars. This prevailed from 30 BC. BC (conquest of Egypt) over all of North Africa. Even the ancient Egyptians (Queen Hatshepsut) made trips to Punt, probably in what is now Somalia. The kingdom of the Queen of Sheba, which probably had its center in southern Arabia, is said to have spanned parts of the Horn from Africa to the north of Ethiopia.

Place of Publication Turin
Dimensions (cm)19 x 24,5 cm
ConditionPerfect condition
Coloringcolored
TechniqueCopper print

Reproduction:

97.50 €

( A reproduction can be ordered individually on request. )