Erfindung und Schiffarten / Rio Iavero 274

Title

Erfindung und Schiffarten / Rio Iavero 274

The map depicts the city of Rio de Janeiro with decorative offshore shipps. Very rare!!

ca. 1620

Artist

Bry, de - Merian (1528-1598)

In 1631, Matthäus Merian and Johann Ludwig Gottfried published a one-volume abridged version of the monumental America series by Theodor De Bry and his two sons. The Historia Antipodum can be seen as the apotheosis of the collection of voyages to the New World. After Theodor's death in 1598, Johan Theodor and his brother Johan Israel continued to run the business together in Frankfurt until the latter died in 1609. As he had no natural male successor, in 1616 he sought the help of a highly talented Basel engraver in his early twenties, Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593-1650), who soon married Johan Theodor's eldest daughter Maria Magdalena. When Johan Theodor died, Merian immediately complied with a request from his mother-in-law. After Merian moved to Frankfurt permanently in June 1626, he turned to Johann Ludwig Gottfried (ca. 1584-1633) to help him pursue a successful independent career as a publisher. In the early 1630s, Gottfried contributed to a new Latin edition of Part 3, which contained the reports of Hans Staden and Jean de Léry on Brazil, as well as to German and Latin reprints of Part 9, which was dedicated to the natural history of the West Indies by the Jesuit José de Acosta. He was probably also involved in the production of the last German volume of the America series, part 14, which was published in 1630. The most significant addition to the collection, however, was a German work entitled Historia Antipodum or Newe Welt, published in 1631, a voluminous folio volume of more than six hundred pages which, despite its size, brought together what was probably the most monumental publication of early modern Europe, the fourteen-part America series that formed part of the De Bry travel collection. In many ways, the changes Merian and Gottfried made to the travelogues for Historia Antipodum surpassed even the editorial changes made for the original volumes. The travel accounts were no longer published one after the other, each followed by its own set of relevant illustrations, but all available information was summarized in three long chapters on the history of the New World, with the engravings within the text rather than as separate sections at the end of each narrative. The first chapter of the abridged version deals with the natural world, a decision that must be seen in the light of Gottfried and Merian's personal convictions, which they expressed in their introduction to Archontologia Cos- mica. The second chapter brings together fifty-three travelogues to the New World, all of which were previously included in the collection of voyages. Finally, the third and shortest chapter presents new, recently published accounts of European expansion in the Atlantic. In the introduction to the volume, the editors introduce the reader to their objective. The dedication to Landgrave Philipp von Hessen, signed only by Merian but dated 1630, emphasizes the differences between Europeans and the indigenous population of the New World, as does the "Preface to the Reader", which bears both signatures. Merian and Gottfried adhere to the generally accepted order of information in early modern European humanities and open their Historia Antipodum with a description of the natural world. The first seventy pages are based on the German translation of Acosta's treatise, which was first used in 1601. As the original translation prepared by Johan Homberger for the De Brys comprised 327 folios, the version printed in the abridged edition was heavily edited. Books 1-3 of Acosta's work, which deal with such traditional and far-reaching topics as the Aristotelian world view, the biblical theories on the origin of the Indians, the habitability of the Torrid zone and the currents and winds in the southern hemisphere, are each reduced to a few pages in the Historia Antipodum.

Historical Description

From 1815 to 1821, Rio de Janeiro was the capital of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves and, after Brazil's independence in 1822, the country's capital until 1960. It then ceded this function to Brasília, but remains the country's most important commercial and financial centre after São Paulo. In accordance with the Treaty of Tordesillas, the Portuguese laid claim to the territory of present-day Brazil, which was discovered at the end of the 15th century. France did not recognise the treaty and founded the Ilha do Serigipe off the coast of present-day Rio de Janeiro in 1555. At that time, Tupi Indians from the Tamoios and Tupinambás tribes lived in this region, with whom the French allied themselves. Ten years later, in 1565, the French were expelled by the Portuguese, who then founded the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro in 1565 at what is now Morro do Castelo. In 1680, Rio de Janeiro became the capital of the southern regions of Brazil. At this time, the settlement was one of the most important Portuguese bases in Brazilian territory. From 1700 onwards, Rio de Janeiro developed into the most important port city in Brazil, mainly due to gold discoveries in the neighbouring region of Minas Gerais. Rio de Janeiro became even more important in 1808 when the Portuguese court fled there in connection with the French invasions to escape Napoleon's forces marching towards Lisbon. A large number of artists, scientists and aristocrats moved to Brazil with the court, and the economic and cultural life of the city changed enormously. At the beginning of the 19th century, Rio became a transhipment centre for the African slave trade in South America. The Portuguese royal court returned to Portugal in 1822 after the liberal revolution broke out in Portugal in 1820. After the departure of the Portuguese court, Brazil declared itself an independent empire under Prince Dom Pedro de Alcântara. Rio de Janeiro retained its status as the capital, where the prince now resided as Emperor Pedro I. In 1831, his son Dom Pedro II was crowned, who initiated, among other things, the construction of a railway, the first section of which was opened in Rio de Janeiro in 1858. Even when Brazil became a republic following a military coup in 1889, Rio de Janeiro remained the capital. During the Belle Époque brasileira, a splendid urban development unfolded here, financed by rubber and coffee oligarchs. In the first half of the 20th century, Rio de Janeiro experienced a social boom, as the city became a focal point for film stars and international high society. A final cultural outgrowth of this era was the emergence of Brazilian jazz bossa nova from 1957, which became world famous through songs such as Garota de Ipanema/The Girl from Ipanema by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinícius de Moraes.