Ansicht von St.-Helena. / Das Pfennig-Magazin. 317

Title

Ansicht von St.-Helena. / Das Pfennig-Magazin. 317

Description

The view shows the town of Jamestown on St Helena with sailing ships in the foreground.

ca. 1850

Artist

Pfennig-Magazin (1833-1855)

The Pfennig-Magazin, published in association with the Gesellschaft zur Verbreitung gemeinnütziger Kenntnisse (Society for the Dissemination of Charitable Knowledge), was the first weekly German magazine to combine text and images to communicate popular scientific, particularly medical and natural history knowledge. The Pfennig magazines are considered the forerunners of illustrated magazines. The first magazine of this type was the Penny Magazine, published in England from 1832, which aimed to disseminate useful knowledge at an affordable price for the middle and working classes. Similar publications were also published in other countries, such as Le Magasin pittoresque in France. Martin Bossange, the Parisian publisher of the Magasin pittoresque, arranged for a German edition to be published via his Leipzig branch bookshop. The Pfennig-Magazin appeared for the first time in May 1833 under the editorial direction of Johann Jakob Weber. When the publisher Friedrich Arnold Brockhaus took over the magazine after a short time, Weber set up his own publishing house. All this was made possible by the development of wood engraving, which was less costly to produce than copper engraving and more suitable for large print runs. The Pfennig-Magazin was published weekly from May 1833 to 1855, each issue consisting of eight pages in quarto format, illustrated with up to six wood engravings. No. 1 of the Pfennig-Magazin stated: "The dissemination of useful knowledge is the most beautiful gift one can give to one's century."

Historical Description

Due to its remoteness and cliffs, St. Helena was uninhabited until the 16th century. In 1502 the Portuguese João da Nova landed on the island and named it after Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, as the day it was discovered was her name day. The Portuguese imported fruits and built some houses and a chapel. When they sailed on, they left their sick on the island but did not establish a permanent settlement. The Portuguese kept the island's existence a secret in order to secure its strategic importance. The island's first long-term resident was Fernão Lopes, a Portuguese soldier who had been severely punished by the governor of Goa for treason. On his way back to Portugal in 1516, he left the ship with a stopover on St. Helena and was left alone on the island. He died there around 1546. The first Englishman on the island was Thomas Cavendish, who anchored off St. Helena on 1588 with his ship Desire from the Pacific and stayed for twelve days. He described the island as an "earthly paradise"; from now on it was no longer a secret. James Lancaster arrived on the island in 1591. Around 1600 the Portuguese gave up St. Helena. Immediately afterwards it was occupied by the Dutch. The Dutch occupation lasted until 1651. In 1659 the British East India Company took possession of the island and built the fort (Jamestown) and a garrison. In 1673 the Dutch occupied St. Helena again, but were soon driven out by the English. The company that officially owned the island built large farms on which many blacks and Chinese worked. The wealth of St. Helenas increased, because because of the safe location large amounts of gold were kept and wealthy merchants resided on the island. The island of St. Helena has been a place of exile for heads of state and other personalities, such as Napoleon, the Zulu ruler Dinuzulu ka Cetshwayo, the Boer general Piet Cronjé with his soldiers and Chalid ibn Barghasch, who was ruler of the Sultanate of Zanzibar for a few days in 1896 .