Carta Geographica del Governo di Guienna e Guascogna

Title

Carta Geographica del Governo di Guienna e Guascogna

Description

Detailed map shows the whole of Guinea with its coastline. Map from ‘Ile de Re to the Pyrenees’, with title cartouche and compass rose.

ca. 1740

Artist

Albizzi (1547-1626)

Antonio Albizzi (1547 - 1626 ). Writer, jurist and genealogist from a noble Florentine family. Albizzi was born in Florence. Little is known about his life. In 1576 he was in the service of Cardinal Archduke Andrew of Austria. In 1585 he converted to Lutheranism. From 1608 he spent the rest of his life in the Protestant imperial city of Kempten (Bavaria), where he died in 1626.

Historical Description

Guinea: The land that is now Guinea belonged to a series of African empires until France colonized it in the 1890s, and made it part of French West Africa. Guinea declared its independence from France on 2 October 1958. The country is named after the Guinea region. Guinea is a traditional name for the region of Africa that lies along the Gulf of Guinea. It stretches north through the forested tropical regions and ends at the Sahel. The English term Guinea comes directly from the Portuguese word Guiné, which emerged in the mid-15th century to refer to the lands inhabited by the Guineus, a generic term for the black African peoples south of the Senegal River, in contrast to the "tawny" Zenaga Berbers above it, whom they called Azenegues or Moors.