Die Stadt Eriuan. Fig. XCII / Erivan

Title

Die Stadt Eriuan. Fig. XCII / Erivan

Description

Bird's eye view of the city of Yerevan (Erivan) with Mount Ararat and Noah's Ark on the top.

ca. 1684

Artist

Mallet (1630-1706)

Alain Manesson Mallet (1630- 1706 ) was a French cartographer and engineer. He started his career as a soldier in the army of Louis XIV, became a Sergeant-Major in the artillery and an Inspector of Fortifications. He also served under the King of Portugal, before returning to France, and his appointment to the court of Louis XIV. His military engineering and mathematical background led to his position teaching mathematics at court. His major publications were Description de L'Univers (1683) in 5 volumes, and Les Travaux de Mars ou l'Art de la Guerre (1684) in 3 volumes. His Description de L'Universe contains a wide variety of information, including star maps, maps of the ancient and modern world, and a synopsis of the customs, religion and government of the many nations included in his text. It has been suggested that his background as a teacher led to his being concerned with entertaining his readers. This concern manifested itself in the charming harbor scenes and rural landscapes that he included beneath his description of astronomical concepts and diagrams. Mallet himself drew most of the figures that were engraved for this book.

Historical Description

334 BC Alexander the Great began his campaign against the Persians and conquered Persia in a few years. His goal was to permanently consolidate the rule of the Hellenes by merging cultures (mass wedding of Susa, own marriage to the daughter of Darius III). However, he could not finish his work, because he was 323 BC. Died of fever in Babylon. Armenia also came under Hellenistic influence, but it was not conquered. By 700, the Arab tribes managed to establish permanent rule in the country. They put down revolts of the Armenian nobility. Within the nobility, the leading family changed during this time: The Bagratids (Bagratuni) took over from the Mamikonjan and were able to extend their rule to parts of Georgia. As a result, in 1080 Armenian refugees founded an independent principality of Little Armenia under the Rubenids in Cilicia. These allied with the crusaders against the Byzantines and Turks. In 1342 the kingdom fell to the Catholic House of Lusignan of Cyprus, but soon came to the Egyptian Mamluks and then to the Ottoman Empire. Under the rule of the Ottomans, the Armenians enjoyed a certain formal autonomy according to the Millet system. When the Ottoman Empire began to decline from around 1800, parts of the Armenians saw Russia as a major Christian power as a protective power that should enable them to gain independence following the example of the Christian Balkan peoples. After the ninth Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) in the context of the Balkan crisis, the Ottoman Empire had to cede further parts of Eastern Armenia and the provinces of Kars and Ardahan to Russia in the Peace of San Stefano.