Il Famoso Faro della Citta d´Allessandria

Title

Il Famoso Faro della Citta d´Allessandria

Description

View of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Lighthouse of Alexandria as it was depicted in the 17th century. It was built on the island of Pharos in the Bay of Alexandria, Egypt, because the entrance to Alexandria Harbor was difficult due to shoals and rocks. Reportedly, this tower was visible for up to 30 miles. Like some of the other Seven Wonders of the World, the lighthouse was also a victim of earthquakes. It survived several major quakes, but not without severe damage that led to the tower's abandonment. In the 15th century, the ruins finally collapsed. However, this was not the last testimony of the lighthouse, as French archaeologists discovered massive stones in the waters around Pharos in 1994, which they assumed belonged to the ancient structure. In 2015, Egyptian authorities announced their intention to rebuild the wonder.

ca. 1750

Artist

Rossi (1627-1691)

Giovanni Giacomo De' Rossi was the son of the founder of the most important and active printing press of the 17th century in Rome. Begun in 1633 by his father Giuseppe (1570-1639), the press passed firstly to Giacomo and to his brother Giandomenico (1619-1653), and then later to Lorenzo Filippo (1682-?); in 1738 it became the Calcografia Camerale, from 1870 until 1945 the Regia Calcografica, and today it is known as the Calcografia Nazionale. Here are conserved, amongst many others, the plates of Giambattista Piranesi (1720-1778). Giacomo De' Rossi was the most involved of all the various family members who ran the press, and he worked between 1638 and 1691, and was to take the company to the height of its success.

Historical Description

Egypt: The ancient Egyptian country name Kemet means "Black Land" and refers to the fertile soil of the Nile Valley in contrast to the "Red Land" of the neighboring deserts. The European terms Egypt, engl. Egypt comes from the Latin Aegyptus and thus ultimately from the ancient Greek Aigypto. The Copts claim to be the direct descendants of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. From their name came the Greek Aigyptos, which became Egypt in German. Islamic Arabs conquered the Nile valley around 640; From now on Egypt was dominated by changing power centers - Damascus, Baghdad, Cairo. Under the Umayyads (661–750), Arab tribes settled in the fertile plains and from then on determined the cultural appearance of Egypt. With the coming to power of Saladin, the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty (1171–1249), Cairo became the center of Muslim resistance to the Christian crusades. Around 1250 the palace guard, which was made up of Mamluks, originally mostly Turkish military slaves, rose and took over. At the end of the 13th century, the Mamluks destroyed the last Crusader states on Asian soil. Even after Egypt was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1517, administration remained in their hands. The economic decline resulting from the discovery of the sea route to India (1498) made Egypt one of the poorest provinces of the Ottoman Empire. It was not until the landing of the French expeditionary force under Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798 that the Ottoman rule ended. When the French had to abandon their Oriental campaign after the British Admiral Nelson won at Abukir in the same year, the Albanian officer Muhammad Ali Pasha used the situation to seize power (1805–1849). He and his successors were able to achieve a certain independence under Ottoman rule, pursued an expansionary policy and initiated the history of modern Egypt.