In West-Indien. 329

Title

In West-Indien. 329

Description

View showing the capital Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (town of Allagona) when the Dutch Armada took control of it. It was looted and churches and monasteries were burnt, small fortresses such as the large Gratiosa fortress were blown to pieces.

ca. 1599

Artist

Bry, de (1528-1598)

Theodorus de Bry (1528-1598) Frankfurt a.M. Around 1570, Theodorus de Bry, a Protestant, fled religious persecution south to Strasbourg, along the west bank of the Rhine. In 1577, he moved to Antwerp in the Duchy of Brabant, which was part of the Spanish Netherlands or Southern Netherlands and Low Countries of that time (16th Century), where he further developed and used his skills as a copper engraver. Between 1585 and 1588 he lived in London, where he met the geographer Richard Hakluyt and began to collect stories and illustrations of various European explorations, most notably from Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues. Depiction of Spanish atrocities in the New World, as recounted by Bartolome de las Casas in Narratio Regionum indicarum per Hispanos Quosdam devastatarum verissima. In 1588, Theodorus and his family moved permanently to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he became citizen and began to plan his first publications. The most famous one is known as Les Grands Voyages, i.e., The Great Travels, or The Discovery of America. He also published the largely identical India Orientalis-series, as well as many other illustrated works on a wide range of subjects. His books were published in Latin, and were also translated into German, English and French to reach a wider reading public. The two collections of travelogues published by Theodor de Bry in Frankfurt are among the most important of the early modern period and established his reputation for posterity: He created The Arrival of Columbus in the New World in 1594. The West Indian Voyages (ed. 1590-1618) chronicled the discovery and conquest of the Americas by Europeans, while the East Indian Voyages followed the rise of Holland as a trading power in Asia around 1600. Both series appeared in German and Latin, were intended for a European audience, and were richly illustrated with copper engravings. Theodor de Bry was only able to publish six parts of his complete works. After his death, his sons Johann Theodor and Johann Israel and then Johann Theodor's son-in-law Matthäus Merian continued the work until 1634. In the end, it contained 25 parts and over 1500 copper engravings. The brothers were succeeded as engravers and publishers by Sebastian Furck.

Historical Description

The Canary Islands consist of Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro. You are in the Atlantic in a geographic region known as Macaronesia. This also includes Cape Verde, the Azores, the Madeira Archipelago and the Ilhas Selvagens. In the period from the 4th century until the Europeans rediscovered the Canary Islands in the 14th century, different cultures developed independently of one another on the individual islands. Although these were based on the same principles, they had so many peculiarities that one cannot speak of a “Guanche culture of the Canary Islands”. There was the culture of the Majos on Lanzarote, that of the Majoreros on Fuerteventura, that of the Bimbaches on El Hierro, that of the Gomeros on La Gomera, that of the Canarios on Gran Canaria, that of the Benahoaritas on La Palma and that of the Guanches on Tenerife. The naming of the indigenous people of all islands with the name of the indigenous people of the island of Tenerife as Guanches, which was common for a long time, ignores the differentiated cultural developments on the different islands.