La Grecia universale antica Paragonata con la Moderna da Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola

Title

La Grecia universale antica Paragonata con la Moderna da Giacomo Cantelli da Vignola

Description

Map shows the whole of Greece, the Aegean, Crete, a mileage indicator and a magnificent cartouche.

c. 1683

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

Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilisation, being the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, Western drama and the Olympic Games. From the eighth century B.C., the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as poleis (singular polis), which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Philip of Macedon united most of the Greek mainland in the fourth century BC, with his son Alexander the Great rapidly conquering much of the ancient world, from the eastern Mediterranean to India. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century B.C., becoming an integral part of the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire, which adopted the Greek language and culture. The Greek Orthodox Church, which emerged in the first century A.D., helped shape modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World. After falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, Greece emerged as a modern nation state in 1830 following a war of independence.