Plan de la Ville de Genes et de ses Environs

Title

Plan de la Ville de Genes et de ses Environs

Description

Map shows the city map and the surroundings of Genoa with title cartouche.

ca. 1764

Artist

Bellin (1703-1772)

Jacques-Nicolas Bellin (1703 Paris -1772 Versailles) was a French cartographer, engineer-geographer, marine hydrographer. As a contributor to the Encyclopédie, he wrote more than a thousand articles on maritime topics. As a cartographer, Bellin distinguished himself primarily in the field of sea cartography. From 1721 he worked for the Dépot des Cartes et Plans de la Marine, from 1741 until his death as an engineer-hydrograph of the Navy. In 1753 his atlas Neptune français, which covered all the coasts of France, was published, and in 1756 the hydrography françoise covering all seas of the earth. In 1764 the five-volume Petit Atlas maritime was published, which Bellin prepared on the orders of the Minister of the Navy, Choiseul. In addition, he wrote a number of geographical works and with Nouvelle méthode pour apprendre la geographie (1769) a geographic textbook for teaching. His maps illustrated, among other things, Bougainville's work Voyage autour du monde, published in 1771. As a co-author of the Encyclopédie edited by Diderot and d'Alembert, Bellin wrote more than a thousand articles in the field of shipping and navy.

Historical Description

Since Genoa has a natural harbor of the first rank, it must have been used as a seaport as soon as navigation began in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Nothing is known from ancient written sources about a stay or settlement by Greeks, but the discovery of a Greek cemetery from the 4th century B.C. suggests it. The appearance of the Romans is first reported in 216 B.C., and the destruction by the Carthaginians and immediate reconstruction by the Romans in 209 B.C. The Romans made Genoa and Placentia their headquarters against the Ligurians. The history of Genoa during the Longobard and Carolingian periods is merely the repetition of the general history of the Italian communes, which succeeded in obtaining from contesting princes and barons the first charters of their freedom. The patriotic spirit and the prowess of the Genoese at sea, which they developed in their defensive wars against the Saracens, led to the establishment of a civil constitution and the rapid growth of an effective navy. Out of the need for an alliance against the common Saracen enemy, Genoa joined forces with Pisa in the early 11th century to expel the Muslims from the island of Sardinia and emerge as a medieval colonial power. As early as 1162, Genoese established a base on the African Atlantic coast at Salé, located between Tangier and Casablanca, to which Safi, southwest of Casablanca, was added in 1253. In 1277 they opened the first sea links from Spain with Flanders and England. From 1251 they enjoyed tax privileges in Seville. Genoese merchants, even before the end of the Reconquista, made the trade of olive oil, wine, tuna, leather, soap and mercury their domain in the Iberian Peninsula in Cadiz, Granada, Lisbon, Malaga and Sanlucar. The conquests of Gran Canaria, Las Palmas and Tenerife were financed by Genoese commercial and credit capital with the active participation of Spanish and Portuguese entrepreneurs, such as the cloth manufacturers. Genoa's success in trade and navigation during the Middle Ages is all the more remarkable because, unlike the rival Venetians, it was constantly plagued by internal dissension. The common people and the nobility fought against each other, and rival parties among the nobles strove to gain supremacy in the state. The Banco di San Giorgio, with its large holdings mainly in Corsica, formed the most stable element in the state during this period until 1528, when the national spirit regained its old strength when Andrea Doria was able to shake off French domination and restore the old form of government. During this period - the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century - the Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus discovered the New World on behalf of Spain.