Portugallia ex deseriptione exactissima Eduardi Nonii Vernandi Alvari Secci et Antonii Vasconcelli

Title

Portugallia ex deseriptione exactissima Eduardi Nonii Vernandi Alvari Secci et Antonii Vasconcelli

Description

Map shows the whole of Portugal with a magnificent title cartouche.

ca. 1698

Artist

Weigel (1654-1725)

Christoph Weigel the Elder (1654-1725) was a German engraver, art dealer and publisher. Christoph Weigel learned the art of copperplate engraving in Augsburg. After various positions, including in Vienna and Frankfurt am Main, he acquired citizenship in Nuremberg in 1698. The first Weigel work from his own, successfully run publishing house in Nuremberg was Die Bilderlust from 1698. This publishing house published around 70 books and engravings during his lifetime. One of his most important works is the status book from 1698. In it, Weigel described and described more than two hundred types of handicrafts and services, each illustrated by a copper engraving, based on life. Because Weigel visited almost all the workshops himself, drew and observed on site, agreed the content of his articles with the master craftsmen and signed important equipment from the original. Weigel worked particularly brilliantly in the scraping and line manner. He was the first engraver to use a kind of machine for the underground. In Nuremberg he worked very closely with the imperial geographer and cartographer Johann Baptist Homann (1664–1724) to create his maps. His younger brother Johann Christoph Weigel ran an art dealership in Nuremberg around the same time and was also very successful.

Historical Description

Portugal is the oldest state on the Iberian Peninsula and one of the oldest in Europe, its territory having been continuously settled, invaded and fought over since prehistoric times. The pre-Celtic people, Celts, Carthaginians and Romans were followed by the invasions of the Visigoths and Suebi Germanic peoples. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal established the first global empire, becoming one of the world's major economic, political and military powers. During this period, today referred to as the Age of Discovery, Portuguese explorers pioneered maritime exploration, notably under royal patronage of Prince Henry the Navigator and King John II, with such notable voyages as Bartolomeu Dias' sailing beyond the Cape of Good Hope (1488), Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea route to India (1497–98) and the European discovery of Brazil (1500). During this time Portugal monopolized the spice trade, divided the world into hemispheres of dominion with Castille, and the empire expanded with military campaigns in Asia. However, events such as the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, the country's occupation during the Napoleonic Wars, the independence of Brazil (1822), and a late industrialization compared to other European powers, erased to a great extent Portugal's prior opulence.