Principaute Citerieure

Title

Principaute Citerieure

Description

Map shows Potenza in Campania with Naples, Salerno, Torre, Policastro Bussentino, Marsico Nuovo, Campagna, Muro Lucano and many more. Furthermore, two magnificent cartouches with coats of arms and mileage indicator, a compass rose and two sailing ships.

ca. 1660

Artist

Mortier/ Blaeu, W. (1661-1711)

Pieter Mortier (1661–1711) was an 18th-century mapmaker and engraver from the Northern Netherlands. Mortier had a partnership with Johannes Covens I (1697-1774) and founded the map publishing company Covens & Mortier (1721-1866). Mortier, being French himself, had easy access to French cartographers such as De L'Isle, Sanson, Jaillot, de Fer and De Wit. Consequently, much of Mortier's business was built upon leveraging the sophisticated Dutch printing establishment to issue embellished high quality editions of previously contemporary French maps. In the greater context of global cartography, this was a significant advantage as most Dutch map publishes had, at this point, fallen into the miasma of reprinting their own outdated works. By contrast, the cartographers of France were producing the most accurate and up to date charts anywhere. Mortier's cartographic work culminated in the magnificent nautical atlas, Le Neptune Francois. Upon Pierre's death in 1711 this business was inherited by his widow. In 1721 his son Cornelius Mortier took over the day to day operation of the firm. Cornelius partnered with his brother-in-law Jean Covens to form one of history's great cartographic partnerships - Covens and Mortier - which continued to publish maps and atlases until about 1866.

Historical Description

Naples. The original Greek settlement was called Neapolis ("new town"). Later it came under Roman rule. From the late Middle Ages to the 18th century, Naples was one of the largest cities in Europe. Its political history is marked by foreign domination for long periods, and it was also the capital of southern Italian empires. The history of Campania in the 4th century BC was marked by the expansion of the rising Roman Empire. Some remains of both the Greek and Roman cities still exist. But as early as 568, the Lombards began to conquer Italy, and in 581 they occupied Benevento. The remaining Eastern Roman-Byzantine territories were directed and defended from the Exarchate of Ravenna, which in turn had ducats under its authority. One of these dukates became Naples in 661. The Normans, under Rainulf Drengot, had gained their own territory for the first time since 1027 with the county of Aversa, which lay to the north of Naples. In 1047, Emperor Henry III, accompanied by Pope Clement II, had advanced south to clarify the political situation in the Lombard principalities. In 1442, Spaniards, namely the Crown of Aragon under Alfonso, defeated the last ruler of the French Angevins, destroying large parts of the city and the belt of fortresses already incorporated by suburbs. Under the Aragonese, Naples' economic links with the Iberian Peninsula were intensified, the economy as a whole was boosted and the city became a centre of the Renaissance and humanism. The rule of the Spanish Habsburgs, which lasted until 1707, was interrupted for months by revolts and the proclamation of the Republic of Naples; these events are considered part of the "Crisis of the 17th Century" A marked improvement in conditions only occurred when the Bourbons, who had acquired the Spanish throne as a result of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1712, took over Naples from the Austrians in 1734 in the War of the Polish Succession. In view of Napoleon's successes in his Italian campaign, the royal family fled to Palermo in 1798. In January 1799, French revolutionary troops under General Jean-Étienne Championnet entered Naples. With Napoleon's downfall came the end of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples, and Ferdinand returned to Naples on 17 June 1815. Ferdinand carried out a ruthless restoration policy that eliminated even the last traces of French reform efforts.