Rue a Viddin.

Title

Rue a Viddin.

Description

View of a typical streetscene in Widin, Bulgaria. After a painting of Salvador Cherubini.

ca. 1850

Artist

Lemaitre (1797-1870)

Augustin François Lemaître was a french copper and steel- printer and an illustrator in Paris.

Historical Description

Vidin is a port town on the southern bank of the Danube in north-western Bulgaria. It is close to the borders with Romania and Serbia, and is also the administrative centre of Vidin Province, as well as of the Metropolitan of Vidin (since 870). Vidin emerged at the place of an old Celtic settlement known as Dunonia. The settlement evolved into a Roman fortified town called Bononia. The town grew into one of the important centres of the province of Upper Moesia, encompassing the territory of modern north-western Bulgaria and eastern Serbia. The Ottomans went on to conquer the despotates of Dobrudzha, Prilep and Velbazhd as well. Vidin's independence did not last long. In 1396 the Ottomans invaded and turned Vidin into a sanjdak.In the late years of Ottoman rule, Vidin was the centre of Turkish rebel Osman Pazvantoğlu's breakaway state. Arround 1850, Vidin was a considerable town and one of the important fortified places of the military line of the Danube. It covers the approaches of Servia, commands Little Wallachia, the defiles of Transylvania, and, above all, the opening of the road which leads through Nissia and Sophia on to Adrianople.