Ville de Diu

Title

Ville de Diu

Description

Map shows the town of Diu (Gujarati) with the Diu Fort of the same name in India.

ca. 1746

Artist

Schley, van der (1715-1779)

Jakob van der Schley (1715 -1779) was a Dutch draughtsman and engraver. He studied under Bernard Picart (1673-1733) whose style he subsequently copied. His main interests were engraving portraits and producing illustrations for "La Vie de Marianne" by Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux (1688-1763), published in The Hague between 1735 and 1747. He also engraved the frontispieces for a 15-volume edition of the complete works of Pierre de Brantôme (1540-1614), "Oeuvres du seigneur de Brantôme", published in The Hague in 1740. Most of the plates in the Hague edition of Prévost's "Histoire générale des voyages" are signed by van der Schley.

Historical Description

Diu is an island formerly under Portuguese rule off the southern coast of the Indian state of Gujarat. Together with the small village of Goghla on the mainland and the island of Simbor to the east, it forms one of the three districts of the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. In 1509, Francisco de Almeida and 23 Portuguese ships managed to crush a combined Egyptian-Arab-Indian fleet in the naval battle of Diu. The victory secured Portuguese supremacy in the Indian Ocean, so that major flows of goods and finance were now diverted to new trade routes to Europe. Asian goods, such as spices, now came to Europe via the sea route around Africa and Lisbon. With the construction of a fort on the eastern tip of the island, Nuno da Cunha incorporated the island into the Portuguese colonial empire in 1535. In 1538 the Portuguese repelled a siege by the Ottomans and in 1547 by the Sultan of Gujarat. Diu became the most important customs post of the Portuguese in Asia after Goa and Ormuz. India's sovereignty over the island was recognized by Portugal only in 1974 after the Carnation Revolution.