West-Indianischer Historien Ander Theyl / Die Statt Carthagena ohn widerstand eingenommen. 352

Title

West-Indianischer Historien Ander Theyl / Die Statt Carthagena ohn widerstand eingenommen. 352

View shows the besieged city of Cartagena de Indias in Columbia with wind rose and a sea monster.

ca. 1620

Artist

Bry, de - Merian (1528-1598)

In 1631, Matthäus Merian and Johann Ludwig Gottfried published a one-volume abridged version of the monumental America series by Theodor De Bry and his two sons. The Historia Antipodum can be seen as the apotheosis of the collection of voyages to the New World. After Theodor's death in 1598, Johan Theodor and his brother Johan Israel continued to run the business together in Frankfurt until the latter died in 1609. As he had no natural male successor, in 1616 he sought the help of a highly talented Basel engraver in his early twenties, Matthäus Merian the Elder (1593-1650), who soon married Johan Theodor's eldest daughter Maria Magdalena. When Johan Theodor died, Merian immediately complied with a request from his mother-in-law. After Merian moved to Frankfurt permanently in June 1626, he turned to Johann Ludwig Gottfried (ca. 1584-1633) to help him pursue a successful independent career as a publisher. In the early 1630s, Gottfried contributed to a new Latin edition of Part 3, which contained the reports of Hans Staden and Jean de Léry on Brazil, as well as to German and Latin reprints of Part 9, which was dedicated to the natural history of the West Indies by the Jesuit José de Acosta. He was probably also involved in the production of the last German volume of the America series, part 14, which was published in 1630. The most significant addition to the collection, however, was a German work entitled Historia Antipodum or Newe Welt, published in 1631, a voluminous folio volume of more than six hundred pages which, despite its size, brought together what was probably the most monumental publication of early modern Europe, the fourteen-part America series that formed part of the De Bry travel collection. In many ways, the changes Merian and Gottfried made to the travelogues for Historia Antipodum surpassed even the editorial changes made for the original volumes. The travel accounts were no longer published one after the other, each followed by its own set of relevant illustrations, but all available information was summarized in three long chapters on the history of the New World, with the engravings within the text rather than as separate sections at the end of each narrative. The first chapter of the abridged version deals with the natural world, a decision that must be seen in the light of Gottfried and Merian's personal convictions, which they expressed in their introduction to Archontologia Cos- mica. The second chapter brings together fifty-three travelogues to the New World, all of which were previously included in the collection of voyages. Finally, the third and shortest chapter presents new, recently published accounts of European expansion in the Atlantic. In the introduction to the volume, the editors introduce the reader to their objective. The dedication to Landgrave Philipp von Hessen, signed only by Merian but dated 1630, emphasizes the differences between Europeans and the indigenous population of the New World, as does the "Preface to the Reader", which bears both signatures. Merian and Gottfried adhere to the generally accepted order of information in early modern European humanities and open their Historia Antipodum with a description of the natural world. The first seventy pages are based on the German translation of Acosta's treatise, which was first used in 1601. As the original translation prepared by Johan Homberger for the De Brys comprised 327 folios, the version printed in the abridged edition was heavily edited. Books 1-3 of Acosta's work, which deal with such traditional and far-reaching topics as the Aristotelian world view, the biblical theories on the origin of the Indians, the habitability of the Torrid zone and the currents and winds in the southern hemisphere, are each reduced to a few pages in the Historia Antipodum.

Historical Description

Colombia was discovered by Europe in 1499 by Alonso de Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci. In contrast, Christopher Columbus, in whose honor the country was named "Colombia", never entered the country. The first two explorers of Colombia first came to the "La Guajira" peninsula, which they believed to be an island, first called "Isla de Coquivacoa". Other parts of the country were later u. a. Discovered, researched and often looted by Rodrigo de Bastidas and Juan de la Cosa. The first colonial bases were Santa Marta (founded in 1525) and Cartagena de Indias (founded in 1533) on the Colombian Caribbean coast. Lured by gold and emeralds, the conquistadors occupied the country. Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada penetrated the Andean region in 1537, subjugated the Chibcha and founded Santa Fe de Bogotá in 1538. Coming from the south, coming from what is now Ecuador, Sebastián de Belalcázar conquered southern Colombia. Coming from the west, the merchant Nikolaus Federmann from Ulm reached Bogotá in 1539 in order to advance the colonization of the country on behalf of the Welsers. Because of its central importance for the Spanish possessions in the north of South America, Colombia was raised in 1547 to its own province "New Granada" within the Viceroyalty of Peru, and Bogotá became the seat of a Real Audiencia. Cartagena de Indias gained immense importance as a port of call for the fleets from Spain and developed during the colonial period into one of the most important - and best-protected - ports in the new world. The country's wealth led to pirate attacks in 1544, 1560 and 1586. a. by Francis Drake, on Cartagena.