XXIII. Descrittione dell’ Africa e Quella dell’ Isole, che a lei S’Aspettano. / Africa.

  • Translation

Article ID AF0456

Title

XXIII. Descrittione dell’ Africa e Quella dell’ Isole, che a lei S’Aspettano. / Africa.

Description

Map shows all of Africa with Madagascar, Arabia, partly the coast of Brazil and a sea monster.From Giovanni Antonio Magini / Leonardo Cernoti Atlas “La Seconda Parte della Geografia di Cl. Tolomeo“.

Year

ca. 1580

Artist

Porro (1520-1604)

Girolamo Porro (c. 1520 - after 1604) was an Italian engraver on wood and on copper. He was born at Padua, but worked during the greater part of his life in Venice. He engraved for a book entitled Imprese illustri di diversi, published by Camillo Camilli in 1535. He also executed the plates for the Orlando Furioso of Ariosto, published at Venice in 1584 , for the Funerali antichi di diversi Popoli et Natione, by Tommaso Porcacchi, published in 1574 and the portraits for the Sommario delle Vite do' Duchi di Milano by Scipione Barbuo, 1574. The maps in Girolamo Ruscelli's translation of the Geographia of Ptolemy, 1574, and the maps in Porcacchi's Isole piu famose del Mondo, first published in 1572, are likewise by him.

Historical Description

According to the "Out-of-Africa theory", Africa is considered the "cradle of mankind", where homo development led to the development of the anatomically modern human Homo sapiens. One of the earliest advanced civilizations in mankind was formed in ancient Egypt. Over the millennia, various "great empires" such as the Empire of Abyssinia emerged on the continent. There were other kingdoms in West Africa, such as the Ashanti and Haussa, but they emerged much later. There were also some important cultures in East and South Africa, as in the area of today's Sudan, then called Nubia or Kush. Nubian pharaohs ruled all of Egypt for a dynasty. For example, the inhabitants of Greater Zimbabwe were important cultures in southern Africa. This stone castle was architecturally a masterpiece at that time and important for trade between the peoples of the south and east. The Swahili were known in East Africa. North Africa was connected to Europe and the Near East by the Mediterranean rather than separated. Carthage, a foundation of the Phoenicians in what is now Tunisia, was around the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The dominant power in the western Mediterranean until it was replaced by Rome in the Punic Wars. This prevailed from 30 BC. BC (conquest of Egypt) over all of North Africa. Even the ancient Egyptians (Queen Hatshepsut) made trips to Punt, probably in what is now Somalia. The kingdom of the Queen of Sheba, which probably had its center in southern Arabia, is said to have spanned parts of the Horn from Africa to the north of Ethiopia.

Place of Publication Venice
Dimensions (cm)25 x 17 cm
ConditionTear external margin perfectly restored
Coloringoriginal colored
TechniqueCopper print

Reproduction:

42.00 €

( A reproduction can be ordered individually on request. )