Ferdinand magellan

16th century engraver and publisher from Liège (–)

Theodor de Bry
Engraved self-portrait of Theodorus de Bry[1]
Born	Liège
Died	27 March (aged 69–70) Frankfurt
Known&#;for	Engraving
Notable work	Collectiones peregrinatiorum in Indiam orientalem et Indiam occidentalem (–)

Theodor de Bry (also Theodorus de Bry) (&#;&#; 27 March ) was an engraver, goldsmith, editor and publisher, famous for his depictions of early European expeditions to the Americas.

The Spanish Inquisition forced de Bry,^{[citation needed]} a Protestant, to flee his native, Spanish-controlled Southern Netherlands. He moved around Europe, starting from his birth on the city of Liège in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, then to Strasbourg, Antwerp, London and Frankfurt, where he settled.

De Bry created a large number of engraved illustrations for his books.

Most of his books were based on first-hand observations by explorers, even if De Bry himself, acting as a recorder of information, never visited the Americas. To modern eyes, many of the illustrations seem formal but detailed.

Biography

Theodorus de Bry was born in in Liège, Prince-Bishopric of Liège (in modern Belgium), to a family which had escaped the destruction of the city of Dinant in during the Wars of Liège by the Duke of Burgundy, Philip the Good and his son Charles the Bold.

As a man he trained under his grandfather, Thiry de Bry the Elder (died ), and under his father, Thiry de Bry the Younger (–), who were jewellers and engravers, engraving copper plates. The art of copper plate engraving was the technology required at that time for printing images and drawings as part of books.

In Thiry de Bry the Younger married Catherine le Blavier, daughter of Conrad le Blavier de Jemeppe. Their son, Theodore de Bry, also became a jeweller and engraver.

Theodore de Bry became a Protestant, and in was sentenced to perpetual banishment and his goods were confiscated.^[2] He moved to Strasbourg, along the west bank of the Rhine.

In , he moved to Antwerp in the Duchy of Brabant, which was part of the Spanish Netherlands or Southern Netherlands and Low Countries of that time (16th century), where he further developed and used his skills as a copper engraver.

Theodore de bry christopher columbus genoese and wife For many, the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas is inextricably linked to a particular image: a small group of confident men on a tropical beach formally announcing their presence to the dumbfounded Amerindians. Michiel van Groesen explores the origins of this Eurocentric iconography and ascribes its persistence to the editorial strategy of the publisher who invented the initial design, a full century after Columbus' encounter. Theodore de Bry, born in the Prince-Bishopric of Liege in , lived and worked in Strasbourg, Antwerp, and London before he ultimately settled in Frankfurt, the centre of the European book trade. Trained as a goldsmith, he had successfully re-invented himself as a graphic artist in the s and s. In the final decade of the sixteenth century he would crown this transformation by introducing the technique of including copper engravings into printed books to Germany, thus creating a niche in the market for his lavishly illustrated coffee table books.

Between and he lived in London, where he met the geographer Richard Hakluyt and began to collect stories and illustrations of various European explorations, most notably from Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues.

In , Theodorus and his family moved permanently to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he became a citizen and began to plan his first publications.

The most famous one is known as Les Grands Voyages, i.e., "The Great Travels", or "The Discovery of America". He also published the largely identical India Orientalis series, as well as many other illustrated works on a wide range of subjects. His books were published in Latin, and were also translated into German, English and French to reach a wider reading public.

In Theodorus de Bry and his sons published a new, illustrated edition of Thomas Harriot's A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia about the first English settlements in North America (in modern-day North Carolina). His illustrations were based on the watercolor paintings of colonist John White.^[4] The book sold well, and the next year de Bry published a new one about the first French attempts to colonize Florida: Fort Caroline, founded by Jean Ribault and René de Laudonnière.

It featured 43 illustrations based on paintings of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues, one of the few survivors of Fort Caroline. The images and descriptions feature the Timucuans.^[5] Jacques de Moyne had planned to publish his account of his expeditions but died in According to de Bry's account, he had bought de Moyne's paintings from his widow in London and used them as a basis for the engravings.

He and his son John-Theodore made adjustments to both the texts and the illustrations of the original accounts, on the one hand in function of his own understanding of Le Moyne's paintings, and, most importantly, to please potential buyers. The Latin and German editions varied markedly, in accordance with the differences in estimated readership.

The verisimilitude of many of de Bry's illustrations is questionable; not least because he never crossed the Atlantic. Amerindians look like Mediterranean Europeans, and illustrations mix different tribal customs and artifacts. In addition to day-to-day life of the American natives, Theodore de Bry even included a few depictions of cannibalism; largely thanks to the accounts of Amerigo Vespucci this was already a very common element in images showing a personification of the Americas.

Christopher columbus biography

Theodore de bry christopher columbus genoese youtube

Ferdinand magellan

All in all, the vast amount of these illustrations and texts influenced the European perception of the New World, Africa, and Asia.

Among other works he engraved a set of twelve plates illustrating the Procession of the Knights of the Garter in , and a set of thirty-four plates illustrating the Procession at the Obsequies of Sir Philip Sidney; plates for Thomas Harriot's Brief and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (Frankfurt, ); the plates for the six volumes of Jean-Jacques Boissard's Romanae Urbis Topogrephia et Antiquitates (–); and, with Boissard, a series of portraits and biographies of humanists and Protestants entitled Icones Virorum Illustrium (–).^[6]

De Bry had been assisted by his two sons, Johann Theodor de Bry (–) and Johann Israel de Bry (–), who after their father's death in Frankfurt-am-Main on 27 March , carried on the Collectiones (expanded to voyages in Asia, reaching 30 volumes) and the illustration of Boissard's work and also added to the Icones^[6] and other significant publications, like Robert Fludd's works on the microcosm and macrocosm.

His work and engravings can today be consulted at many museums around the world, including Liège, his birthplace, and at Brussels in Belgium. In France, they are housed at the Library of the Marine Historical Service at the Château de Vincennes on the outskirt of Paris. In the US, there are copies at the Public Library of New York, at the University of California at Los Angeles, and elsewhere.

In Argentina, it is possible to find copies at the Museo Maritimo de Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego and at the Navy Department of Historic Studies in Buenos Aires. In Scotland, eleven titles are listed in the catalogue of Edinburgh University Library (Special Collections).

Works

See also

References

Further reading

External links