Theodore de Bry: America

Előszó

The monumental collection of voyages assembled by Theodore de Bry and his heirs is one of the most impressive book series ever produced. It was published in Frankfurt am Main between 1590 and 1634, by Theodore himself, his two sons Johan Theodore and Johan Israel, and Johan Theodore's son-in-law Matthaeus Merian, and brought together texts and images to present a comprehensive European view of Asia, Africa and America. As a true premodern coffee-table book, it consists of 25 folio volumes divided into two largely indentical series - the 13-volume America series, which included accounts of the New World, and the 12-volume India Orientalis series, dealing with Africa and Asia. Overall, the collection contains around 50 European travel accounts from the late 16th and early 17th centuries. All these reports had already been published before, in Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese or German. After having been selected by the De Byrs for inclusion they were translated into German and Latin, and subseque selling point. The De Brys had introduced the technique of including copper engravings in printed books in Frenfurt, the cente of the early modern book world, and even by the time they concluded their series on these voyages few publishers could match their skill in producing high-quality illustrated editions. The De Brys themselves, however, never travelled, and for their engravings they relied on images found in the original accounts they used, or else on their own imagination. Indeed, more than 40 percent of the engravings in the collection appear to have been invented from scratch in their Frankfurt workshop, thereby creating and idiosyncratic view of the world across the Atlantic and of the Orient which helped to legitimate European colonisation for the next two centruies. Vissza