IOANNES
STRADAN(US) inven(it)
ADRIANUS
COLLAERT scalp(sit)
PH(I)L(IP)S
GALLE excudit
FRONTISPIECE
of the AMERICAE RETECTIO series. Antwerp, 1592
Almost
a century later the discovery of America, the flemish painter Jan van
der Straet, alias Giovanni Stradano (Bruges, 1523- Firenze,
Gran Duchy of Tuscany, 1605) designed two series of engravings
celebrating the adventurous travels that led to this epochal turning
point: NOVA REPERTA is a collection of twenty engravings commissioned
by the florentine nobleman Luigi Alamanni, and focused on the figure
of Americo Vespucci, and on the human progress in knowledge of matter
and visual arts.
The
series AMERICAE RETECTIO, four engravings placed in the appendix, is
entirely dedicated to the discovery of the new continent:
protagonists the genoese
Cristoforo Colombo, the florentine Amerigo Vespucci and the portuguese Ferdinando Magellano.
The
complex allegory that we admire in the AMERICAE RETECTIO' s frontispiece
has to be contextualized in the particular environment of Florence in the late XVI century, where Stradano worked, at the
court of Gran Duke Cosimo I and then of Ferdinando de'Medici, in the
circle of Giorgio Vasari, and in the Accademia degli Alterati of
which the Alamanni was part and that it must have had a large
influence on the creation of these images.
The
mise-en-scène includes representation of gods and navigators
as personifications of the New World, fantastical creatures and
ancient gods: Stradano seems to suggest the fundamental role of
Florence in the invention of the New World.
Burin engraving on laid parer. First state. Extremely rare. Excellent condition
Dim. 21,5x28,5 cm the engraved part
