Books: New Found Lands
January 2008
a briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia: The 1590 Theodor
de Bry Latin Edition
By Thomas Hariot University of Virginia Press, $200 cloth, $35 paperback
Among the unsung heroes of art history are the copperplate engravers who painstakingly illustrated printed books in the days before easier and quicker methods of reproduction became available. One of the greatest of these artistic craftsmen was Theodor de Bry, a Dutchman based in Frankfurt who was also one of the greatest book publishers in Europe during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In that age of discovery, de Bry made his name by publishing sumptuously packaged travel narratives for which he himself made the pictures. Probably the most famous of these is Thomas Hariot’s a briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia (1590), which provides a fascinating glimpse of the very first contact of English-speaking peoples with the inhabitants of America.
The University of Virginia Press has done a great service by making a facsimile of this book available (in two formats, a slipcased, clothbound limited edition for $200 and a high-grade paperback for $35), not only because of the quality of the reproductions but because of the version of the book chosen. What we have here, courtesy of the Mariners Museum in Newport News, is the very rare Latin edition, intended by de Bry to encourage interest in Protestant settlement of the New World among the learned of continental Europe, since English was a painfully provincial language at that time (an English translation is provided). The book contains hand-colored engravings and was the most lavishly produced of the various editions of Hariot’s narrative. The coloring of the plates was performed by an even more unsung hero of art known in German as the briefmaler. Using tiny brushes, paints and gold, these workers filled in every space between the lines of a black-on-white engraving, disdaining the popular method of stenciling, which gave a broader, clumsier effect.
In this edition, the briefmaler took care to color each kernel of Indian corn either yellow, red or blue. That detail is important, for despite the vivid illustrations of painted, befeathered Indians—based on sketches by John White, the expedition’s artist—the book’s real focus is botanical. Hariot was a scientist and mathematician, and his backers were practical politicians who wondered whether the New World could feed an ever-expanding number of hungry Caucasian mouths. Indian corn was thought to be a wonder crop. The ways of the Algonquian tribesman were interesting, but what Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh wanted to know was, would a colony work? As it happened, it would, but only after painful fits and starts lasting 20 years. The group of adventurers Hariot left behind disappeared, known to posterity as the lost colony of Roanoke.
In addition to their need to situate "Virginia" (the land between Florida and Canada) in the scientific order of things, the men of the 16th century felt the need to place its inhabitants in the scheme of history as they understood it. In this book we find the proto-anthropological images of Indians sandwiched between pictures of Adam and Eve and the pre-Christian Picts of Britain. For Hariot, de Bry and their co-conspirators, the Indians’ nakedness was that of man before the Fall, and their religion was that of their very own pagan ancestors.
By Thomas Hariot University of Virginia Press, $200 cloth, $35 paperback
Among the unsung heroes of art history are the copperplate engravers who painstakingly illustrated printed books in the days before easier and quicker methods of reproduction became available. One of the greatest of these artistic craftsmen was Theodor de Bry, a Dutchman based in Frankfurt who was also one of the greatest book publishers in Europe during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In that age of discovery, de Bry made his name by publishing sumptuously packaged travel narratives for which he himself made the pictures. Probably the most famous of these is Thomas Hariot’s a briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia (1590), which provides a fascinating glimpse of the very first contact of English-speaking peoples with the inhabitants of America.
The University of Virginia Press has done a great service by making a facsimile of this book available (in two formats, a slipcased, clothbound limited edition for $200 and a high-grade paperback for $35), not only because of the quality of the reproductions but because of the version of the book chosen. What we have here, courtesy of the Mariners Museum in Newport News, is the very rare Latin edition, intended by de Bry to encourage interest in Protestant settlement of the New World among the learned of continental Europe, since English was a painfully provincial language at that time (an English translation is provided). The book contains hand-colored engravings and was the most lavishly produced of the various editions of Hariot’s narrative. The coloring of the plates was performed by an even more unsung hero of art known in German as the briefmaler. Using tiny brushes, paints and gold, these workers filled in every space between the lines of a black-on-white engraving, disdaining the popular method of stenciling, which gave a broader, clumsier effect.
In this edition, the briefmaler took care to color each kernel of Indian corn either yellow, red or blue. That detail is important, for despite the vivid illustrations of painted, befeathered Indians—based on sketches by John White, the expedition’s artist—the book’s real focus is botanical. Hariot was a scientist and mathematician, and his backers were practical politicians who wondered whether the New World could feed an ever-expanding number of hungry Caucasian mouths. Indian corn was thought to be a wonder crop. The ways of the Algonquian tribesman were interesting, but what Queen Elizabeth and Sir Walter Raleigh wanted to know was, would a colony work? As it happened, it would, but only after painful fits and starts lasting 20 years. The group of adventurers Hariot left behind disappeared, known to posterity as the lost colony of Roanoke.
In addition to their need to situate "Virginia" (the land between Florida and Canada) in the scientific order of things, the men of the 16th century felt the need to place its inhabitants in the scheme of history as they understood it. In this book we find the proto-anthropological images of Indians sandwiched between pictures of Adam and Eve and the pre-Christian Picts of Britain. For Hariot, de Bry and their co-conspirators, the Indians’ nakedness was that of man before the Fall, and their religion was that of their very own pagan ancestors.
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