Cosimo III’s Tour of the Netherlands (1667-8)

The young prince Cosimo III de’ Medici arrived in the Netherlands on December 15th, 1667 having set off from Florence on October 22nd of the same year, a journey that took him to Innsbruck, Augusburg and Mainz and, following a long journey up the Rhine to Wesel, Emmerich and Arnhem. After a brief stay in Arnhem, Cosimo and his travel companions continued to Vreeswijk, Utrecht and Amsterdam, where he arrived on December 19th. 

He did not travel alone. He was accompanied by the Marquis Filippo Corsini, his secretary Apollonio Bassetti, the Master of the House Filippo Marchetti, the Treasurer Cosimo Prie and his personal doctor Andrea Moniglia. He was welcomed in Amsterdam by Francesco Feroni, a Florentine banker and merchant who specialized in wheat, slaves and artworks and had found success in the Netherlands.

On his first day in Amsterdam, he also met Pieter Blaeu, heir of the famous family of cartographers. Together with Feroni and Blaeu, Cosimo III visited the Arsenal of the Dutch Republic and the Oost-Indisch Huis, the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company. The visit to the headquarters is fundamental for understanding Cosimo III’s decision to acquire part of the maps produced by Johannes Vingboons, who was the company’s official cartographer. Some days later, Cosimo also received a visit from Michiel de Ruyter, one of the most famous admirals of the Golden Age especially for his successes in the Anglo-Dutch war.

Cosimo also visited Leiden, the home of the first university in the Northern Netherlands, founded in 1575 and was received by the entire academic staff, the Leiden burgomasters, and the university’s curators. He was particularly impressed by the hortus botanicus and the anatomical theatre. While in The Hague, he was also received by the Prince of Orange, William III, and Prince Maurits of Nassau. Cosimo also paid his respects to the “founding father” of the House of Orange, William, and visited his funerary monument in Delft. His travel journal also reports verbatim the long epitaph that celebrates the actions of “the man responsible for the revolt of the United Provinces against the Spanish”.

Cosimo’s tour through the Netherlands lasted seven months and he returned in Florence in May 1668.

 

The Carte di Castello or Castello Maps

During a visit to the Netherlands between 1667 and 1668, while in Amsterdam, Prince Cosimo III de’ Medici purchased 65 hand-painted geographical maps and city views from Johannes Vingboons, a cartographer and copyist for the Dutch India Companies, through the book dealer Pieter Blaeu who acted as a go-between. To quote the travel journal written by Marquis Filippo Corsini, “they showed the plans of various ports, cities, fortresses and coasts of both the East and West Indies”, from the coasts of the American continent to the west and east coasts of Africa, the Indian Ocean, the seas of South East Asia, the Philippines, Japan and ‘New Spain’, on the other side of the Pacific. Two years later, during a second and longer European journey that took him to Portugal, Spain, England, Ireland, France and back to the Netherlands again, having arrived in Lisbon in February 1669, Cosimo acted through the Portuguese cosmographer Luís Serrão Pimentel to purchase copies of Portuguese large-scale nautical charts of the coasts of Africa, Arabia and Persia and the Indian subcontinent. 

The connected global world of the mid-17th century is taking shape through the lenses of Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish cartography and landscapes. After being taken back to Florence, all documented traces of them were lost for over a century. Nevertheless, during the Augsburg Lorraine regency, the inventories of the Villa di Castello show that the maps were to be found in the Grand Duke Peter Leopold’s library from at least 1785. They were framed and displayed on the walls in the Villa Medicea di Castello until around 1920 when, 60 years after the unification of Italy, the Savoy royal family left the Villa. The maps were then taken to the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana and have since then been identified as the “Carte di Castello” or “Castello Maps”.  

 

The Typologies of the Carte di Castello

The maps, vistas and iconographic material acquired in Amsterdam and Lisbon by prince Cosimo can be divided into six groups. 

The first presents the coastal profiles of port cities, like Manila, observed from a bird’s eye view from a high point in the middle of the sea: the depiction of Ambon, in the Maluku Islands, Indonesia and the view of Malacca, in Malaysia, portrayed during a sea battle between Portuguese and Dutch fleets that occurred in 1624, are memorable examples of this type. 

A second group includes detailed plans of cities with an urbanistic, administrative or military aim. The plan of Mexico City, on display, originally drawn in 1629 after a disastrous flood, and the unique first plan of “Amsterdam in the New Netherlands”, nowadays New York, drawn around 1667, just a few years before the British acquired the city, both are remarkable examples of this group. 

A third group comprises painted vistas and plans of fortresses, representing the principal hubs of global Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish commercial global networks. Fort Nassau, already on display, on the coast of Guinea, and Elmina Castle on the ‘Gold Coast’ in what is now southern Ghana – both prisons built to hold African slaves –as well Fort Zeelandia on the Island of Formosa, are remarkable examples of this third type. 

The maps of the coasts of Japan, from Nagasaki to Edo, present-day Tokyo, exemplify a fourth group, comprising nautical maps of continental coastline, islands and archipelagos like the Banda Islands, involved in the global trading networks of the Dutch East India Company, in the seas of south-east Asia. 

Large scale nautical and topographical maps of stretches of African coastline, from the Cape of Good Hope up towards the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, as well as the Strait of Malacca to the east, form a fifth group of sixteen maps, of Portuguese origin, brokered to Prince Cosimo in Lisbon by the mathematician and military architect Luís Serrão Pimentel in February 1669. 

Finally, four images displaying the manner of dancing of the Hottentotts, a Hottentott mother with her child, a hunter and a warrior, form a sixth group, representing the Khoekhoe tribe who inhabited the Cape of Good Hope region. The Dutch called them Hottentots, a derogatory term probably inspired by the sounds that characterize their spoken language. 

Altogether, these six groups display the multi-faceted world of European empires in early modern times.

 

Africa, the Caribbean and South America: gold and slave trade

Fifteen of the eighty-two "Carte di Castello" portray African colonial port cities, fortresses, and islands and include four unique ethnographic pictorial representations of the Khoekhoe (literally "real men"), an ethnic group from southwest Africa. This corpus is of great documentary value and sheds light on Sub-Saharan Africa in the context of transcontinental trade relations of the Portuguese and Spanish empires as well as the Dutch trading companies. 

Among the maps and views of African colonial cities, two “Carte di Castello” feature the fort, warehouse and prison for slaves of São Jorge da Mina, on the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, in present-day Ghana. Built in 1482, Elmina was the first fortress to be constructed by the Portuguese in Sub‑Saharan Africa, after the discovery of gold. São Jorge ‘of the mine’ served the purpose of providing a stable outpost for exchanging African gold with African slaves – brought in from the kingdom of Benin and other African regions – with the local kingdoms of Guinea. This trade expanded for over a century, attracting the interest of French, British and Dutch pirates. The weakening of the Portuguese empire on a global scale, caused in part by the wars against the Dutch in the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the Atlantic, enabled the Dutch to conquer São Jorge da Mina in 1637 and, subsequently, Luanda, in Angola, and the Island of São Tomé. 

Another map displays the Elmina fort with its impressive bastions and towers that overlook the colonial village, made up of modest houses. Some canoes can also be spotted on the shores of the lagoon. Along with the houses, they show a marked contrast with the powerful structure of the fort, highlighting the huge asymmetry that characterized the colonial world. 

The conquests in Sub-Saharan Africa marked the height of the West India Company’s expansion on both sides of the Atlantic, from Recife, the port of Pernambuco in Brazil, to the African coasts, where the Dutch took over the slave trade. The period of Dutch domination lasted until 1648, when the Portuguese took back both São Tomé and Luanda. São Jorge remained in their hands until 1872, the year it was sold to the British.

 

The Khoekhoe tribe of the Cape of Good Hope

Four “Carte di Castello”, unique in their genre, show the African inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope region that belonged to the Khoekhoe – or “real man” – tribe. The Dutch called them ‘Hottentots’, a derogatory and onomatopoeic term inspired by the aspirated sounds that characterize their spoken language (described as consisting of whistles and tongue clicks). 

A first image displays five Khoekhoe women and two Khoekhoe men dancing while a drummer beats the rhythm. Immersed in the dramatic seascape of the Cape of Good Hope’s cliffs and Table Bay, the Khoekhoe dancers almost naked are adorned with bracelets on their wrists and feet, wearing hats and capes. 

A second image shows a Khoekhoe mother carrying a small child on her back in a sling, while holding a small pot in her right hand and a thin stick together with a tuft of freshly picked herbs in her left hand. 

A third image displays a hunter who wears only a cloth over his shoulders and an animal hide on his hips. The hunting tools are extremely simple: a lance, a bow, and a quiver. His arms are adorned with metal bracelets. 

Finally, a fourth image shows a Khoekhoe warrior, very much like the hunter, with the only exception being of a small bag worn around his neck and the different position of his right arm. 

Unlike the dancing scene, the images of the mother, the hunter and the warrior have a neutral background. They seem to have been inspired by the desire to present a female and two masculine ‘models’ of the indigenous populations. While written descriptions and drawings by Dutch eyewitnesses, merchants and explorers could have been used, these ethnographic images seem to have been also inspired by European iconographic models with the addition of objects imported to Europe from the ‘Indies’. 

The Dutch and Khoekhoe had their first encounter in the late sixteenth century, during the first Dutch trade voyages that included a stop at the Table Bay, near the Cape of Good Hope. The Dutch primarily purchased livestock, which was butchered and preserved as salted meat, trading it for bread, pipes, metal, and alcoholic drinks. After a relatively peaceful initial phase, relations became tense due to the Dutch demands for exclusive use of the grazing land. The transformation of the area around the Cape into a permanent colony and the development of stable agricultural activities led to open conflict between the two groups and resulted in the occupation of the territories by the Dutch and the dispersal and enslavement of the local populations.

 

The Spice Islands and Intra-Asian Trade

The map of the Banda Islands, in the Maluku archipelago, South of Indonesia, combines the highly detailed nautical chart mapping the coastal profiles with a bird’s eye view of the island territories and a meticulous cadastral map of the land planted with nutmeg trees. There are also around one hundred measurements of the depths of the seabed and landing places. These four characteristics make this map one of the finest examples of mid-17th century cartography. It exemplifies the use of cartography as a navigational aid, as a chorographic representation of territories and seas – note Gunung Api volcano erupting – and of the cadastral, administrative and economic division of the land for colonial and trading purposes. The Banda Islands were the only place in the world where nutmeg trees grew until the 19th century. Discovered by the Portuguese in 1512, Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587–1629), fourth governor general of the Dutch East Indies, began to build fortifications in the Maluku archipelago in 1609 with the objective of establishing a world monopoly in the nutmeg trade with Europe and India, through the port city of Ambon. Portuguese merchants arrived there in 1512. In 1605, Captain Steven van der Hagen (1563–1621) conquered Ambon in the name of the Dutch East India Company. Ambon was the Dutch operational headquarters in the Far East until 1619, when Batavia, now known as Jakarta, became the capital of the Dutch trading empire. The biggest structures in Ambon include the hospital, the church and the court, surrounded by equatorial forest. The key also explains that the city was made up of different quarters, divided by ethnicity and religion, including the Chinese quarter, the native quarter and the Christian quarter, home to ancient descendants of slaves transported to Ambon by the Portuguese. 

From the Banda Islands and Ambon, nutmeg, cloves and other spices were mostly dispatched to port cities, such as Surat, Pulicat, and Cannanore, among others, in India and Colombo in Ceylon, nowadays Sri Lanka, the largest consumers of spices in the world, in exchange for textiles, silver and precious stones.

 

Colonial Cities and Capitals

The Carte di Castello display some of the major colonial cities founded by Europeans in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Prominent among these are Macao, Malacca and Manila. 

The city of Macao was officially founded near Canton by Portuguese merchants in 1557, with permission of the Chinese authorities. This concession ensured the Portuguese had a permanent warehouse for managing trade between Japan and China. The very detailed representation of the city displays the urban landscape, several churches with an emphasis on the “Madre de Deus” and the Jesuit college of São Paulo, one of the biggest Catholic complexes in Asia. Macao was one of the nerve centres of the Portuguese empire in Asia and also became a crucial Jesuit base. Since the Dutch wanted to penetrate the rich Chinese market but did not have any warehouses in China, the Dutch East India Company tried to establish itself in Macao on a number of occasions. In June 1622, an entire Dutch fleet with 1300 soldiers on board tried to conquer Macao, but was warded off by the Portuguese. 

Malacca, in nowadays Indonesia, is represented in four of the Castello maps. The most pictorial of them displays the port city seen from the middle of the bay, during the period of Portuguese rule. Here we can see the fortress built by Alfonso de Albuquerque (1453–1515), the church of São Paulo and the monastery of Madre de Deus. In the centre of the image we can also see a naval battle between Dutch and Portuguese ships. Malacca was founded in around 1374. Thanks to its deep and protected natural harbour, it acquired a strategic role in shipping between the South China Sea and the western Indian Ocean since the time of the Islamic voyages to China and the Ming voyages to the west, under the command of Admiral Zheng He (1371–1434). In 1511, Malacca was conquered by Albuquerque, becoming a prosperous Portuguese colony. The Dutch East India Company took over Malacca from the previous conquerors in 1641. 

One of the Carte di Castello shows in great detail the port city of Manila. The highly detailed bird’s eye view depicts the Cavita fort and the main churches and illustrates the streets and their names, the landing places and the bustling activities taking place in the port. In the harbour there are Dutch and Portuguese ships as well as a karakoa – a warship used by the Kapampangan and Visayan peoples native to the Philippines. The Foundation of Manila dates back to around 1570, when the Spaniards built a fort in the Islamic region of Luson. In 1574 Philip II granted it city status and in 1595 Manila was proclaimed capital of the Philippines, a strategic port between ‘New Spain’, China, Japan and the ‘spice islands’ in South East Asia. Silver from the Bolivian mines in Potosí arrived there via Acapulco and was shipped to China on the Galeón de Manila. Just seventy years after its foundation, Manila had become a large and cosmopolitan colonial city.  

 

The first map of New York

The map of New York City is probably the most famous in the collection of the Carte di Castello. It is a one-off among the preserved Vingboons maps and it is the only city plan testifying to the Dutch period of this city, which passed into the hands of the British in 1664. At that moment the name was changed from Amsterdam in the New Netherlands to New York, marking the passage from a Dutch to a British colony. The meticulous details make this map an invaluable testimony to the early development of the city. Fort Amsterdam is clearly visible, as well as the gardens of the West India Company, a weigh house, and the city walls. The location of this city wall is still remembered in the name of present-day Wall Street. The map of New York is based on the work of Jacques Cortelyou (ca 1625–1693), a Dutch surveyor and cartographer who was asked to produce a detailed plan of the city in 1660 by the burgomaster of New Amsterdam. 

The area occupied by present-day New York City is also represented in a second map from the Castello collection, bearing the title “Manhattan on the North River”. This map depicts the island now known as Manhattan, the western part of Long Island, Staten Island, Sandy Hook, Upper and Lower Bay, Newark Bay, Jersey Shore and part of the Bronx. As indicated under point 2 of the key, the map shows the situation in 1639, when the decision was made to create a detailed reconstruction of the Dutch colony. The same key indicates important buildings, as well as the quadrilater shape of fort Amsterdam, three mills and the “neighborhood of the Company slaves”, indicated with the letter F. 

The Dutch had bought the Island of Manhattan for 60 guldens from Native Americans in 1626. A few years after the foundation of New Amsterdam, the number of inhabitants was about 270. This number would rapidly grow to 800 in 1653, when New Amsterdam was granted city rights. The Dutch turned New Amsterdam into one of the Dutch West India Company’s most important trading centers, in particular for fur trade.  

 

The Nautical Atlas of Cosimo III

A manuscript nautical atlas, dedicated to Cosimo III, dating from around 1670, the year the prince succeeded his father Ferdinand II and became Grand Duke of Tuscany, is preserved at the library of Museo Galileo. 

The illuminated atlas opens with a richly decorated frontispiece. At the centre of the frontispiece, the Medici Grand Ducal coat of arms stands out. Above it, there are celestial and terrestrial globes. On the sides, a pair of sextants and nautical astrolabes are drawn. Next to the coat of arms, two male figures hold sounders. At the bottom of the page, a warship sails with a pair of nautical compasses and a pair of magnetic compasses at its sides. A dedication written in gold on a crimson background, refers to Cosimo III calling himself, in Latin, "Dux Maris Hetrusci," Lord of the Etruscan Sea. 

The atlas consists of eight marine charts drawn on large parchment bifolios. 

Coastal profiles are plotted on the geometric grid of wind roses and are always oriented, in an unaccustomed way, toward the west, which is at the top of the bifolios. The inland parts of the territories are illustrated by drawings with ships in full sail, and cities, for example Istanbul, which are also identified by their blazons. 

The eight maps depict, in succession, the eastern and western Mediterranean, with the Atlantic coast of Europe and the British Isles, the Atlantic coast of Africa down to the Gulf of Guinea and northeastern Brasil, Central and North America, South America, the east and west coasts of southern Africa, including Madagascar, the coast of India and the Indonesian archipelago, as well as the coast of Northern Europe, the Baltic region and North America. 

In the large blank spaces in Africa, a pair of lions, an ostrich, a monkey and the port city of Elmina, with its imposing fortress-prison, are depicted. A finely decorated nautical scale stands out in the map of southern Africa. 

The last sheet of the parchment, on the other hand, is illustrated by two warships sailing with full sails, while on the verso a galley of the Medici fleet is depicted in fine detail. 

This is a celebratory atlas, a court cartography, with no practical functions other than the symbolic one of paying homage to the Grand Duke by illustrating, through refined stylistic devices, the coastal profiles of the Mediterranean Sea, as well as those of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. 

Although unsigned, the atlas is in the tradition of nautical cartographic atlases drawn at the Medici cartographic workshop in Livorno by the cartographers Giovanni Battista and Pietro Cavallini, active between Livorno and Florence from about 1630. They were collaborators of the refined nautical cartographer Ioannes Oliva, who belonged to a family of cartographers active in Marseilles, Genoa and Livorno. Oliva signed a refined and accurate atlas for the Medici court in 1616, at the time of Grand Duke Cosimo II, grandfather to Cosimo III. 

The development of nautical cartography in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany is linked to the figure of Robert Dudley, a British admiral, explorer and cartographer, who worked from 1606 onward for the Grand Dukes Ferdinand I, then for Cosimo II and finally for Ferdinand II de’ Medici. In 1646 he published in Florence the Arcano del Mare – The Secret of the Sea - the first printed nautical atlas of the whole world. A second edition of the Arcano del Mare was printed in 1661, during Prince Cosimo III's youth.