Theodor De Bry 1528-1598 Artist, Engraver, Publisher

Refugee.

Many Europeans first glimpsed the wonders of the New World in prints executed by the engraver Theodor de Bry. De Bry, a Lutheran originally from Spanish-controlled Flanders, fled to the Protestant city of Strasbourg, Germany, in 1570 due to Spanish persecution of non-Catholics. In Strasbourg, which was the European center of the book trade, he worked and studied with the French Huguenot engraver Etienne Delaune. During a twenty-eight-year period, from 1590 to 1618, de Bry and his sons published in Europe ten illustrated volumes titled Great Voyages which depicted the conquest of the Americas by English, French, Dutch, and Spanish colonists. The purpose of these volumes was to encourage colonization of the New World.

The Invention of America.

The lavishly illustrated Great Voyages circulated widely and were published not only in German and Latin but...