Mining Library Treasures

The book Italia antiqua (1659) was written by the author Philipp Clüver in the seventeenth century. It is a chorography and forms a historical and geographical description of Italy. This so called historical geography is a special book because it is one of the first books written in its genre in this period. The author uses sources from the classical antiquity for his description and focuses on describing the land and its inhabitants. He writes about the people that lived in Italy, about their habits and the languages they spoke. On a geographic level he describes the climate and the topographical characteristics, which are illustrated by maps that are printed in the book. The author Philipp Clüver (1580 – 1622) is one the first in this period to write such an extensive book about a country. Therefore, Clüver is considered to be one of the first historical geographer of Europe in the early modern period.

Historical geographical descriptions

Contemporary historical-geographers traced the origin of the genre historical geography back to Antiquity. One of the famous examples is Historiès Apodeksis (c. 450 – 429 BC) from Herodotus (c. 485 BC – c. 420 BC). He gives many descriptions of regions and people in the Classical period. Therefore, Herodotus’ treatise is considered to be a great source of information on the geography of the land and where people lived. Another well-known example is Tacitus (c. 56 AD – 117 AD), who wrote the treatise Historiae. These classical treatises were rediscovered in the Renaissance, when many classical works were printed and extensively studied by scholars.

The genre historical geography forms a combination between history and the description of geographical characteristics of a specific region. Therefore, a lot of those early modern books depict maps to show the geographical information. These maps can show topographical elements like rivers and mountains, the borders of different regions, names of cities and villages.

It is not until the eighteenth and nineteenth century that historical geography became an established field of study at universities. The study of the historical and geographical past of a country became important for the nationalistic movement that took place in Europe, and the establishment of the nation states from the eighteenth century onwards.

Geographer at Leiden University

It was already in the seventeenth century that the Leiden University in the Dutch Republic appointed a geographer. This was Philipp Clüver, also known under the Latin name Philippus Cluverius, who is the author of the book on the historical-geographical background of Italy. Clüver was from a wealthy family of public officials and jurists. During his education, he already developed an interest for geography. It is said that he already made a map of Italy at the gymnasium, where he studied in Danzig. At the start of his study in Law at the Leiden University, he would have showed his map to a professor who gave him the advice to study Geography instead of Law. Clüvers father refused to pay for his education; so our author left Leiden and went into the Hungarian military. Furthermore, Clüver travelled a lot. Between 1607 and 1613, Clüver travelled to Norway, England, Scotland, France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. During his journeys abroad, he learned a lot about the geography and history of those countries.

Clüver wrote his magnum opus Germania antiqua in 1616. The book was printed by Elsevier and commissioned by the State General of the Dutch Republic. In that same year, Clüver was appointed ordinaris geographus at Leiden University. He travelled to Italy to study the objects described in the historical and geographical works from the classical Antiquity he had read. He wrote Italia antiqua and Sicilia antiqua, both were printed in 1659 after his dead. Clüver left his manuscripts to his children, who published these books about Italy and also Introductio in universam geographiam tam veteram quam novam, a study where all the countries of Europe were described according to a fixed pattern of topography, economics and politics. This study was important for over a decade.

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About the books

Clüver’s historical and geographical descriptions are based on classical sources, but most importantly on his own observations. He used historical and cartographical books from Tacitus, Cicero, Ovid, Virgil, Strabo, Ptolemy and others in order to write down his descriptions. The Italia antiqua from the library at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome is bound together with Sicilia antiqua. In this book on Sicily, the author gives a description of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. A map of Corsica is shown here.

The books about Italy and Sicily are dedicated to the duke of Mecklenburg Christian Louis I. As mentioned earlier, the book was printed after the dead of the author. It was commissioned by Johannes Buno and printed by his brother Conrad Buno in Wolfbüttel, in Germany. Both books contain maps of the lands described, those were probably made by Conrad Buno, who was a famous copperplate engraver and who was also known for making maps. These maps were probably made after the dead of Philipp Clüver and were also printed in an atlas. For example in an atlas dating from 1638 of the famous publisher Johannes Janssonius and Henricus Hondius.

In conclusion, this book influenced scholars and the production of books in different ways. Clüver stood at the beginning of the genre of historical geography and was one of the first in Europe to use his own findings in these kinds of descriptions. Many followed him by using their own observations when describing history and geography of a region of people.