de Bry / Linschoten, Mozambique

Linschoten / Theodore de Bry, 1601 :
[Mozambique Island]  Excellent. 8.5 x 10.75 inches. $400.

Mozambique Island was a trading center for Arab merchants from the 10th through the late 15th centuries. Vasco da Gama reached the island in 1498 and claimed it for Portugal. It retained importance in the European attempts to command the trade with the East Indies and India through the nineteenth century.

Jan Huygen van Linschoten was a major catalyst in the beginnings of the Dutch empire in the Indies. He arrived back in Holland in 1592 after travels which included five years in Goa. His volume Itinerario is among our most important sources for knowledge of contemporary voyages. The present view is from de Bry adaptation of the work, the view closely following the original of 1596.

Despite the hostilities between Holland and Spain, the two countries maintained commercial relationships, which neither could afford to jeopardize. As a result, when Linschoten was sixteen, he travelled to Spain, ultimately to Seville, which of course was a major nerve-center in the current explorations overseas. Linschoten helped pioneer the cause of Dutch pre-eminence in trade with the Orient, and his efforts in this regard contributed greatly to the establishment of the Dutch East India Company in 1602.