Sixth map titled ‘Grecia’ by Stefano Bonsignori.
Greece (Grecia)
was first called Hellas (Ellade)
, and comprised that small piece of land which is opposite to Euboea, today called Negroponte, until it took its current name after Graecus (Greco)
, its ancient prince. It later expanded and had the Ionian (Ionio)
and Aegean (Egeo)
seas as its limits. In the scientific studies and in the most noble arts it exceeded all nations, and in military valour it was inferior to no one before the greatness of the Roman (Romano)
empire, and it dominated many parts of Asia and Europe (Europa)
. And even if troubled by civic discord, even if it was attacked by the Parthians (Parti)
, the Egyptians (Egitij)
and the Scythians (Sciti)
, it defended itsef valiantly until it was overcomed by the Romans who, grateful for the benefits received from its laws and sciences, left it in its freedom. After Constantine (Constno)
moved with sinister omen the capital of the empire in Byzantium (Bisantio)
, renamed by him Constantinople (Constantli)
, it was harassed several times by the Hungarians (Vngari),
Russians* (Rossi)
, Bulgarians (Bulgari)
and Saracens (Saracini)
. Until it was finally oppressed by the Turkish (Turchesca)
tyranny, so that today nothing remains of its former glory other than the name, since the Barbarians (Barbari)
destroyed those ancient wonders, and every thing turned upside down both in the ancient territories of its regions and the original names** of the places.
* In a previous post the term Rascia was used for the territory roughly corrsponding to modern Serbia (
Rascia - Wikipedia). Therefore these Russians could be identified as Serbians, even though I don’t know why they weren’t called by their proper name!
** Another possible translation is ‘
...and the languages of those places’, because the term possibly indicating names/languages is ‘voci’, ‘voices’ in english. They are both viable because a change in language can result in a change of names of the places.
First of all I want to address a certain pattern followed by Bonsignori when it comes to the origin of peoples. We had Tuisto (
Tuisto - Wikipedia), ancestor of the Germans (Deutch), Aegyptus (
Aegyptus - Wikipedia), ancestor of the Egyptians, Celtus (Galate –
Celtus - Wikipedia), ancestor of the Gauls and now Graecus (
Graecus - Wikipedia), ancestor of the Greeks.
The author says the Greeks were called Hellenes, as much as the Germans were called Deutch and the French were called Gauls. But is it true? It is certain that Deutch is the original name for the Germans and in any case Tuisto is clearly the inverted ‘latinised’ spell of Deutch. I saw French maps reporting ‘Gaul’ as the name of the country in the 16th-17th century, with Ile-de-France being the name of the region surroundinf the capital. And when it comes to Greeks it is a well established fact that this name was the Latin one, while Hellenes it’s the original. If that’s so then we are looking at stories crafted in a Latin environment.
What to say other than this? The rest is pretty standard. Greece is certainly one of the biggest historical question marks. There were certainly Hellenes on its shores but it’s history is really messed up and it’s entirely possible that not all events really happened in that time and in that place played by those actors. There’s a lot of ancient place names newly attributed to localities which bore different names ‘till few decades ago. But at the same time something really happened here, as much as Egypt and other famous countries.
That said, how could one confidently place Troy (Troia) in that position? And why Troy, if its name was Ilion?