Paesi Bassi / Francia - Amiens; Adriaen Huberti - Presa e Sorpresa di Amiens (1596 - 1597) - 1581-1600

Exceptional and very rare contemporaneous copperplate engraving from 1597 depicting the historic stratagem and the Capture of Amiens by Spanish troops, published in Antwerp by Adriaen Huberti and preserved in a sharp original inked impression.

This extraordinarily documented military map constitutes an iconographic testimony of utmost importance for the geopolitical and military history of Renaissance Europe. The plate immortalizes in real time the famous event of March 11, 1597, when a small contingent of Spanish soldiers led by Captain Hernando Teillo de Porto Carrasco, disguised as French peasants with a cart loaded with walnuts and sacks of grain, managed to penetrate through the main gate of Amiens by deceit, immobilizing the guards and allowing the Habsburg army to take the city. The exemplar boasts exceptional collecting significance thanks to the clearly legible signature Adr. de Huberti excudit cum Privil. Regis in the lower margin, which attributes the print directly to the celebrated workshop of Adriaen Huberti, operating in close collaboration with the master engravers of the Flemish school.

The visual composition unfolds with an eagle-eye perspective of extraordinary narrative density. At the center of the plate stands the magnificent circular fortified plan of the city of Amiens, enclosed by its formidable medieval walls punctuated by bastions and punctuated inside by slender civil and religious buildings, among which the famous Gothic cathedral stands out. The lower portion of the sheet is entirely devoted to the spectacular visual narration of the stratagem: one observes the cart of the pretended peasants blocking the access gate to prevent the drawbridge from closing, while in the foreground to the right a massive and dense phalanx of Spanish soldiers armed with pikes and muskets advances in tight ranks to overwhelm the defenses. The lower margin of the sheet is nobly completed by a double official bilingual inscription arranged in two columns: on the left an inscription in Old Dutch and on the right the version in Old French, which describe the surprise and capture of the city under the governorship of Dorlans.

The exemplar presents in excellent overall condition. Printed on sturdy contemporaneous 16th-century paper with a watermark, it preserves an original black-and-white inking that is exceptionally clean, sharp, and richly saturated in blacks, ideal for appreciating the dense and microscopic weave of the individual bricks of the fortifications, the armor of soldiers, and the moving horses. The sheet shows its original healthy and stable margins on all four sides, bears the natural central editorial fold from its original binding in the volume, and has a completely white reverse. It stands as a collectible piece of utmost cartographic importance and reliable museum interest, ideal for specialists in the history of European wars of the 16th century and in large Flemish print apparatus.

Dimensions 20 x 27 cm
Will be shipped via courier