Egypt

Egypt has an important place in texts already in the earliest period of printed travel accounts. Several subjects related to the area enriched travellers' chronicles with illustrations. First, the pilgrimage to the Holy Land meant that ships from Western Europe set anchor in both of Egypt's main ports on the mouth of the Nile.

The pilgrimage to the Sinai peninsula, with its important monastery, also meant crossing the country and staying in Egypt for a length of time. Monasteries, pilgrim sites, holy places and locations connected to the Bible began to be represented in engravings, besides being described in the texts.

In addition, Egypt's rare and hitherto unknown fauna and, to a lesser extent, flora, are depicted in plates from the 16^th century onwards. The diverse ethnicities and their dress as well as scenes from everyday life occupy a place in the interests of authors and reading public.

However, in the late 17^th century the European public became more and more interested in Egyptian antiquities. This interest was fuelled in the mid-18^th century thanks to splendid editions with a plethora of pictures from Egypt, and finally reached a peak at the end of that centrury, due to political and military conflict between European and Ottoman powers.

In the 18^th but mainly the 19^th century archaeological expedition reached almost to the sources of the Nile. Everything Egyptian, from the monumental Pyramids to the tiniest archaeological finding had a place in travel Albums.

Alexandria, in the first place, as a port, commercial nexus and splendid hellenistic and Roman city, and gradually exotic Cairo, with its unique world, mysterious and strange to Europeans, provided a wealth of special and singular illustrations.

1493 Schedel, H.

1502 Breydenbach, Ber. von

1554 Belon, P.

1556 Thevet, An.

1598 /1859 Vecellio, C.

1600 Bianco Noe

1608 Schweigger, S.

1612 Breuning von Buchenbach, H.J.

1615 Sandys, G.

1615 Beauvau, H. de

1619 Cootwijck, J. Van

1649 Somer, J.