URUGUAY

URUGUAY.

URUEXPO 74.
250th anniversary of the fortification of Montevideo.
Map of Montevideo Bay by Domingo Petrarca (1719).
Stamp issued on 19.10.1974.
Face value: 300 Uruguayan pesos.
Design: Álvaro Sanjurjo Toucon (b. 1942).
Printed by Imprenta Nacional, Montevideo.
Printing: Offset Lithography.
Print: 100,000 copies.

Catalogues
- Michel No. 1325.
- Scott No. 891.
- StampWorld No. 1326.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 1581.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 894.

Between 1680 and 1683, the Kingdom of Portugal founded the Colonia do Sacramento, on the banks of the Río de la Plata, opposite Buenos Aires, and on November 22, 1723 Manuel de Freytas Fonseca founded the fort of Montevideo. On January 22, 1724, the Spanish displaced the Portuguese and began to populate the new city. On December 24, 1726 it was designated as San Felipe and Santiago de Montevideo. In 1810 the capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was established there. In 1816, however, Portugal invaded the territory and in 1821 annexed the Banda Oriental to Brazil. Juan Antonio Lavalleja and his companions, the Treinta y Tres Orientales, reestablished independence in 1825. After the signing of the Preliminary Peace Convention and the consolidation of Uruguay as an independent State in 1828, the city became the national capital, and in 1829 the fortifications began to be demolished.

Domingo Petrarca was a military engineer of Italian origin in the service of the Crown of Spain. In 1717, before the advance of the Portuguese, he was commissioned to design a plan of the bay of Montevideo, which was published in 1719. In 1724, after the founding of Montevideo, he planned the fortifications and designed the city where they would stay the new families. The place and date of his birth are unknown, but it is known that he died in Buenos Aires in 1736.