The sixteenth-century venetian celebration of the earth's total habitability: The issue of the fully habitable world for renaissance Europe

Journal of World History

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 1-27

  Headley, John M ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0345119167     PISSN: 10456007     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jwh.2005.0080     Document Type: Article

References (99)

1. On the general condition of map production in the early sixteenth century, see L. Bagrow, "A Page from the History of the Distribution of Maps," Imago mundi 5 (1948): 53-62, especially 60-61; R. V. Tooley, "Maps in Italian Atlases of the Sixteenth Century," Imago mundi 3 (1964): 12-47, especially 12-13.
2. On the general condition of map production in the early sixteenth century, see L. Bagrow, "A Page from the History of the Distribution of Maps," Imago mundi 5 (1948): 53-62, especially 60-61; R. V. Tooley, "Maps in Italian Atlases of the Sixteenth Century," Imago mundi 3 (1964): 12-47, especially 12-13.
3. On the importance of Gastaldi and the scope of his work, see Robert W. Karrow, Jr., Mapmakers of the Sixteenth Century and Their Maps (Chicago, 1993), pp. 216-49, especially 216, 226-27, 229.
4. For Ramusio in general, but with particular reference to his social context and network of leading associates, see Massimo Donattini, "Giovanni Battista Ramusio e le sue Navigationi. Appunti per una biografia," Critica storica 17 (1980): 55-100. For a useful biographical sketch of Ramusio, see George B. Parks, "Ramusio's Literary History," Studies in Philology 52 (1955): 127-48 . For the most recent work on Ramusio, see the introductions and annotations of Marica Milanesi in her definitive edition of the Navigazioni e viaggi, 6 vols. (Turin, 1978-88); see also Milanesi, Tolomeo sostitiato. Studi di storia delle conoscenze geografiche nel XVI secolo (Milan, 1984).
5. For Ramusio in general, but with particular reference to his social context and network of leading associates, see Massimo Donattini, "Giovanni Battista Ramusio e le sue Navigationi. Appunti per una biografia," Critica storica 17 (1980): 55-100. For a useful biographical sketch of Ramusio, see George B. Parks, "Ramusio's Literary History," Studies in Philology 52 (1955): 127-48 . For the most recent work on Ramusio, see the introductions and annotations of Marica Milanesi in her definitive edition of the Navigazioni e viaggi, 6 vols. (Turin, 1978-88); see also Milanesi, Tolomeo sostitiato. Studi di storia delle conoscenze geografiche nel XVI secolo (Milan, 1984).
6. For Ramusio in general, but with particular reference to his social context and network of leading associates, see Massimo Donattini, "Giovanni Battista Ramusio e le sue Navigationi. Appunti per una biografia," Critica storica 17 (1980): 55-100. For a useful biographical sketch of Ramusio, see George B. Parks, "Ramusio's Literary History," Studies in Philology 52 (1955): 127-48 . For the most recent work on Ramusio, see the introductions and annotations of Marica Milanesi in her definitive edition of the Navigazioni e viaggi, 6 vols. (Turin, 1978-88); see also Milanesi, Tolomeo sostitiato. Studi di storia delle conoscenze geografiche nel XVI secolo (Milan, 1984).
7. For Ramusio in general, but with particular reference to his social context and network of leading associates, see Massimo Donattini, "Giovanni Battista Ramusio e le sue Navigationi. Appunti per una biografia," Critica storica 17 (1980): 55-100. For a useful biographical sketch of Ramusio, see George B. Parks, "Ramusio's Literary History," Studies in Philology 52 (1955): 127-48 . For the most recent work on Ramusio, see the introductions and annotations of Marica Milanesi in her definitive edition of the Navigazioni e viaggi, 6 vols. (Turin, 1978-88); see also Milanesi, Tolomeo sostitiato. Studi di storia delle conoscenze geografiche nel XVI secolo (Milan, 1984).
8. Donattini, "Ramusio," pp. 81-83, 98; Parks, "History," pp. 129-38.
9. Donattini, "Ramusio," pp. 81-83, 98; Parks, "History," pp. 129-38.
10. Donattini, "Ramusio," pp. 58, 99.
11. Ramusio, Navigazioni e viaggi, 1:8: "onde si può chiaramente compredere che d'ogni intorno questo globo della terra è maravigliosamente abitato, né vi è parte alcuna vacua, né per caldo o gielo priva d'abitatori."
12. For some interesting elaborations upon, the theme of the Copernican propter nos, quite apart from the study of Ramusio itself, see Sylvia Wynter, "Columbus and the Poetics of the Propter Nos," Annals of Scholarship 8 (1991): 251-86.
13. The one possible exception is the comprehensive study of Giuliano Gliozzi, Adamo e il nuovo mondo. La nascita dell' antropologia come ideologia coloniale dalle genealogie bibliche alle teorie razziali, 1500-1700 (Florence, 1977), which, though it exhaustively analyzes the manifestations of habitability and their implications, does not address the issue itself.
14. James S. Romm, The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought: Geography, Exploration and Fiction (Princeton, 1992), pp. 37-38.
15. Jörg-Geerd Arentzen, Imago Mundi Cartographica: Studien zur Bildlichkeit mittelalterlicher Welt- und Ökumenekarten under besonderer Berücksichtigung des Zusammenwirkens von Text und Bild (Munich, 1984), pp. 320-21. On the iconic, nonrepresentational nature of the T-O map and how its misreading by the nineteenth century helped to contribute to the belief that the Middle Ages held to a flat-earth notion of the world, see the interesting analysis by Lesley B. Cormack, "Flat Earth or Round Sphere: Misconceptions of the Earth and the Fifteenth-Century Transformation of the World," Ecumene 1 (1995): 363-85. It is unfortunate that this spook is still pervasive in our schools and annually joins in the celebration of Columbus Day through the media.
16. Jörg-Geerd Arentzen, Imago Mundi Cartographica: Studien zur Bildlichkeit mittelalterlicher Welt- und Ökumenekarten under besonderer Berücksichtigung des Zusammenwirkens von Text und Bild (Munich, 1984), pp. 320-21. On the iconic, nonrepresentational nature of the T-O map and how its misreading by the nineteenth century helped to contribute to the belief that the Middle Ages held to a flat-earth notion of the world, see the interesting analysis by Lesley B. Cormack, "Flat Earth or Round Sphere: Misconceptions of the Earth and the Fifteenth-Century Transformation of the World," Ecumene 1 (1995): 363-85. It is unfortunate that this spook is still pervasive in our schools and annually joins in the celebration of Columbus Day through the media.
17. Romm, Edges, pp. 128-31.
18. Romm, Edges, pp. 164-71; W. G. L. Randles, "Classical Models of World Geography and Their Transformation Following the Discovery of America," in The Classical Tradition and the Americas, vol. 1: European Images of the Americas and the Classical Tradition, ed. Wolfgang Haase and Meyer Reinhold (Berlin, 1994), pp. 5-76, especially 10-11 (hereafter cited as CTA).
19. Romm, Edges, pp. 164-71; W. G. L. Randles, "Classical Models of World Geography and Their Transformation Following the Discovery of America," in The Classical Tradition and the Americas, vol. 1: European Images of the Americas and the Classical Tradition, ed. Wolfgang Haase and Meyer Reinhold (Berlin, 1994), pp. 5-76, especially 10-11 (hereafter cited as CTA).
20. Cicero, De re publica VI.xix (Loeb edition, pp. 272-74); cf. Macrobius, Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis libri duo II.5 (ed. Luigi Scarpa [Padua, 1981], pp. 284-86): "Non enim adiceret: in ipsis maculis vastas solitudines interiectas, si ipsas solitudines diceret inter quas certae partes macularum instar haberentur, sed quia maculas dicit has quattuor quas in duobus Terrae hemisphaeriis binas esse ratio monstravit, bene adiecit: interiectas solitudines. Nam sicut pars quae habitatur a nobis multa solitudinum interiectione distinguitur, credendum est in illis quoque tribus aliis habitationibus similes esse inter deserta et culta disinctiones. Sed et quattuor habitationum incolas et relatione situs et ipsa quoque standi qualitate depinxit. Primum enim ait alios praeter nos ita incolere Terram ut a se interrupti nullam commeandi ad se habeant facultatem et verba ipsa declarant non eum de uno hominum genete loqui in hac superficie a nobis solius torridae interiectione diviso; sic enim magis diceret: ita interruptos ut nihil ab illis ad vos manare possit, sed dicendo: ita interruptos ut nihil inter ipsos ab aliis ad alios manare possit, qualiter inter se illa hominum genera sint divisa significat. Quod autem vere ad nostram partem referretur, adiecit dicendo de illis qui et a nobis et a se in vicem divisi sunt: partim obliquos, partim transversos, partim etiam adversos stare nobis. Interruptio ergo non unius generis a nobis sed omnium generum a se divisorum refertur, quae ita distinguenda est. . . . Et quia non est una omnium adfinis continuatio sed interiectae sunt solitudines ex calore vel frigore mutuum negantibus commeatum, has Terrae partes, quae a quattuor hominum generibus incoluntur, maculas habitationum vocavit."
21. Cicero, De re publica VI.xix (Loeb edition, pp. 272-74); cf. Macrobius, Commentarium in Somnium Scipionis libri duo II.5 (ed. Luigi Scarpa [Padua, 1981], pp. 284-86): "Non enim adiceret: in ipsis maculis vastas solitudines interiectas, si ipsas solitudines diceret inter quas certae partes macularum instar haberentur, sed quia maculas dicit has quattuor quas in duobus Terrae hemisphaeriis binas esse ratio monstravit, bene adiecit: interiectas solitudines. Nam sicut pars quae habitatur a nobis multa solitudinum interiectione distinguitur, credendum est in illis quoque tribus aliis habitationibus similes esse inter deserta et culta disinctiones. Sed et quattuor habitationum incolas et relatione situs et ipsa quoque standi qualitate depinxit. Primum enim ait alios praeter nos ita incolere Terram ut a se interrupti nullam commeandi ad se habeant facultatem et verba ipsa declarant non eum de uno hominum genete loqui in hac superficie a nobis solius torridae interiectione diviso; sic enim magis diceret: ita interruptos ut nihil ab illis ad vos manare possit, sed dicendo: ita interruptos ut nihil inter ipsos ab aliis ad alios manare possit, qualiter inter se illa hominum genera sint divisa significat. Quod autem vere ad nostram partem referretur, adiecit dicendo de illis qui et a nobis et a se in vicem divisi sunt: partim obliquos, partim transversos, partim etiam adversos stare nobis. Interruptio ergo non unius generis a nobis sed omnium generum a se divisorum refertur, quae ita distinguenda est. . . . Et quia non est una omnium adfinis continuatio sed interiectae sunt solitudines ex calore vel frigore mutuum negantibus commeatum, has Terrae partes, quae a quattuor hominum generibus incoluntur, maculas habitationum vocavit."
22. Valerie I. J. Flint, "Monsters and the Antipodes in the Early Middle Ages and Enlightenment," Viator 15 (1984): 65-80. On the polygenetic view of human origins and racialist theories emerging in the course of the seventeenth century, see Giuliano Gliozzi, Adamo, pp. 331-56, 514-621.
23. Valerie I. J. Flint, "Monsters and the Antipodes in the Early Middle Ages and Enlightenment," Viator 15 (1984): 65-80. On the polygenetic view of human origins and racialist theories emerging in the course of the seventeenth century, see Giuliano Gliozzi, Adamo, pp. 331-56, 514-621.
24. Pierre d'Ailly, Imago mundi, ed. Edmond Buron, 3 vols. (Paris, 1930-31), 1:206-15.
25. D'Ailly, Imago mundi, 1:206-208.
26. Thomas Goldstein, "The Renaissance Concept of the Earth in Its Influence upon Copernicus," Terrae incognitae 4 (1972): 10-51, especially 36-40.
27. Thomas Goldstein, "Geography in Fifteenth-Century Florence," Merchants and Scholars: Essays in the History of Exploration and Trade, ed. John Parker (Minneapolis, 1965), pp. 9-32, especially 18-25; Gabriella Moretti, "The Other World and the 'Antipodes': The Myth of the Unknown Countries between Antiquity and the Renaissance," in CTA, 1:241-84, especially 271-75.
28. Thomas Goldstein, "Geography in Fifteenth-Century Florence," Merchants and Scholars: Essays in the History of Exploration and Trade, ed. John Parker (Minneapolis, 1965), pp. 9-32, especially 18-25; Gabriella Moretti, "The Other World and the 'Antipodes': The Myth of the Unknown Countries between Antiquity and the Renaissance," in CTA, 1:241-84, especially 271-75.
29. E. G. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe (London, 1908), p. 71: "der weiten orth der welt gegen mitternacht end tramontana über die schrift ptolemei eysland norwegen und reussen uns auch jetzt kundig ist und man jarlich dahin schifft daran doch niemand zweifeln soll, wiewohl die weit simpel ist das man just uberal mit schiffen fahren oder gehen mag wie hie steht."
30. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, p. 113, where the English translation of this letter, dated 14 July 1493, figures as document IX of the appendix. Regarding Muslim thoughts on the problem of the earth's habitability, Ihn Khaldun in his Prolegomena betrays some uncertainty. He estimates that the dry part of the earth covers half its total surface and the inhabited part about one-quarter of this amount, the southern part having the greatest wastes. While not excluding the possibility of occasional habitation in the torrid zone, he considers that the excessive heat makes the existence of a human population there highly unlikely. Interestingly enough, however, he observes that Ibn Rushd (Averroes) believes this torrid zone to be temperate and the regions lying south of it similar to those in the north and thus likewise inhabited. See An Arab Philosophy of History, tran. and ed. Charles Issawi (Princeton, 1950), pp. 38-40.
31. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, p. 113, where the English translation of this letter, dated 14 July 1493, figures as document IX of the appendix. Regarding Muslim thoughts on the problem of the earth's habitability, Ihn Khaldun in his Prolegomena betrays some uncertainty. He estimates that the dry part of the earth covers half its total surface and the inhabited part about one-quarter of this amount, the southern part having the greatest wastes. While not excluding the possibility of occasional habitation in the torrid zone, he considers that the excessive heat makes the existence of a human population there highly unlikely. Interestingly enough, however, he observes that Ibn Rushd (Averroes) believes this torrid zone to be temperate and the regions lying south of it similar to those in the north and thus likewise inhabited. See An Arab Philosophy of History, tran. and ed. Charles Issawi (Princeton, 1950), pp. 38-40.
32. See A Source Book in Geography, ed. George Kish (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 240-50, which refers to C. R. Beazley's edition of the remarkable "Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum," American HiStorical Review 12 (1907): 810-57, especially 821-22, and 13 (1908): 66-115. As my own translation of the critical passage highlights the point being made by Adam, I present the Latin original here: "Tertia quod non est friuolum neque falsum Antipodes assignare. Quarta, quae magis venit ad propositum nostrum, quod nos qui veri sumus Christiani, non dicam decima, sed et vicesima pars non sumus. Tarnen licet ita pauci simus et, ut praedicitur, quasi in angulo permodico esartati, hoc sentio hoc assero ut expertus, quod si ista nostra parua particula in una parte staterae et totus alius magnus mundus in parte altera poneret[u]r, haec sicut aurum inter metalla grauior viribus et virtutibus appareret, non solum in doctrinae veritate et fidei puntate, non solum in largitione suscepta diuinae gratiae ac donorum et euidenti operatione miraculorum, quibus exclusis gentibus uniuersis quae omnibus istis carent, nos Deo speciali peculio gratos efficit et ostendit sed quantum ad prudentiam naturalem et etiam acquisitam quantum ad mores domesticos et ciuiles, quantum ad modum viuendi ordinatum, magnificum, et honestum, quantum ad diuitias, et maxime quoad usum qui ipsas reddit licitas atque bonas, quantum ad nobilem et prudentem usum armorum et bellandi strenuam probitatem, quantum etiam ad bonum regimen et justam potentiam dominandi, et breuiter quantum ad omnia quae conjunctini, hominem honestant, nobilitant, et exornant, omnes praecellimus nationes."
33. See A Source Book in Geography, ed. George Kish (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 240-50, which refers to C. R. Beazley's edition of the remarkable "Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum," American HiStorical Review 12 (1907): 810-57, especially 821-22, and 13 (1908): 66-115. As my own translation of the critical passage highlights the point being made by Adam, I present the Latin original here: "Tertia quod non est friuolum neque falsum Antipodes assignare. Quarta, quae magis venit ad propositum nostrum, quod nos qui veri sumus Christiani, non dicam decima, sed et vicesima pars non sumus. Tarnen licet ita pauci simus et, ut praedicitur, quasi in angulo permodico esartati, hoc sentio hoc assero ut expertus, quod si ista nostra parua particula in una parte staterae et totus alius magnus mundus in parte altera poneret[u]r, haec sicut aurum inter metalla grauior viribus et virtutibus appareret, non solum in doctrinae veritate et fidei puntate, non solum in largitione suscepta diuinae gratiae ac donorum et euidenti operatione miraculorum, quibus exclusis gentibus uniuersis quae omnibus istis carent, nos Deo speciali peculio gratos efficit et ostendit sed quantum ad prudentiam naturalem et etiam acquisitam quantum ad mores domesticos et ciuiles, quantum ad modum viuendi ordinatum, magnificum, et honestum, quantum ad diuitias, et maxime quoad usum qui ipsas reddit licitas atque bonas, quantum ad nobilem et prudentem usum armorum et bellandi strenuam probitatem, quantum etiam ad bonum regimen et justam potentiam dominandi, et breuiter quantum ad omnia quae conjunctini, hominem honestant, nobilitant, et exornant, omnes praecellimus nationes."
34. See A Source Book in Geography, ed. George Kish (Cambridge, Mass., 1978), pp. 240-50, which refers to C. R. Beazley's edition of the remarkable "Directorium ad faciendum passagium transmarinum," American HiStorical Review 12 (1907): 810-57, especially 821-22, and 13 (1908): 66-115. As my own translation of the critical passage highlights the point being made by Adam, I present the Latin original here: "Tertia quod non est friuolum neque falsum Antipodes assignare. Quarta, quae magis venit ad propositum nostrum, quod nos qui veri sumus Christiani, non dicam decima, sed et vicesima pars non sumus. Tarnen licet ita pauci simus et, ut praedicitur, quasi in angulo permodico esartati, hoc sentio hoc assero ut expertus, quod si ista nostra parua particula in una parte staterae et totus alius magnus mundus in parte altera poneret[u]r, haec sicut aurum inter metalla grauior viribus et virtutibus appareret, non solum in doctrinae veritate et fidei puntate, non solum in largitione suscepta diuinae gratiae ac donorum et euidenti operatione miraculorum, quibus exclusis gentibus uniuersis quae omnibus istis carent, nos Deo speciali peculio gratos efficit et ostendit sed quantum ad prudentiam naturalem et etiam acquisitam quantum ad mores domesticos et ciuiles, quantum ad modum viuendi ordinatum, magnificum, et honestum, quantum ad diuitias, et maxime quoad usum qui ipsas reddit licitas atque bonas, quantum ad nobilem et prudentem usum armorum et bellandi strenuam probitatem, quantum etiam ad bonum regimen et justam potentiam dominandi, et breuiter quantum ad omnia quae conjunctini, hominem honestant, nobilitant, et exornant, omnes praecellimus nationes."
35. For the passage in Guicciardini's Storia d'Italia, I am indebted to my colleague Kenneth R. Bartlett, whose oustanding paper "Burckhardt's Myopia: The Renaissance, Humanism, and the World," delivered at the Fourth International Conference of the World History Association, quoted at length the passage found in S. Alexander's translation History of Italy (New York, 1965), p. 182. I wish to thank him for bringing this passage to my attention.
36. For the passage in Guicciardini's Storia d'Italia, I am indebted to my colleague Kenneth R. Bartlett, whose oustanding paper "Burckhardt's Myopia: The Renaissance, Humanism, and the World," delivered at the Fourth International Conference of the World History Association, quoted at length the passage found in S. Alexander's translation History of Italy (New York, 1965), p. 182. I wish to thank him for bringing this passage to my attention.
37. For the passage in Guicciardini's Storia d'Italia, I am indebted to my colleague Kenneth R. Bartlett, whose oustanding paper "Burckhardt's Myopia: The Renaissance, Humanism, and the World," delivered at the Fourth International Conference of the World History Association, quoted at length the passage found in S. Alexander's translation History of Italy (New York, 1965), p. 182. I wish to thank him for bringing this passage to my attention.
38. America pontificia primi saeculi evangelizationis, 1493-1592, ed. Josef Metzler, 2 vols. (Vatican City, 1991), 1:365.
39. Lewis Hanke, "Pope Paul III and the American Indian," Harvard Theological Review 30 (1937): 65-102, especially 85-91.
40. Milanesi, Tolomeo, pp. 13-21.
41. Milanesi, Tolomeo, p. 54.
42. N. Broc, La géographie de la Renaissance (Paris, 1980), pp. 237-38.
43. Milanesi, Tolomeo, p. 219.
44. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 2:980-81: "La qual cosa potriano fare facilmente mandando in diversi luoghi del detto emispero colonie ad abitarvi, nel modo che faceano i Romani nelle provincie di nuovo acquistate, le quali a poco a poco andassero scoprendo quelle parti, coltivandole e introducendovi la civiltà, e da valenti uomini poi farvi predicar la fede di nostro Signor Giesù Cristo; e per domesticarli più facilmente vi facessero andar ogni anno delle navi cariche di farine, vini, spezie, zuccari e altre sorti di mercanzie di queste nostre parti."
45. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 2:404-405: "per dir liberamente, tutti li moti dei cieli, con molte altre belle parti di filosofia, contra la oppenione degli antichi, è ben conveniente che anche dagli occhi ella ne debbia levar via la offuscazione di tante erronee imaginazioni che li detti fecero sopra questo globo della terra, la qual si sa ora chiaramente che è tutta abitata, né vi è parte alcuna o calda o fredda, se non sono solitudini e mari, che non sia piena di uomini e animali, che vi stanno ciascuno come in region temperata, dico temperata alla complessione data loro dalla natura."
46. Milanesi, Tolomeo, p. 58.
47. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 5:6-9: "Ma la verità è questa, che avendo Platone a scriver della fabrica del mondo, il quai teneva esser state fatto per collocarvi l'uomo, animal divino, accioché, vedendo egli tanti ornamenti di stelle nel cielo e il moto di così stupendi e maravigliosi luminari, conoscesse il suo fattore e conoscendolo di continuo lo laudasse, gli pareva cosa pur troppo fuor di ragione che due parti d'esso fossero abitate e l'altre prive d'uomini: e'l sole e le stelle con loro splendore facesseto la metà del corso indarno e senza frutto non lucendo se non al mate e a'luoghi deserti e privi d'animali. . . . Ma il sole fa il suo corso con tal ordine che gli abitanti nella detta parte non come talpe vivono sepolti sotto terra ma come l'altre creature che sono sopra questo globo terreno vengono illuminate, sì che possono benissimo sostenersi e riparar la lor vita. . . . Percioché ragionevolmente non è da credere che il fattore di così bella e perfetta fabrica come sono i cieli, il sole e la luna, non abbia voluto che, essendo ella fatta con tanto stupendo e maraviglioso ordine, il sole non illumini se non una particella di questo globo che chiamano terra, e il reste, del suo corso sia in vano sopra mari, nevi e ghiacci; ma l'ha coperta in ciascuna sua parte di divers, animali, e sopra gli altri dell'uomo, come padrone e signor di tutti, per cagion del quale ella era stata fabricata, avendolo dotato di quella divina e celeste parte che è l'anima: e appresso ha disposti e in ciascun luogo compartiti i doni necessarii al vivere, più e meno, secondo che alla divina sua providenza è piaciuto. . . . Ora, per le cose dette di sopra, penso che non ci sia più dubbio alcuno che sotto l'equinoziale e sotto ambidue i poli non si trovi la medesima moltidine degli abitanti che sono in tutte l'altre parti del mondo . . . quanto tutti gli antichi filosofi con le lor sapienze e gran speculazioni si siano ingannati, pensando che la fabrica di questo mondo . . . fosse la metà sotto il mare, difforme e guasta, e per il caldo e per il gielo inabitata."
48. On the idea of the plenitude in Platonism, see the classic study by Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), pp. 52, 111-12, 116.
49. Denis Cosgrove, "Mapping New Worlds: Culture and Cartography in Sixteenth-Century Venice," Imago mundi 44 (1992): 65-89, especially 67, 75-81.
50. Pietro Bembo, Opere del Cardinale Pietro Bembo, 4 vols. (Venice, 1729), 1:138: "novas regiones alterumque, prope acquiri orbem gentesque abditas atque sepositas celebrari. . . . quod ejus rei omnium, quas ulla aetas unquam ab hominibus effectas vidit, maximae atque pulcherrimae fuerit initium."
51. Bembo, Opere, 1:138: "improvidum, prope necesse esse haberi Deum, si ita mundum sit fabricatus ut longe major terrarum pars propter nimiam intemperiem hominibus vacua, nullum ex se se usum praebeat, globum esse terrae hune ejusmodi, ut commeandi per omnes ejus partes facultas hominibus ne desit." The text provides both the Italian and the earlier Latin version of his history. Here facultas commeandi, expressed in the Italian by il potere di lei gire e passare, is reminiscent of Macrobius's statement quoted in note 13 above. Only in the course of making final revisions to this article for publication did I come upon the fine contribution of D. Perocco, "'Un male non pensato': Pietro Bembo e la scoperta ll'America," in L'Impatto della scoperta dell'America nella cultura veneziana, ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò (Rome, 1990), pp. 279-93, especially 292 where she notes in passing the similarity to Lovejoy's later formulation. But Perocco attributes Bembo's insight and inspiration to "models of military allocution transmitted from classical historiography constituting the real filter of the oration," placed in Columbus's mouth. If so and if Bembo is the source for this perception, it rapidly acquired Platonic (Lovejoyan) features, as it passed through the further filter of Venetian culture at this time.
52. Bembo, Opere, 1:138: "improvidum, prope necesse esse haberi Deum, si ita mundum sit fabricatus ut longe major terrarum pars propter nimiam intemperiem hominibus vacua, nullum ex se se usum praebeat, globum esse terrae hune ejusmodi, ut commeandi per omnes ejus partes facultas hominibus ne desit." The text provides both the Italian and the earlier Latin version of his history. Here facultas commeandi, expressed in the Italian by il potere di lei gire e passare, is reminiscent of Macrobius's statement quoted in note 13 above. Only in the course of making final revisions to this article for publication did I come upon the fine contribution of D. Perocco, "'Un male non pensato': Pietro Bembo e la scoperta ll'America," in L'Impatto della scoperta dell'America nella cultura veneziana, ed. Angela Caracciolo Aricò (Rome, 1990), pp. 279-93, especially 292 where she notes in passing the similarity to Lovejoy's later formulation. But Perocco attributes Bembo's insight and inspiration to "models of military allocution transmitted from classical historiography constituting the real filter of the oration," placed in Columbus's mouth. If so and if Bembo is the source for this perception, it rapidly acquired Platonic (Lovejoyan) features, as it passed through the further filter of Venetian culture at this time.
53. Dorothea Waley Singer, Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought with annotated translation of On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (New York, 1950), p. 234 (Introductory Epistle), pp. 255-60 (First Dialogue).
54. Dorothea Waley Singer, Giordano Bruno: His Life and Thought with annotated translation of On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (New York, 1950), p. 234 (Introductory Epistle), pp. 255-60 (First Dialogue).
55. Lovejoy, Great Chain, pp. III, 116-21.
56. r.
57. Goldstein, "Geography," p. 25.
58. Paradiso 22.151 (ed. J. M. Dent [London, 1946], p. 278).
59. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 5:8-9.
60. Donattini, "Ramusio," p. 88.
61. G. Padoan, "Sulla Relazione cinquecentesca dei viaggi nord-atlantici di Nicolò e Antonio Zen (1383-1403)," in L'impatto della scoperta, pp. 219-77, especially 235, 239, 262, 272-77. See also Ramusio, Navigazioni, 2:984-85.
62. G. Padoan, "Sulla Relazione cinquecentesca dei viaggi nord-atlantici di Nicolò e Antonio Zen (1383-1403)," in L'impatto della scoperta, pp. 219-77, especially 235, 239, 262, 272-77. See also Ramusio, Navigazioni, 2:984-85.
63. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 4:141.
64. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 2:981-82, 984-86; cf. 5:7.
65. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 2:981-82, 984-86; cf. 5:7.
66. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 3:22-23.
67. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 2:979.
68. José de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las India (Seville, 1590; reprinted Valencia, 1977), pp. 102-13, 30-33, 39-40, 86-90, 106, 110-11, wherein Acosta dwells on the newly discovered habitability of the torrid zone as muy templada.
69. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 1:8.
70. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 5:12: "E veramente questa sarebbe la maggiore e più gloriosa impresa che alcuno imaginar si potesse, per fare il suo nome molto più eterno e immortale a tutti i secoli futuri di quello che non faranno tanti travagli di guerra che di continue si veggono nell'Europa fra i miseri cristiani."
71. Bembo, Opere, 1:142.
72. See the analysis of this map in Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World: Early Printed World Maps, 1472-1700 (London, 1983), entry 110. After 1560, except for Ruscelli and G. L. d'Anania, who here follows Ruscelli, all of Venetian cartographic production to the end of the century went over to including the great southern continent, thereby reflecting the prevailing wisdom established by Mercator and Ortelius. For Venice alone on this matter, see entries 106-107, 112, 115-18, 120-21, 126-29, 152, 154-55, 160, 193-94, 199, 205, and 217. D'Anania is interesting in that his L'universale fabrica del mondo overo cosmografia (Venice, 1582) emphasizes the variety and complexity of the individual parts of the earth's surface rather than the overall sense of a basic uniformity suggested by the Venetian celebration. As a Calabrian, publishing his work repeatedly in Venice - in 1576, 1582, and 1596 after the Naples editio princeps of 1573 - he seems oblivious to Ramusio's work. I am here using the Vatican copy of the 1582 edition of this important geographical work.
73. See the analysis of this map in Rodney W. Shirley, The Mapping of the World: Early Printed World Maps, 1472-1700 (London, 1983), entry 110. After 1560, except for Ruscelli and G. L. d'Anania, who here follows Ruscelli, all of Venetian cartographic production to the end of the century went over to including the great southern continent, thereby reflecting the prevailing wisdom established by Mercator and Ortelius. For Venice alone on this matter, see entries 106-107, 112, 115-18, 120-21, 126-29, 152, 154-55, 160, 193-94, 199, 205, and 217. D'Anania is interesting in that his L'universale fabrica del mondo overo cosmografia (Venice, 1582) emphasizes the variety and complexity of the individual parts of the earth's surface rather than the overall sense of a basic uniformity suggested by the Venetian celebration. As a Calabrian, publishing his work repeatedly in Venice - in 1576, 1582, and 1596 after the Naples editio princeps of 1573 - he seems oblivious to Ramusio's work. I am here using the Vatican copy of the 1582 edition of this important geographical work.
74. W. A. R. Richardson, "Mercator's Southern Continent: Its Origins, Influence and Gradual Demise," Terrae incognitae 25 (1993): 67-98, especially 72, 88.
75. John Gillies, Shakespeare and the Geography of Difference (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 158, 162.
76. Harry Kelsey, "The Planispheres of Sebastian Cabot and Sancho Gutiérrez," Terrae incognitae 19 (1987): 41-58, especially 46.
77. Richardson, "Southern Continent," p. 98.
78. Joseph Hall, Another World and Yet the Same, ed. and trans. John Millar Wands (New Haven, 1981), p. 12.
79. Richardson, "Southern Continent," p. 95.
80. J. B. Harley, "Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe," Imago mundi 40 (1988): 57-66, especially 62; Richardson, "Southern Continent," p. 98.
81. J. B. Harley, "Silences and Secrecy: The Hidden Agenda of Cartography in Early Modern Europe," Imago mundi 40 (1988): 57-66, especially 62; Richardson, "Southern Continent," p. 98.
82. For a brief biographical sketch, see The Voyages of Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, 1595-1606, ed. and trans. Sir Clements Markham, 2 vols. (London, 1904), 1:xvi-xxxi, especially xviii, xxix; 2:486, 502-503.
83. Stelio Cro, The American Foundations of the Hispanic Utopia: The Literary Utopia, 2 vols. (Tallahassee, Fla., 1994), 1:38-43, 47-49; cf. Frank Lestringant, Mapping the Renaissance World: the Geographical Imagination in the Age of Discovery (Cambridge, 1994), p. xi. See also the remarkable memorial of the Chilean lawyer Dr. Juan Luis Arias to Philip III shortly after 1614, where the southern hemisphere is not only astrally favored, loaded with precious metals, and possessing a most salutary climate, but also populous, if given over to Lucifer, unless the king of Spain accepts the great commission: "the crown of universal empire of the globe in His hand, ready to place it on your head, if you value, as it should be valued, this Divine commission, and execute it with that zeal and devotion which the charge enjoins . . . [to] withhold the said zeal from the undertaking, it would doubtless be the greatest disaster that could happen to this kingdom and the most certain sign that God is withdrawing His hand from us." Markham, ed., Voyages, 2:517-36, especially 532.
84. Stelio Cro, The American Foundations of the Hispanic Utopia: The Literary Utopia, 2 vols. (Tallahassee, Fla., 1994), 1:38-43, 47-49; cf. Frank Lestringant, Mapping the Renaissance World: the Geographical Imagination in the Age of Discovery (Cambridge, 1994), p. xi. See also the remarkable memorial of the Chilean lawyer Dr. Juan Luis Arias to Philip III shortly after 1614, where the southern hemisphere is not only astrally favored, loaded with precious metals, and possessing a most salutary climate, but also populous, if given over to Lucifer, unless the king of Spain accepts the great commission: "the crown of universal empire of the globe in His hand, ready to place it on your head, if you value, as it should be valued, this Divine commission, and execute it with that zeal and devotion which the charge enjoins . . . [to] withhold the said zeal from the undertaking, it would doubtless be the greatest disaster that could happen to this kingdom and the most certain sign that God is withdrawing His hand from us." Markham, ed., Voyages, 2:517-36, especially 532.
85. Stelio Cro, The American Foundations of the Hispanic Utopia: The Literary Utopia, 2 vols. (Tallahassee, Fla., 1994), 1:38-43, 47-49; cf. Frank Lestringant, Mapping the Renaissance World: the Geographical Imagination in the Age of Discovery (Cambridge, 1994), p. xi. See also the remarkable memorial of the Chilean lawyer Dr. Juan Luis Arias to Philip III shortly after 1614, where the southern hemisphere is not only astrally favored, loaded with precious metals, and possessing a most salutary climate, but also populous, if given over to Lucifer, unless the king of Spain accepts the great commission: "the crown of universal empire of the globe in His hand, ready to place it on your head, if you value, as it should be valued, this Divine commission, and execute it with that zeal and devotion which the charge enjoins . . . [to] withhold the said zeal from the undertaking, it would doubtless be the greatest disaster that could happen to this kingdom and the most certain sign that God is withdrawing His hand from us." Markham, ed., Voyages, 2:517-36, especially 532.
86. Paulino Castañeda Delgado, Los memorials del Padre Silva sobre la predicación pacifica y los repartimientos (Madrid, 1983), p. xiii.
87. Celsus Kelley, OFM, "The Franciscan Missionary Plan for the Conversion to Christianity of the Natives of the Austral Lands," Americas 17 (1961): 277-91, especially 284.
88. Celsus Kelley, OFM, La Austrialia del Espíritu Santo (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 110-33; Geoffrey Atkinson, Les Nouveaux horizons de la Renaissance (Paris, 1935), p. 410.
89. Celsus Kelley, OFM, La Austrialia del Espíritu Santo (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 110-33; Geoffrey Atkinson, Les Nouveaux horizons de la Renaissance (Paris, 1935), p. 410.
90. Castañeda Delgado, Silva, pp. 303-304.
91. Castañeda Delgado, Silva, pp. 304-305.
92. Castañeda Delgado, Silva, pp. 358-59.
93. Castañeda Delgado, Silva, pp. 358-66, 383-86.
94. James S. Romm, "New World and Novos Orbos: Seneca in the Renaissance Debate over Ancient Knowledge of the Americas," in CTA, 1:77-116, especially 92-93.
95. Komm, "New World," p. 105: "fere dedecus videtur fuisse tantas terras tamdiu ignorasse; non minus atque patrifamilias turpe esset si domus suae conclave praecipuum non nosset." Pindarou Periodes ([Wittenberg], 1616), p. 262.
96. Komm, "New World," p. 105: "fere dedecus videtur fuisse tantas terras tamdiu ignorasse; non minus atque patrifamilias turpe esset si domus suae conclave praecipuum non nosset." Pindarou Periodes ([Wittenberg], 1616), p. 262.
97. Les Essais de Montaigne, ed. Pierre Villey and V-L. Saulnier, 3 vols. (Paris, 1988), 3:13, 1116.
98. Ramusio, Navigazioni, 2:990: "di tante varietà e mutazioni n'erano cagione gli uomini della età nostra, molto più che gli antichi industriosi e arrisicati nel cercare il mondo, i quali, non aveggendosi della natutale lor fragilità e debolezza, come se fossero immortali, non restavano per alcuna difficultà, né della zona torrida né delle due aggiacciate e fredde, d'andare continuamente travagliando, rivolgendosi d'intorno a tutta la rotondità della terra per saziar la loro immensa cupidità e avarizia."
99. Sebastian Franck, Weltbuch: Spiegel und Bildtnisz des gantzen Erdbodens (Tübingen, 1534), fols. ccxxxiv-ccxxxv. "Item das der frummen ein kleyne anzal allenthalben ist. Summa was die schrifft zeügt das beweisen alle Chronicken. Hie erwige auch die vile und manigfeltigkeyt der welt glauben etc. Item die werck des wunderwürkenden Gots / wie er ein unparteisch güt / und gegen allen völckern eynig und gleich gesinnet ist on ansehung [der] person / ja wie er gnädig ist / gegen allen denen die ynförschten lieben / anrüffen / under allen völckern / auch wie kirch sein zerströwet sey in alle winckel der welt / und das er nit allein eins volcks wie Israels gunst gefasset hat / sunder von Austro und Aquilone / Orient unnd Occident seine ausserwölten herfür süchen wirt / so die Kinder des Reichs die sich die ersten verhoffen züsein / etwan werden aussgemustert werden. Here I wish to thank my friend Philip L. Kintner for kindly providing me with a photocopy of the "America" section of the Weltbuch.