Geography, or writing about the Earth, developed as a scientific discipline during the Renaissance. Unlike cosmography (see chapter 10), which related the Earth’s relationship with the known universe, geography focused on divisions of the Earth itself. Chorog-raphy, a branch of geography (from the Greek word choros, place), consists of topographical and historical descriptions of districts or regions. During the Renaissance, this specialized field often included genealogical information. Geographic measurement benefited tremendously from advances in mathematics, and geographical mathematics was invigorated after 1410 by the translation into Latin of Ptolemy’s (c. 100-c. 170) Greek treatise on geography. This field of mathematics was used to determine the location and size of parts of the Earth’s surface, and pilots and surveyors added information on the shapes of coastlines and the contours of rivers. Ptolemy’s technique for describing the Earth’s surface, including lines of latitude and longitude, created the foundation text for Renaissance geographical studies. (The actual positions of longitude could not be determined by Renaissance navigators because they needed an accurate portable clock. The longitude lines on maps and charts were largely ignored by those charting courses for ships.) The Greek author Strabo (c. 63 B. C.E.-c. 20 C. E.) provided the ancient model for descriptive geography. Renaissance authors wrote about the distinctive characteristics, political as well as physical, of Europe and of exotic locales.
Many texts of descriptive geography included ethnographic information. During this period, newly revealed geographic details about the Old World contributed to the development of national identities. In addition, detailed information on European colonies in the east and west, often couched in imperialist vocabulary, heightened the sense of superiority of Europeans in relation to other societies. As Europeans measured other parts of the Earth with mathematical geography, they assumed that they could control them. As Europeans learned about other places and cultures via descriptive geography, they decided that they should control them. A French adventurer wrote the following description of Brazilian natives in 1556: “Those who live upstream near the equator are evil and vicious; they eat human flesh. Those further from the equator, being lowland people, are more tractable. All the said savages, both upstream and down, go naked; their huts and houses are covered with leaves and bark” (Lestringant 1994, p. 134). Other reports of “barbarous” living conditions reached the eyes of European readers from Africa and from the Far East, prompting Christian Europe to attempt to convert the “heathens” while exploiting their natural resources.
Gomes Eanes de Zurara (1410/20-74), a Portuguese historian, used the government archives in Lisbon to write the first known account of tropical Africa by a European. Zurara’s work, however, was not published during the Renaissance, although copies circulated in manuscript. Such reports were considered state secrets and not to be shared with foreigners. Firsthand geographic information from the voyages of Vasco da Gama (c. 1460-1524), Pedro Cabral (c. 1467-c. 1520), and other explorers
Exploration and Travel
Nevertheless was translated into Italian and published in 1507 as Paesi novamente retrovati (Newly discovered lands). Although much of the country described was in the Americas, this very popular book also included reports on parts of the Orient. There were 14 16th-century editions of this text alone, plus many “adaptations” by others. The majority of European readers probably learned about foreign lands by reading this book.
The first significant description of part of America appeared in Pietro Martire d’Anghiera’s (1457-1526) De orbe novo (On the New World, part 1, 1511). His conversations with explorers who sailed for Spain were the basis of much of the information in this book. The description of the island of Hispaniola, for example, began by stating that its shape is that of the leaf of a chestnut tree. After extolling the climate and fertility of the soil, the author described a valley with many rivers: “Out of the sands of them all there is found plenty of gold,” with reports of nuggets of gold as large as a walnut, an orange, and even a child’s head (Ross and McLaughlin 1968, pp. 148-149). A report from the first European exploration in the land called Virginia, published in 1589, mentioned that the natives were “handsome and goodly people” and that the “island [Roanoke] had many goodly woods, and full of deer, conies [rabbits], hares and fowl” and “the highest and reddest cedars of the world” (Scott 1976, p. 264). Reports such as these, in which the Americas were touted as a golden land, persuaded Europeans to leave their home and family to settle in “paradise.” Because the natives were said not to be realizing the potential of the land and its abundance, Europeans presumed that they had the right to do so.