Assimilating New Worlds in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

¹ Columbus, too, took the natives for granted, thinking that they would be converted to Christianity quickly and easily: Select Documents Illustrating the Four Voyages of Columbus, Jane, Cecil, ed. (London, 1930), I, 4–10. Pigafetta's narrative has been published as Magellan's Voyage around the World: The Original Text of the Ambrosian MS, Robinson, James A., ed. (Cleveland, 1906).

² Febvre, Lucien, Le problème de l'incroyance au XVI^e siècle (1942; Paris, 1968), 386;Scammell, G. V., “The New Worlds and Europe in the Sixteenth Century,” The Historical Journal, 12:3 (1969), 389–412;Elliott, J. H., The Old World and the New (Cambridge, 1970);idem, “Renaissance Europe and America: A Blunted Impact?” in First Images of America: The Impact of the New World on the Old, Chiappelli, Fredi, ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976), I, 11–23. Donald Lach's impressive work on Asia tends in the same direction: “The revelation of Asia to preindustrial Europe did not transform or quickly modify the basic tenets of Western life, faith, or institutions.” The Century of Discovery, Vol. I (in two books) of Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago, 1965), xii. Henri-Jean Martin's study of the Parisian book trade in the seventeenth century casts some new light on the position of “livres geographiques” relative to other categories of book production: Livre, pouvoirs, et société à Paris au XVII^e siecle (1598–1701) (Paris, 1969), I, 73–96, 206–12; II, 850–55. See here also Lach, , The Literary Arts, Vol. II, Bk 2 of Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago, 1977), 39–79.

³ Among others, Baron, Hans, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (Princeton, 1966), 47–78, especially; Kelley, Donald R., Foundations of Modern Historical Scholarship: Language, Law, and History in the French Renaissance (New York, 1970); and Hay, Denys, Annalists and Historians: Western Historiography from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1977), 87–132. Howland Rowe offers a similar perspective in his “The Renaissance Foundations of Anthropology,” in Readings in the History of Anthropology, Darnell, Regna, ed. (New York, 1974), 61–77.

⁴ Landucci, Sergio, I filosofi e i selvaggi (Bari, 1972), ch. 1.Lovejoy, Arthur O., The Great Chain of Being (Cambridge, 1936) remains the classic study of the idea of plenitude in Western history. Bulwer's, JohnAnthropometamorphosis: Man Transform'd; or. The Artificiall Changling (London, 1653), sigs. C^r-v, summarizes the traditional Christian interpretation of variety as an effect of sin.

⁵ My reading of the sceptical tradition owes more to Popkin, Richard, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes (New York, 1964), than it does to René Pintard's important Le libertinage erudit dans la première moitie du XVII^e siècle (Paris, 1943). Cf. Lach, , The Scholarly Disciplines, Vol. II, Bk 3 of Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago, 1977), 565–66: “The most fundamental and universal of the changes effected in Europe's view of itself and the world was to be found in the growth of a new form of cultural relativism… The century that had begun with a robust confidence in European secular ideals, ideas, institutions, and arts ended in a wondering doubt about their superiority and permanence.”

⁶ This seems to be one conclusion that might be drawn from part of Elizabeth L. Eisenstein's ambitious study of the impact of printing on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change (Cambridge, 1977), I, 163–302.

⁷ Elliott, The Old World and the New; idem, “Renaissance Europe”; Landucci, I filosofi. Lach, Century of Discovery; idem, A Century of Wonder, Vol. II (in three books) of Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago, 1970–1977).Hodgen, Margaret T., Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1964).Honour, Hugh, The New Golden Land: European Images of America (New York, 1976).Bitterli, Urs, Die “Wilden” unddie “Zivilisierten” (Munich, 1976). Although it is overstated and filled with its share of Parisian mumbo jumbo, Michel de Certeau's essay, “Ethno-graphie. L'oralité, ou l'espace de l'autre: Léry,” in his L'écriture de l'histoire (Paris, 1975), 215–48, is worth consulting as an approach to travel literature in general.

⁸ Among others, see Gusdorf, Georges, La révolution galiléenne, Vol. III of Les sciences humaines et la pensée occidentale (Paris, 1969), tome 2, pp. 178–201;Duchet, Michèle, Anthropologie et histoire au siècle des lumières (Paris, 1971), 25–136;Moravia, Sergio, La scienza dell'uomo net settecento (Bari, 1970);Mühlmann, Wilhelm E., Geschichte der Anthropologie (Frankfurt, 1968), 35ff.Boon, James A., “Comparative De-enlightenment: Paradox and Limits in the History of Ethnology,” Daedalus, 109:2 (1980), 73–91, has recently proposed a reevaluation of travel literature based on its naïve receptivity to human difference and variety. It remains moot whether the sources will support Boon's interpretation.

⁹ Roy, Louis Le, Of the Interchangeable Course, or Variety of Things in the Whole World (London, 1594), 127^v.

¹⁰ Marin Mersenne to André Rivet of 12 March 1644, cited in Lenoble, Robert, Mersenne ou la naissance du mécanisme (1942; Paris, 1971), 342.

¹¹ Kepler, Johannes, De Stella nova in pede Serpentarii, et qui sub ejus exortum de novo imi it, trigono igneo (1606) in Gesammelte Werke, Caspar, Max, ed. (Munich, 1938), I, 335ff.

¹² Buonanni, Filippo, Musaeum Kircherianum (Rome, 1709).

¹³ Among others, see McGuire, J. E. and Rattansi, P. M., “Newton and the ‘Pipes of Pan,’” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 21:2 (1966), 108–43;Webster, Charles, The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine, and Reform, 1626–1660 (London, 1975);Rossi, Paolo, Aspetti della rivoluzione scientifica (Naples, 1971);idem, Francis Bacon: From Magic to Science, Rabinovitch, Sacha, trans. (Chicago, 1968);Meyer, R. W., Leibnitz and the Seventeenth Century Revolution (1948; Cambridge, 1952).

¹⁴ Jones, W. R., “The Image of the Barbarian in Medieval Europe,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13:4 (1971), 388. One of the original meanings of paganus denoted one who lived in the countryside (pagus), a rustic. The earliest Christian use of it to refer to nonbelievers does not occur until after Constantine, though the precise sense in which the word was used has long been a matter of dispute (see Pauly-Wissowa, , Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (Stuttgart, 1943), vol. 36, pt. 1, cols. 2295–97). Travellers and antiquarians also used Biblical terms interchangeably to refer to exotic pagans: ethnici, gentiles, etc.

¹⁵ Bataillon, Marcel, “L'unité du genre humain du P. Acosta au P. Clavigero,” in Mélanges à la mémoire de Jean Sarrailh (Paris, 1966), I, 75–95;Manuel, Frank E., “Pansophia, a Seven teenth Century Dream of Science,” in his Freedom from History (New York, 1971), 89–113. Tommaso Campanella's missionary program is set forth in his Quod reminiscenlur, Amerio, Romano, ed. (Padua, 1939). Comenius's elephantine De rerum humanarum emendatione consultatio catholica (1660; Prague, 1966) is his most comprehensive statement of his plans for converting and reforming the entire world. Leibniz's propaganda fidei per scientiam exists in scattered places throughout his large corpus; see Baruzi, Jean, Leibniz et l'organisation religieuse de la terre (Paris, 1907), for an introduction.

¹⁶ On the general confrontation between pagan and Christian in the seventeenth century, see Delumeau, Jean, Le catholicisme entre Luther et Voltaire (Paris, 1971), and his Leçon inaugurate au Collège de France. Chaire d'Histoire des mentalités religieuses dans l'Occident moderne (Paris, 1975).

¹⁷ Renaissance studies of paganism are reviewed in Henri Pinard de Boullaye, L'étude comparée des religions (Paris, 1922–1925), I, chs. 4–5, and in Allen, Don Cameron, Mysteriously Meant: The Rediscovery of Pagan Symbolism and Allegorical Interpretation in the Renaissance (Baltimore and London, 1970), 21–82.

¹⁸ Martyr, Peter, De novo orbe, or the Historie of the West Indies, Eden, Richard and Lok, Michael, trans. (London, 1612), 53: “Now (most noble Prince) what neede you hereafter to marveyle of the spirite of Apollo so shaking his Sibylles with extreme furie: you hadde thought that the superstitions of antiquity hadde perished.” de Oviedo, Gonzalo Fernández, Historia general y natural de las lndias, de Tudela, Juan Perez, ed. (Madrid, 1959), I, bk. VI, ch. ix.

¹⁹ de las Casas, Bartolomé, Historia de las lndias (Mexico City, 1951), I, 17.

²⁰ de Acosta, José, The Natural and Moral History of the Indies, Grimstone, Edward, trans. (London, 1880), II, 388.

²¹ See Seznec, Jean, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, Sessions, Barbara F., trans. (New York, 1953), esp. 219–56, and his “Un essai de mythologie comparée au début du XVIII^e siècle,” Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 48:fasc. 5 (1931), 268–81.

²² de Torquemada, Juan, Primera, (segunda, tercera,) pane de los veinte i un libros rituales i monarchia Indiana (Madrid, 1723), II, 32ff.

²³ Sahagún, Bernardino, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana (Mexico City, 1938), I, 15–16ff.

²⁴ Herbert of Cherbury, The Antienl Religion of the Gentiles and the Causes of their Errors Consider'd (London, 1705), 33, for example. See Vossius, Gerard, De theologia gentili et physiologia Christiana (Amsterdam, 1668), 10, col. 1; 21–22; 27, col. 2, for other examples.

²⁵ de Mornay, Philippe, De la verité de la Religion Chrestienne (Paris, 1581);Grotius, Hugo, De veritate religionis Christianae, 3d. ed. (Paris, 1633);Hoornbeek, Johannes, De conversione lndorum et Gentilium (Amsterdam, 1669);Tosi, Clemente, L'India orientale, descrittione geografica & historica (Rome, 1676).

²⁶ de Acosta, José, De procuranda indorum salute, Mateos, Francisco, trans. (Madrid, 1952), I, bk. I, ch. iv; bk. II, ch. viii.Possevino, Antonio, Bibliotheca selecta de ratione studiorum (Venice, 1603), 447ff.

²⁷ de las Casas, Bartolomé, Del unico modo de atraer a todos los pueblos a la verdadera religion, Carlo, Augustin Millares and Hanke, Lewis, trans. (Mexico City, 1942), 6.

²⁸ Elliott, , The Old World and the New, 15–16;Hodgen, , Early Anthropology, 338–39: “In all of these early examples of the identification of the culture of contemporary savagery with the cultures of the antique world there is the same blind spot, the same perversity of judgment, the same lack of elementary historical insight. In all, correspondences are elicited between an existing condition among a history-less people, a savage or barbarian group, and a purportedly unchanging trait or institution among an ancient historical people…. Forgotten was the fact that the social institutions of these ancient high cultures were products of long histories and a succession of changes.” However, Michel de Certeau has recently proposed an interesting if dense interpretation of the function of these comparisons in “Writing vs. Time: History and Anthropology in the Works of Lafitau,” Yale French Studies, no. 59 (1980), 37–64.

²⁹ For example, Purchas, Samuel, Purchas his Pilgrimes (London, 1625), I, 400.Rogerius, Abraham, La porte ouverte, pour parvenir à la connoissance du Paganisme caché, Grue, Thomas La, trans. (Amsterdam, 1670).de Montaigne, Michel, “Apology for Raymond Sebond,” in The Complete Essays of Montaigne, Frame, Donald M., trans. (Stanford, 1958), 431–32.

³⁰ As one example among many, see LeJeune, Paul, Relation de ce qui s'est passé en la Nouvelle France en l'année 1634 (Paris, 1635), 48–53; 71–78.

³¹ Thevet, André, Les singularitez de la France Antarctique (Paris, 1558), ch. 36. de Lery, Jean, Histoire d'un voyage faict en la terre du Bresil (La Rochelle, 1578), 266: “…les Ameriqains [sic] sonts extremement voire visiblement & actuellement tormentez des malins esprits, que parce que chacun peut juger que les affections quelques violentes qu'elles puissent estre ne pourroyent affliges les hommes de telle facon qu'il sera aisé de les rembarrer par ce moyen.”

³² Valle, Pietro della, The Travels of Sig. Pietro della Valle, a Noble Roman, into East-India and Arabia Deserta, Havers, G., trans. (London, 1665), 55–56.Fryer, John, A New Account of East-India and Persia in Eight Letters (London, 1698), 43–44; 102–3; 179–81.

³³ Acosta, , Natural and Moral History, II, 306.

³⁴ Furet, François, “L'histoire et ‘l'homme sauvage,’“ in Historien entre l'ethnologie et le futurologie (Paris, 1971), 231–37.

³⁵ Kircher, Athanasius, China monumentis (Amsterdam, 1667), 129–63;Huet, Pierre Daniel, Demonstralio evangelica, 3d ed. (Paris, 1690), 47–182;Duran, Diego, Historia de las lndias de Nueva Espana, Garibay, Angel, ed. (Mexico City, 1967), II, 13ff.

³⁶ Giuliano Gliozzi's monumental polemic, Adamo e il nuovo mondo: la nascita dell'antropologia come ideologia coloniale (Florence, 1977), has replaced Lee Huddleston, E., Origins of the American Indians: European Concepts, 1492–1729 (Austin, Texas, 1967), and Allen, Don Cameron, The Legend of Noah (Urbana, Illinois, 1949), 113–137, as the standard account of the debate.

³⁷ On Annius and his forgeries, see Gruppe, Otto, Geschichte der klassischen Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte während des Mittelalters im Abendland und während der Neuzeit (Leipzig, 1921), pp. 29–30, and Allen, , Mysteriously Meant, 61ff.

³⁸ du Bellay, Guillaume, Epitome de l'antiquité des Gaules et de France (Paris, 1556);Becanus, Joannes Goropius, Origines Antwerpianae (Antwerp, 1569);Bale, John, Scriptorum illustrium Brytannie quam nunc Angliam & Scotiam vocant (Basel, 1557).

³⁹ Webb, John, An Historical Essay endeavoring a Probability that the Language of the Empire of China is the Primitive Language (London, 1669), 27ff.;Kircher, , China monumentis, 129–63.

⁴⁰ Lafitau, Joseph François, Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains comparees aux moeurs des premiers temps (Paris, 1724), I, 32ff.

⁴¹ Steuco, Agostino, De perenni philosophia libri X (Leyden, 1540). See also Schmitt, Charles B., “Perennial Philosophy: From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 27:4 (1966), 505–32;idem, “‘Prisca theologia e philosophia perennis’: due temi del Rinascimento italiano e la loro fortuna,” in Il pensiero italiano del Rinascimento e il tempo nostra (Florence, 1970), 211–36; and Walker, D. P., The Ancient Theology (Ithaca, N.Y., 1972).

⁴² Acosta, , Natural and Moral History, II, 303;de la Vega, >Garcilaso, Inca, El, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, Livermore, Harold, trans. (Austin, Texas, 1966), I, 40ff.; Rogerius, La porte ouverte. On the Jesuits in China, see especially Walker, , The Ancient Theology, 194–230;Rowbotham, Arnold H., “The Jesuit Figurists and Eighteenth Century Religious Thought,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 17:4 (1956), 471–85;Pinot, Virgile, La Chine et la formation de l'esprit philosophique en France (Paris, 1932); and Kley, Edwin J. Van, “Europe's ‘Discovery’ of China and the Writing of World History,” American Historical Review, 76:2 (1971), 358–85.

⁴³ Temple, William, “An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning” (1690) in Five Miscellaneous Essays, Monk, Samuel H., ed. (Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1963), 38ff.

⁴⁴ See especially Philippe Couplet's introduction to his and his fellow Jesuits' translation of part of the Confucian corpus, Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (Paris, 1687).

⁴⁵ Schiller, Friedrich von, “The Nature and Value of Universal History,” History and Theory, 11:3 (1972), 321.

⁴⁶ Montanus, Arnoldus, Atlas Japannensis, Ogilby, John, trans. (London, 1670);idem.Atlas Chinensis, Ogilby, John, trans. (London, 1671).Nieuhoff, Johan, L'ambassade de la Compagnie Orientate des Provinces Unies vers l'Empereur de la Chine, Carpentier, Jean Le, trans. (Leyden, 1665), conveys a similar impression.

⁴⁷ Landucci, , I filosofi, chs. 2–3, constitutes an excellent introduction to these problems.

⁴⁸ Brerewood, Edward, Enquiries Touching the Diversity of Languages and Religions Throughout the chiefe parts of the World (London, 1614), 118. Heinrich Scherer's maps in his Atlas novus exhibens orbem terraqueum per natura opera (Frankfort, 1710) are also good sources for this religious geography.