New Worlds, Ancient TextsOn encountering what he called "the Indies", the Jesuit Jose de Acosta wrote, "Having read what poets and philosophers write of the Torrid Zone, I persuaded myself that when I came to the Equator, I would not be able to endure the violent heat, but it turned out otherwise... What could I do then but laugh at Aristotle's Meteorology and his philosophy?" Acosta's experience echoes that of his fellow travelers to the New World, and it is this experience, with its profound effect on Western culture, that Anthony Grafton charts. Describing an era of exploration that went far beyond geographic bounds, this book shows how the evidence of the New World shook the foundations of the old, upsetting the authority of the ancient texts that had guided Europeans so far afield. The intellectual shift mapped out here, a movement from book learning to empirical knowledge, did not take place easily or quickly, and Grafton presents it in all its drama and complexity. What he recounts is in effect a war of ideas fought, sometimes unwittingly by mariners, scientists, publishers, scholars, and rulers over one hundred fifty years. He shows us explorers from Cortes and Columbus to Scaliger and Munster, laden with ideas gathered from ancient and medieval texts, in their encounters with the world at large. In colorful vignettes, firsthand accounts, published debates, and copious illustrations, we see these men and their contemporaries trying to make sense of their discoveries as they sometimes confirm, sometimes contest, and finally displace traditional images and notions of the world beyond Europe. The fundamental cultural revolution that Grafton documents still reverberates in our time. By taking us into thisbattle of books versus facts, a conflict that has shaped global views for centuries, Grafton allows us to re-experience and understand the Renaissance as it continues to this day. |
Contents
The Scholars Cosmos | 11 |
The Universe | 59 |
All Coherence Gone | 95 |
Copyright | |
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Acosta America ancient texts Anthony Grafton argued argument Aristotle authoritative authority Aztec Bacon barbarians believed Bible biblical Blaeu Bodin Boemus cannibals canon Casas Christian cities civilization classical Columbus contradictions Ctesias culture customs Dati debate described detail discoveries disease drew edition empire ethnographic Europe European example explorers fact fifteenth Figure Geography Greek guaiacum Herodotus historian Hornius human humanists illustration images Indians inhabited insisted intellectual Isaac La Peyrère Johannes Meursius knew knowledge land Latin learned Leiden Library lived medieval Michel de Montaigne modern morbus gallicus Münster native natural Nuremberg Nuremberg Chronicle Old World original Parall Peyrère philosophy plant portrayed powerful printed proved Ptolemy Ptolemy's readers Renaissance revealed Roman scholars scholastics scientific Scythians showed sixteenth century society sons of Noah sources Spanish story syphilis Tacitus theories thought tobacco took traditional translated Vesalius Vespucci vision Western writers אֱלֹהִים