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Acknowledgements
I thank Emily Varto and Bruce Russell for their help with Ancient Greek and Latin, respectively, as well as the participants to the Scientiae conference held at the Simon Fraser University in 2012, and the Faculty and graduate students of the Department of French and Italian, Princeton University.
Notes
1. Calvino, Invisible Cities, 69.
2. Aristotle, On Interpretation and Prior Analytics, passim.
3. Pigafetta, Le voyage et navigation, 5ro. (De leur nature ilz ne sont ne noirs ne blancz, mais de couleur d'olive.) ‘Ilz’ refers to Brazilians.
4. Ibid., 44vo, 45vo, 51ro, 54vo, 62vo, 68ro; see Atkinson, Les nouveaux horizons, 66.
5. Aristotle, Categories, X–XI.
6. Ibid., On Interpretation, VI–VII.
7. Valla, Dialectical Disputations, vol. 2, 90–95.
8. Copenhaver and Nauta, ‘Introduction’, xxxiv.
9. Cave, Pré-histoires, 35–50.
10. See Lestringant, Sous la leçon, 211–221.
11. See, for example, the 1517 Strasburg edition, titled Geographia.
12. See, for example, the 1477 Bologna, 1478 Rome and 1482 Ulm editions, all titled Cosmographia.
13. Ptolemy, Geography, ch. 1.
14. Ibid., ch. 1.
15. Pieter Apian's Cosmographia was first published in 1524. Gemma Frisius's edition thereof was first published in 1529.
16. Apianus and Frisius, Cosmographia, ch. 1. ([Cosmographia] à Geographia differt, quia terram distinguit tantum per Circulos coeli, non per muntes, maria, & flumina, & c.)
17. Ibid.
18. Cf. Conley, An Errant Eye, 61–69.
19. Apianus and Frisius, Cosmographia, ch. 1. ([Geographia] à Cosmographia differt, quia terram distinguit per montes, fluvios, & maria, aliaque insigniora, nulla adhibita circulorum ratione.) I base my own on the French translation. (Et differe de la Cosmographie, car elle descrit la terre par Montaignes, Rivieres, Mers & autres choses evidentes, & sans consideration des Cercles celestas.)
20. On the first chapter of Apianus and Frisius's Cosmographia, see also Hallyn, Gemma Frisius, 75–84; and Conley, An Errant Eye, 61–72.
21. Montaigne, Essais, 205.
22. Galard-Terraube, Brief discours, 3vo. (& me semble vanité l'opinion d'aucuns, qui pour avoir veu une partie d'un pais loingtain, veulent qu'on pense qu'ils puissant bien fidelement descrire le reste.) I was not able to consult the first edition, of F. Morel, Paris, 1559.
23. Ibid., 4. (De sorte que par les cartes & livres lon sçait mieulx la disposition de tout le globe de la terre, & mer en general, sans bouger d'une estude, que ne font plusieurs voyageans. Mais, comme i'ay dit, en cela la cognoissance du ciel est si necessaire, que sans icelle, telle estude sroit de peu d'utilité.)
24. Lestringant, L'atelier du cosmographe, 15–16.
25. Hallyn, Gemma Frisius, 23–26.
26. Martins, Editions of the Tractatus, http://ghtc.ifi.unicamp.br/Sacrobosco/Sacrobosco-ed.htm. I do not include the numerous editions classified as ‘doubtful’.
27. Thorndike, Sphere of Sacrobosco, 122–29.
28. Ibid., 127–28.
29. Ibid., 129.
30. Besse, Grandeurs de la terre, 51–52.
31. Thorndike, Sphere of Sacrobosco, 139.
32. Ibid., 140.
33. Sacrobosco and Cirvelo, Uberrimum sphere mundi, f58. (Cum enim anno christi domini. 1491. Illustrissimus hyspaniarum rex fernandus expertissimos nautas versus occidentem equinoctialem ad insulae quererendas miserit: tandem post quatuor fere menses idem nautae reversi insulas multas sub equinoctiali vel prope dicunt se reperisse. In cuius rei testimonium multa genera avium exquisitissima / multasque spens aromaticas preciosissimas / aurumque / & hominess illius regionis secum advexerunt: homines quidem illi non magne stature sed periocundi / saepius ridentes & bone indolis facile omnibus credentes & aquiescentes / satis ingeniosi / ceruleo colore / & capite quadrangulari hyspanis mirabilis apparverunt.) Translated by B. Russell.
34. Mentions of the Americas in the various editions of Sacrobosco's Tractatus listed in Alden, European Americana, mostly occur as comments or annexes to the discussions of the Five Zones and the Seven Climates; see Masse, ‘Sublimés des Nouveaux Mondes’, 302–40.
35. Thorndike, Sphere of Sacrobosco, 124.
36. Cosmographiae introductio, f4vo. (Huic oppositus est antarcticus: una & nomen sortit. Nam anti graeca dictio latine contra significat.)
37. Ibid., f12vo. (Dia Rhodon / a Rhodo Asiae minoris insula: quae & sui nominis in ea sitam nostra tempestate claram civitatem habet / fortiter Thurcarum efferos bellicosque impetus sustinentem / atque profligantem generosissime.) Translated by B. Russell.
38. Ibid., f12vo–13ro; I am correcting ‘Ameiam’ according to the 1509 edition. Translation by B. Russell, modified. (Pari modo dicendum est de eis quae sunt ultra aequinoctialem ad Austrum / quorum sex contraria nomina habentia sunt lustrata et dici possunt antidia Meroes / antidia Alexandrias / antidia Rhodon / antidia Rhomes / antidia Borischenes: a graeca particula anti quae oppositum vel contra denotat. Atque in sexto climate Antarcticum versus / & pars extrema Affricae nuper reperta & Zamziber / Iava minor / & Seula insulae / & quarta orbis pars [quam quia Americus invenit Amerigen / quasi Americi terram / sive Ame[ric]am nuncupare licet] sitae sunt.)
39. Ibid., f11vo. (Et ita deinceps versus Antarticum polum.)
40. Ibid., f15vo. (Cum & Europa & Asia a mulieribus sua sortita sint nomina.)
41. Ibid., f15ro. (Et dicitur Affrica quod frigoris rigiditate careat.)
42. Peacham, Garden of Eloquence (1577), as cited in Sonnino, Handbook to Sixteenth-Century Rhetoric, 204.
43. The litotes, in the sixteenth century and before, and following Cicero et al., is not a figure of opposition, but of attenuation, a sense that survives even now; it is a euphemism, an understatement. Its specific sense of ‘affirmation stating the negation of its opposite’ should probably be conceived as a subset; however, I adopt the second meaning, regardless of its relation to the former.
44. McCutcheon, ‘Denying the contrary’, 109, 121; according to McCutcheon, its ambiguity is partly due to logical complications: from an Aristotelian perspective, certainly, the negation of one element from a pair of contradictories is the affirmation of its counterpart; what is affirmed, however, by the negation of contraries, relatives or privatives, is far from evident (ibid., 116–117).
45. Cosmographiae introductio, f12vo.
46. Thevet, Singularitez, 5. (Afrique selon Ptolemée, est une des trois parties de la terre, (ou bien des quatre, selon les moderns Geographes, qui ont escrit depuis, que par navigations plusieurs païs anciennement incongneus ont esté decouvers, comme l'Inde Amerique, dont nous pretendons escrire) appellée selon Iosephe, Afrique, de Afer, lequel, comme nous lisons és histories Grecques & Latines, pour l'avoir subiuguée, y a regné, & faict appeller de son nom: car au paravant elle s'appelloit Libye, comme veulent aucuns, de ce mot Grec λίβς, qui signifie ce vent de midy, qui là est tant frequent & familier: ou de Libs, qui y regna. Ou bien Afrique a esté nommée de ceste particule Α, & Φρίκη, qui signifie froid, comme estant sans aucune froidure: & paravant appellée Hesperia.)
47. Ch. 75–82 of the Singularitez are dedicated to New France. According to Frank Lestringant, there is, in the Singularitez and subsequent writing of Thevet, ‘a rapport that unites, on both sides of the equator, the two [French] dreams of an American Empire; Boreal New France and Antarctic France will constantly echo one another in the subsequent writings of [Thevet]. This play on cross-references, of reflections always reiterated in a relationship of inversed symmetry, will go on over a period of nearly 35 years.’ Lestringant, ‘Nouvelle-France et fiction cosmographique’, 146.
48. Figure known, prior to the seventeenth century, as contrapositum, or syn(o)eciosis.
49. Romm, Edges of the Earth, 60–67.
50. Foclin, La rhetorique francoise, 102. (Correction est une reprehension & amendement de notre dire [ … ], quand ce qui avoit esté au paravant dit, est subtilement & ingenieusement repris.) Philipp Melanchthon provides both names: ‘Correctio ἐπανόρθωσις tollit quod dictum est supponens aliud magis idoneum, ut pro Milone, quas ille leges, si modo leges nominandae sunt, ac non faces urbis & pestes Reipublicae’: Melanchthon, Elementorum rhetorices libri duo, H8ro.
51. According to Foclin, correction is a type (espèces) of interruption, along with ‘digression’, ‘aversion’, and ‘reticence’; in Melanchthon's Elementorum rhetorices, it is grouped, instead, under arguments from contraries.
52. Foclin, La rhetorique francoise, 102.
53. Thevet, Singularitez, 35vo–37vo.
54. Cosmographiae introductio, f9.
55. Ibid., f9vo. (Cum autem dicimus aliquam coeli zonam vel habitatam vel inhabitatem / haec denotiationem a simili zona terrae illi coelesti plagae subiecta intelligi volumus: & quando habitatam aut habitabilem dicimus / bene & facile habitabilem. Cum vero inhabitatam vel inhabitabilem / egre difficileque habitabilem intelligimus. Sunt enim qui exustam torridamque zonam nunc habitant multi. Utque Chersonesum auream incolunt / ut Taprobanenses / Aethiopes : & maxima pars terrae semper incognitae nuper ab Americo Vespucio repertem. Qua de re ipsius quattuor subiungentur navigationes ex Italico sermone in Gallicum / & ex gallico in latinum versae.)
56. Masse, ‘Sublimés des Nouveaux Mondes’, 302–340.
57. Lestringant, L'atelier du cosmographe, 18–19; see also Besse, Grandeurs de la terre, 151–153.
58. Sacrobosco and Fabri, Opus sphericum, f31ro, f33vo.
59. Münster, Cosmographie universelle, 1396. (Plusieurs autres semblables fables sont escrites par les Iuifz […], lesquelles ie n'ay point icy voulu reciter […], combien que i'aye plus tost escrit ces choses pour risee que pour autre raison.) The entire chapter could be read as a long, inverted occupatio (‘p’ followed by ‘I did not say p’). The (regular) occupatio (‘I will not say p’, followed by ‘p’) is: ‘When the orator feigneth and maketh as though he would say nothing in some matter, when, notwithstanding he speaketh most of all, or when he saith something: in saying he will not say it’: Peacham, Garden of Eloquence (1577), as cited in Sonnino, Handbook to Sixteenth-Century Rhetoric, 136.
60. Johnson, ‘Astronomical Text-books’, 300.
61. I was not able to consult Münster's editions of Ptolemy's Geography; my description follows Ruland, ‘A Survey’, 88–89; Besse, Grandeurs de la terre, 158, 179–180; and McLean, Cosmographia of S. Münster, 168–169.
62. Note that the process of updating the Cosmographia is similar to that of the updating of chronicles (see Masse, ‘Newness and discovery’); the title to the 1554 edition includes the following notice: ‘Item omnium gentium mores, leges, religio, mutationes: atque memorabilium in hunc usque annum 1554 gestarum rerum Historia’: quoted in Besse, Grandeurs de la terre, 159.
63. MacLean, Cosmographia of S. Münster, 149–151.
64. Besse, Grandeurs de la terre, 159.
65. Münster, Cosmographie universelle, 11. (Il pourra sembler aux gens simples que cest chose vaine, de ce que i'escry icy de la grandeur de la terre & mesure d'icelle, a ceux dy ie qui n'ont nulle connaissance des mathematiques, Mais ce me sera assez que ces choses soient non crues d'aucuns, & des scavants crues.)
66. Gougenheim, Grammaire, 85.
67. Münster, Cosmographie universelle, 18. (Comme ainsi soit que ce volumme imite aucunement la Cosmographie de Ptolomee iay pense que ce seroit chose proffitable de faire mention en ce premier livre du premier livre de Ptolomee, & monstrer aux plus rudes que cest qui est traicte.)
68. Lestringant, Écrire le monde, 262.
69. Ibid., 11.
70. Hartog, Le miroir d'Hérodote, 331.
71. Ibid., 350.
72. Ibid., 354.
73. Ibid., 332.
74. For more early-modern examples of the topsy-turvy approach to otherness, see Lestringant, ‘L'antipathie entre les peuples'.
75. Fróis, Traité sur les contradictions, 20.
76. Ibid., 19.
77. Ibid., 30.
78. Ibid., 31.
79. Horn, Natural History of Negation, 16. The A, E, I, O letters are provided by the medieval commentators of Aristotle: affirmo (I affirm) and nego (I deny).
80. Apianus, Cosmographia [1533], ch. 19.
81. Karskens, ‘Alterity as a Defect’.
82. Münster recounts Columbus's and Magellan's travels over several pages (Cosmographie universelle, 1321–1326, 1330–1331, and 1327–1330, respectively).
83. Münster, Cosmographie universelle, 1321.
84. Howard R. Patch did use the term earlier, but in the context of topographical descriptions; see Patch, The Other World.
85. Hodgen, Early Anthropology, 194.
86. Pigafetta, Le voyage et navigation, 8ro, 16ro. (Ilz sont painctz / & non vestuz comme les aultres / fors une peau devant leur nature’; ‘Les femmes vont nuez sinon que portent une escorce subtile [ … ] comme une feuille de papier subtile devant leur nature.)
87. Ibid., 10vo, 16vo, 24ro. ([Ils] nont point de maison / sinon une cabane des peaulx de la mesme beste’; ‘Ilz nont nulles armes / sinon ung fust ayant ung os poinctu au bout den hault); (le capitaine leur feit demander / silz estoient Mores ou Gentilz / & en quoy ils croyoient. Respondirent que ne adoroient autrement / sinon que levoyent les mains ioinctes et la face au ciel / et appelloyent leur dieu Abba.)
88. See Demerson, ‘Langue ancienne’, 305.
89. Following Cicero, Quintilian differentiates between two types of correctio; it can occur before or after the actual utterance (tum correctio uel ante wel uel post quam dixeris, IX.i.30). ‘They are not monsters’ would be a correction of the ‘ante’ variety, since the proposition ‘They are monsters’ is not uttered. All subsequent corrections are of the ‘post’ variety.
90. Columbus, The Letter of Columbus, 10; De insulis inventis Epistola, f8. (Itaque monstra aliqua non vidi: neque eorum alicubi habui cognitionem: excepta quadam insula Charis nuncupata: que secunda ex Hispania in Indiam transfretantibus existit. quam gens quedam a finitimis habita ferocior incolit. hi carne humana vescuntur.) (Nihil ab aliis differunt nisi quod gerunt more femineo longos crines.)
91. According to Aristotle, some contraries have no intermediates, such as health and disease, or odd and even, while some do, such as black / white and grey: Categories, X.
92. Note that the justification given is cosmographical, rather than cultural.
93. Münster, Cosmographie universelle, 1379. Note moreover that the very word ‘nu’ (naked) is just then in a transitional period, midway between the old and middle French (‘without armour’) and modern French (‘without clothing’); see Wolf-Bonvin, ‘Un vêtement sans l’être’. The abundant use of restrictive keywords (fors, sinon), as well as alternate, unambiguous uses of the same phrasing (‘no habitations, except for a cabin’; ‘no weapons, except for a lance’) do indicate, I believe, that ‘nu’ refers here to actual nakedness. Nonetheless, if only because of its compatibility with contradictions, the word ‘nu’ in the period's ethnographical literature should no more be taken at face-value than ‘sodomite’ or ‘anthropophagous/cannibal’ – qualifiers often devoid of meaning, either semantically or rhetorically.