This volume presents in-depth and contextualized analyses of a wealth of visual materials. These documents provide viewers with a mesmerizing and informative glimpse into how the early modern world was interpreted by image-makers and presented to viewers during a period that spans from manuscript culture to the age of caricature. The premise of this collection responds to a fundamental question: how are early modern texts, objects, and systems of knowledge imaged and consumed through bimodal, hybrid, or intermedial products that rely on both words and pictures to convey meaning? The twelve contributors to this collection go beyond traditional lines of inquiry into word-and-image interaction to deconstruct visual dynamics and politics—to show how images were shaped, manipulated, displayed, and distributed to represent the material world, to propagate official and commercial messages, to support religious practice and ideology, or to embody relations of power. These chapters are anchored in various theoretical and disciplinary points of departure, such as the history of collections and collecting, literary theory and criticism, the histories of science, art history and visual culture, word-and-image studies, as well as print culture and book illustration. Authors draw upon a wide range of visual material hitherto insufficiently explored and placed in context, in some cases hidden in museums and archives, or previously assessed only from a disciplinary standpoint that favored either the image or the text but not both in relation to each other. They include manuscript illuminations representing compilers and collections, frontispieces and other accompanying plates published in catalogues and museographies, astronomical diagrams, mixed pictographic-alphabetic accounting documents, Spanish baroque paintings, illustrative frontispieces or series inspired by or designed for single novels or anthologies, anatomical drawings featured in encyclopedic publications, visual patterns of volcanic formations, engravings representing the New World that accompany non-fictional travelogues, commonplace books that interlace text and images, and graphic satire. Geographically, the collection covers imperial centers (Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Spain), as well as their colonial periphery (New France; Mexico; Central America; South America, in particular Brazil; parts of Africa; and the island of Ceylon). Emblematic and thought-provoking, these images are only fragments of the multifaceted and comprehensive visual mosaic created during the early modern period, but their consideration has far reaching implications.

Publisher description

"The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci" is a set of historic documents attributed to the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci, compiled and edited by Bartolomé de las Casas. These letters offer valuable insights into the early European encounters with the Americas throughout the Age of Discovery. Christopher Columbus, a prominent Italian explorer, initiated the European exploration of the New World within the past due 15th century. While no longer directly related to those letters, Columbus's voyages laid the basis for next explorations, consisting of those undertaken by Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo Vespucci, for whom the Americas are named, turned into an Italian explorer and navigator who sailed to the New World inside the late fifteenth and early 16th centuries. He purportedly wrote numerous letters describing his voyages, and these writings helped shape European know-how of the newly discovered lands. Bartolomé de las Casas, a Spanish historian, priest, and suggest for indigenous rights, performed a essential position in preserving and disseminating Vespucci's letters. His efforts ensured that these files have become critical resources for the exploration and knowledge of the Americas. "The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci," as compiled by way of Bartolomé de las Casas, provide a glimpse into the early European perceptions and interactions with the Americas.

Contains the following items, translated with notes and an introduction: Letter of Amerigo Vespucci to a 'magnificent lord' - Letter of Amerigo Vespucci to Lorenzo Pietro F. di Medici - Evidence of Alonzo de Hojeda respecting his voyage of 1499 - Account of the voyage of Hojeda, 1499-1500, by Navarrete - Letter of the Admiral Christopher Columbus to his son - Letter of Vianelo to the Seigneury of Venice - Letter of naturalization in favor of Vespucci - Appointment of Amerigo Vespucci as chief pilot - Chapters from Las Casas, which discuss the statements of Vespucci - Evidence respecting the voyage of Pinzon and Solis - Las Casas on the voyage of Pinzon and Solis; Index. This is a new print-on-demand hardback edition of the volume first published in 1894.