Ariosto Art Importante Pintura

Stradanos Allegorical Invention of the Americas in Late Sixteenth-Century FlorenceAuthor(s): Lia MarkeySource: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Summer 2012), pp. 385-442Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/667256 .Accessed: 24/06/2014 14:54

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Stradanos Allegorical Invention of theAmericas in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence*

by LIA MARKEY

This essay situates Giovanni Stradanos engravings of the discovery of the Americas from theAmericae Retectio and Nova Reperta series within the context of their design in late sixteenth-century Florence, where the artist worked at the Medici court and collaborated with the dedicateeof the prints, Luigi Alamanni. Through an analysis of the images in relation to contemporary textsabout the navigators who traveled to the Americas, as well as classical sources, emblems, and worksof art in diverse media tapestry, print, ephemera, and fresco the study argues that Stradanosallegorical representations of the Americas were produced in order to make clear Florences rolein the invention of the New World.

1. IN T R O D U C T I O N

I n the late 1580s, nearly a century after the travels of Columbus andVespucci, Giovanni Stradano (also known as Jan Van der Straet andJohannes Stradanus, 15231605) designed engravings in two print seriesrepresenting the discovery of the New World. In the renowned printsnavigators are fashioned as mythological heroes, and Stradanos imagessuggest a fantasia, or dream, rather than a record of newsworthy events. TheAmericae Retectio series includes an elaborate frontispiece (fig. 1) and threeprints (figs. 24) in chronological order that depict Christopher Columbus

*This article began as a paper given at The Renaissance Society of Americasconference in Cambridge in 2005, and developed out of the final chapter of my 2008dissertation. I am especially grateful to my dissertation advisors, Charles Cohen, Rebecca

Zorach, and Clara Bargellini, and to fellow session participants at that RSA conference,Michael Gaudio and Michael Schreffler, who first provided feedback on this study. Thanksalso go to past and current members of the Medici Archive Project, Lee Behnke, Surekha

Davies, Sara Matthews-Grieco, Liz Horodowich, Constance Markey, Jonathan Nelson, andSusanna Rudofsky, who helped me to find, decipher, or translate sources related to the printsdiscussed here. At various points in its development, this study benefited substantially

from the comments and suggestions of numerous readers, including Timothy Krause, ColinMacdonald, and Erika Suffern of RQ, the anonymous RQ readers, Alessandra BaroniVannucci, Deborah Blocker, Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Jessica Keating, Alexandra Korey,Daniel Margocsy, Lisa Neal Tice, Meredith Ray, and Larry Silver. I also thank in particular

Blocker for sharing her knowledge of the Alterati with me, and Manfred Sellink and VanessaPaumen for providing me with proofs of the publication, Stradanus (1523 1605), CourtArtist of the Medici.

Renaissance Quarterly 65 (2012): 385442 [385]


(14511506), Amerigo Vespucci (14541512), and Ferdinand Magellan(14801521).1 Two prints from Stradanos Nova Reperta series similarlyunite allegorical imagery with captions to portray Vespuccis encounterwith the New World (figs. 5 and 6).2 The Nova Reperta series includesnineteen prints, each representing a different invention or discovery of therecent centuries, ranging from the cure for syphilis to the production ofsilk.3 Stradanos four Americae Retectio prints and these two Nova Repertaprints possess similar iconography, and all were dedicated to members ofthe Alamanni family and first printed by the Galle publishing house inthe late 1580s and early 1590s.

FIGURE 1. Giovanni Stradano, Frontispiece for the Americae Retectio series, late1580s. Engraving. Private collection.

1On the general history of the Americae Retectio prints, see the following catalogueentries: Van der Sman, 1992, 100102; Kenseth, 22627. See also Leesberg and Leeflang,

3:2632; Baroni Vannucci, 1997, 401.2The most thorough studies of Nova Reperta prints are McGinty; Van der Sman, 2011.

On many of the preparatory drawings from this series, see Benisovich. On the prints,

see Leesberg and Leeflang, 1:xxxviii; ibid., 3:515; Baroni Vannucci, 1997, 397400;Margocsy; Park, 363-364. On the role of invention, see Gombrich.

3Three other prints from the series also relate to New World discoveries: the magnet

(2), guaiacum as a cure for syphilis (6), and longitude (16).

RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY386


Since the late sixteenth century, Stradanos prints depicting the Americashave been used as artistic sources by artists and printmakers, and morerecently as illustrations for scholars writing about the interaction betweenthe Old and New Worlds. The roles of both Stradano and the Alamanni inthe creation of the prints have often been disregarded, and they arefrequently solely attributed to the Flemish printmaker and publisher. Inthe early seventeenth century, the Northern printmaking family, the DeBrys, reproduced the Americae Retectio series with few alterations, and theStradano designs are therefore often mistakenly attributed to the De Brys.4

Since Michel de Certeaus use of Stradanos America image (fig. 5) from theNova Reperta series on the frontispiece of his 1975 The Writing of History,Stradanos prints and their reproductions by De Bry have served to illustrate

FIGURE 2. Giovanni Stradano, Columbus in the Americae Retectio series, late1580s. Engraving. Private collection.

4The prints were first reproduced (in reverse) by Theodore DeBry in the early

seventeenth century in book 4 of America Pars Quatre, and for this reason the works are oftenattributed to the Northern printmaker: on the relation between De Bry and Stradano, seeKeazor. Bettini, 1987, and de Certeau are just two authors who mistakenly attribute

Stradanos prints to the DeBrys.

387STRADANOS ALLEGORICAL INVENTION


countless texts about the discovery of America and colonialism.5 Despitethe popularity of the images, and the recent fascination with promotingStradanos America in particular as a representation of the colonial Other,the works have not been fully considered within the context in whichthey were produced, and even their complex iconography remains largelyunexplored.6 Most recently, Michael Gaudio has called for a reevaluationof Stradanos America in relation to the very real space of the engravers

FIGURE 3. Giovanni Stradano, Vespucci in the Americae Retectio series, late 1580s.Engraving. Private collection.

5For instance, similar to de Certeau, authors such as Mason; Hulme, 1985, 17; Hulme,

86, 1; Grafton; and Canizares-Esguerra use Stradanos prints as illustrations or emblemswithout discussing their iconography or meaning in the context in which they wereproduced.

6Christadler traces the historiography of the Vespucci America print in particular,

and explains how it has been commonly discussed as an icon of postcolonialism. Sourcesthat expand on de Certeaus use of the image and discuss it as an image representingcolonialism include Montrose; Zamora, 15255; McClintock, 2527; Conley, 30509;

Schmidt, 12931. Both Rabasa and Schreffler examine the image more closely with regard tothe discourse of colonialism. The most detailed and thorough studies of the images that areexceptions to this general interest in using the image as a symbol in a pan-European context,

include Palm, 198485; Bettini, 1987 and 1988; Margolin, 2001; Van der Sman, 2011.



workshop where this print was made.7 Yet this print was conceived, notin the engravers workshop, but rather on Stradanos page. The printswere repositories of factual and fictional information gathered byreading, speaking, and writing about these celebrated navigators among acircumscribed group of individuals in Florence.

This study argues that the America print, along with Stradanos fiveother New World images, must be examined together within the contextof his circle. The first part of this study therefore establishes the culturalenvironment of the prints production in late sixteenth-century Florence.Examination of Stradanos experience as a print designer and Medici courtartist, and of Luigi Alamannis involvement in the Florentine Accademiadegli Alterati, provides critical insight into the creation of these images.8

Stradano designed the prints around the time of Ferdinando de Medicis(15491609) 1588 accession as Grand Duke. Previously Stradano had beeninvolved in the creation of allegorical paintings, ephemera, and cartography

FIGURE 4. Giovanni Stradano, Magellan in the Americae Retectio series, late1580s. Engraving. Private collection.

7Gaudio, xvi.8Markey, 2008, 23336; Van der Sman, 2011.



for Medici propaganda under Ferdinandos father, Grand Duke Cosimode Medici (151974), and his brother, Grand Duke Francesco de Medici(154187). At the Medici court he would have encountered objectsfrom, texts about, and images of the New World. Though the Mediciwere not involved in the colonization of the Americas, and they themselveswere subsumed under the sovereignty of Spain, Grand Duke Ferdinandosought to strengthen cultural and economic ties with the New World duringhis reign. The second part of the essay closely examines the text and imageof each print in relation to this milieu. Captions on the prints, chosenby the Alamanni, and Stradanos inscriptions on the related preparatorydrawings reveal specific sources for, and ideas behind, the conception ofthe images.9 Using the textual materials available about the New Worldand stimulated both by contemporary epic literature written about thenavigators and by ancient sources such as Lucretius, Stradano producedallegorical images that borrow from emblems and imprese, court frescoes,festivals, tapestries, cartography, and other printed images. These other

FIGURE 5. Giovanni Stradano, America in the Nova Reperta series, late 1580s.Engraving. Bridgeman-Giraudon/Art Resource, NY.

9See Van der Sman, 2011, 13942.



media provided an allegorical visual language that was familiar to sixteenth-century viewers.

According to Jose Rabasa, in Stradanos prints and especially the Americaengraving, newness is produced by means of discursive arrangementsof more or less readily recognized descriptive motifs.10 These descriptivemotifs to which Rabasa alludes are produced through the constructionof complex allegorical narratives comprised of emblematic compositionsthat incorporate the representation of gods and navigators alongsidepersonifications of the New World, fantastical monsters, hybrid creatures,and ancient gods. These discursive and anachronistic images would haveseemed customary, and would have been comprehensible, to the prints latesixteenth-century audience. Yet as Sabine MacCormack has explained, therewere limits of understanding in constructions of the New World, forimages did not on their own lead to a significantly new perception ofGreco-Roman antiquity or of the Americas.11 By framing the New World

FIGURE 6. Giovanni Stradano, The Astrolabe in the Nova Reperta series, late1580s. Engraving. [NC266.St81 1776St81], Rare Book and Manuscript Library,Columbia University in the City of New York.

10Rabasa, 37.11MacCormack, 79.



in recognizable allegorical imagery, Stradanos engravings could declarethe novel idea that the New World was a Florentine invention andpatriotically revel in these discoveries.12 In his seminal study on mythologyand allegory in the Renaissance, The Survival of the Pagan Gods, JeanSeznec writes that basically, allegory is often sheer imposture, used toreconcile the irreconcilable.13 Indeed, these images do just that: they makeno reference to the Spanish, overtly connect the New World to Italy, and,with the figure of Vespucci in particular, highlight Florences role in thediscovery. Fraught with temporal clashes between the old (pagan mythology)and the new (the discovery and invention of the Americas) the prints,disseminated throughout the world, made America part of Florenceshistory, even though in reality the New World played a small role inFlorences past and present. This claim could be made only through thelanguage of allegory because implicit in allegory lies fantasy and the notionthat the representations are imaginary.

2. S T R A D A N O , A L A M A N N I , A N D T H E A C C A D E M I AD E G L I A L T E R A T I

As is common in sixteenth-century engravings, the captions on the printsmake clear that their production was the result of a collaboration betweenthe designer or inventor (Stradano), the printmaker and publisher (Galleand Collaert), and the dedicatee or patron (the Alamanni). A Flemish artistwho began working at the Medici court sometime before 1554 first ascartoon designer for Grand Duke Cosimos new tapestry workshop andthen as an artist under Giorgio Vasari (151174), Stradano was by the1560s a relatively well-known independent artist living in Florence.14

He was an active member of the Accademia del Disegno and securedcommissions for paintings and frescoes at the Medici court and also fromprivate patrons and churches in Tuscany. Stradano was also involved in theproduction of several court festivals and weddings, and in the 1570s heworked briefly in Naples and in Flanders for John of Austria.15 The artist is

12On the meaning of allegory in relation to personifications, see Fletcher, 4; Zorach, 87.13Seznec, 274. On allegory in the early modern period, also see Fletcher; Allen; Baskins

and Rosenthal; Park.14For monographic studies of Stradano, see Baroni Vannucci, 1997; Sellink, 2011a. For

the biography of the artist, see Vasari, 7:99, 309, 584, 617; Borghini, 15157; Baldinucci,59196; Van Mander, 6573.

15On Stradanos festival designs, see Van Sasse van Ysselt, 1990.



best known for his large number of preparatory drawings for prints andtapestries that illustrate and document life at the Medici court, significantbattles, hunts, as well as other current events, and religious subjects.

Stradano established a partnership with the Galles, a family who rana print publishing house in Antwerp, where most of his print designs, suchas the engravings in these two series, were produced initially under PhilipsGalle (15371612).16 The family business was subsequently taken over byPhilips Galles son, Theodor (15711633), and then his grandson Johannes(160076). Accordingly, the first two editions of the Americae Retectio printscite Philips Galle as the printer and Philipss son-in-law, Adriaen Collaert(15601618), as the engraver, while the second edition names JohannesGalle as the printer.17 Similarly, the first edition of the Nova Reperta serieslabels Philips Galle as the printer of the first edition, and then Theodorand Johannes Galle are credited with the two subsequent editions.18 Acomparison between the engravings themselves and Stradanos six finishedpreparatory drawings for the prints five are in the Laurentian Libraryin Florence and the America print is housed in The MetropolitanMuseum of Art in New York City (fig. 7) makes clear that the Gallesreproduced Stradanos drawings with great precision and had little inputinto the content or style of the prints. They did, however, likely controlwhen the prints would be published, how much they cost, and where theywould be sold and distributed. Though little is known about thedissemination of the prints and though the prints are undated, a 1589date on the Vespucci preparatory drawing in the Americae Retectio series(Laurentian Library) provides a date for Stradanos drawings and suggeststhat the prints were produced soon after this time.19 It is believed that atleast four editions of the Nova Reperta series were printed between 1591and 1638, and that the Americae Retectio series was first printed in 1589 andthen reissued in 1592 for the one-hundredth anniversary of Columbussdiscovery.20

Luigi (15581603) and Ludovico Alamanni are both cited as noblemenof Florence in the caption on the Americae Retectio frontispiece, but only

16See Sellink, 2001, xlviii; Leesberg and Balis, Part I, unpaginated; Sellink, 2011b.Around 1580, after Adriaen Collaert married Philips Galles daughter, the Collaert

engraving family, brothers Adriaen and Jan II in particular, began working exclusivelywith the Galle family as well.

17Leesberg and Balis, Part V, 18283.18Ibid., 18991.19Inscribed on the broken mast of the ship: JOAN/STRAD/ANUS/INVEN/1589.20Leesburg and Balis, Part V, 182, 189. McGinty, 21, is less certain about the exact

dating of the prints and speculates that the earliest possible date for the Nova Reperta is 1588.



Luigi is named on the Nova Reperta frontispiece.21 Gert Jan Van der Smanhas pointed out that Stradano refers to Luigi Alamanni as the auctorintellectualis, or intellectual advisor, of many of his print designs in variousinscriptions on preparatory drawings and sketches, and has consideredAlamannis scholarship as a catalyst for many of Stradanos designs.22 LuigiAlamanni commissioned other works by Stradano, such as a series ofdrawings of Dantes Divine Comedy, a series illustrating Homers Odyssey,and some of the prints from a series representing different types of hunting.23

Most of the preparatory drawings for the Americae Retectio prints and the

FIGURE 7. Giovanni Stradano, America, late 1580s. Pen and brown ink, brownwash, heightened with white, over black chalk. New York, Metropolitan Museumof Art. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource, NY.

21There is some discrepancy over the birth and death dates of Luigi Alamanni, and littleis known of Ludovico. Brunner, 1994, 123, and the Dizionario biografico, 1:571, state thatLuigi Alamanni lived from 1558 to 1603. Baldini, 66, attributes these dates to LudovicoAlamanni and includes no specific birth and death dates for Luigi, stating only that he was

the Provveditore of the Accademia Fiorentina in 1579. The Dizionario describes Ludovico asa jurist and heretic and Luigi as a scholar. Luigi and Ludovicos sister, Costanza Alamanni,also commissioned a print series from Stradano related to the Nova Reperta series. Her seriesis on the discovery and use of silk worms and entitled Vermis sericus.

22Leesberg and Leeflang, Part I, xxxviiii, cite Van der Sman, 2011, 14042.23On Alamanni patronage, see Brunner, 1999, 12332; Baroni Vannucci, 1997, 57,

217, 233; Leesberg and Leeflang, Part I, xxxvi, xxxviiii; Van der Sman, 2011, 13543.



drawings for the Dante series are today located in the same archival album ofthe Laurentian Library in Florence, indicating that they were conservedtogether by the Alamanni.24 The dates of the sheets, including the date onone of the American drawings, range from 1587 to 1589, indicating thatthey were produced in Florence during this two-year period of time. Thealbum is composed of fifty-six drawings: fifty illustrate canti from the DivineComedy, four are preparatory drawings for the Americae Retectio series, one isa preparatory drawing for the print of Vespucci and the astrolabe from theNova Reperta series, and one is a preparatory drawing for the frontispiecefor Stradanos Calcius series an unfinished series presumably dedicatedto soccer.25 Alamanni wrote copious notes on Dante in this album, andperhaps even did some of the drawings in it, demonstrating that he was closelyinvolved in the creation of Stradanos images.26 He can also be credited withproviding titles for the Dante drawings in the album, since his hand isvisible on some of Stradanos signed drawings.

That the preparatory drawings for the Americae Retectio series andfor the Vespucci Astrolabe print returned to Florence after they wereengraved, and were placed together in the album with these importantDante drawings, demonstrates that they were considered to be importantcollectibles for the Alamanni. In 1587, when Alamanni and Stradanowere producing the Dante drawings representing hell, Galileo Galilei(15641642) presented two lectures to the Accademia Fiorentina on theShape, Site and Size of the Inferno of Dante.27 Thomas Settle proposesthat the letters from Alamanni to Galileo from this period make clear thatsome of these illustrations in Alamannis album were created in conjunctionwith Galileos work, or that Galileo even had a hand in their design.28 The

24The album or codex has been dismantled so that Stradanos drawings have been takenout of the album and are now conserved in separate folders. The album and separate

drawings share the same title: Laurentian Library, Mediceo Palatino 75; Michael Brunnerdiscusses this archival font and the possibility that the works were in Luigi Alamannispossession see Brunner, 1994, 12324, 131; Brunner, 1999, 9495 and a facsimile of

the album was published by Guido Biagi. The most recent addition to the scholarship on thealbum following its restoration is Baroni Vanucci, 2002. The other Nova Reperta preparatorydrawings are dispersed throughout museums and private collections all over the world: seeLeesberg and Leeflang, 515.

25Alamanni quite likely also commissioned Stradano to create a print series on soccer,entitled Calcius Ludus; however, there is no evidence to indicate that these prints were evercreated: see Van Sasse van Ysselt, 1993. A few unsigned drawings of paradise from Dantes

Inferno in the album have been attributed to Alessandro Allori by Brunner, 1999, 32729.26Brunner, 1994, 12628; Brunner, 1999, 33036.27Settle, 834.28Ibid., 837, 842.



drawings of the navigators also include extensive notes, in Flemish and inStradanos hand, to the printmakers. Stradano wrote in the captions at thebase of the drawings and added several explanatory notes in the margins inorder to describe some of the iconography in the images to the printmakers.29

Therefore, these drawings included important notes and ideas of Galileoand Stradano that Alamanni felt were worthy of safekeeping.

During the time in which Stradano was producing the preparatory drawingsfor the prints, Luigi Alamanni was an active member of the Accademia degliAlterati, a literary group for whom the discovery of the New World wasa subject of inquiry. A smaller and more private academy in comparison withother Florentine Cinquecento academies, such as the Accademia Fiorentinaand the Accademia della Crusca, the Accademia degli Alterati began in 1569among a group of Florentine noblemen who met frequently to discusstheoretical and technical issues related to their own writing and to otherauthors, particularly ancient poets, as well as Dante, Ariosto, and Tasso.30

Members included individuals from prominent Florentine families, such asthe Ricasoli, Neroni, Rucellai, Davanzati, and Albizzi. Two of the morefamous members of the academy were Filippo Sassetti (154088), a merchantwho traveled to India and whose letters from abroad are informative aboutIndia and the New World, and Giovanni Battista Strozzi (15511634), theauthor of both an epic poem about Vespucci and an elaborate Vespucciintermezzo for Prince Cosimo II de Medicis marriage celebration in 1608. Inan undated document Strozzi wrote out a list of potential discussion topics forthe Alterati: one of them included whether the discovery of the Indies wasdamning or useful to our country.31 According to academy member JacopoSoldanis funeral oration for Alamanni, Luigi suggested that a poem be writtenabout the navigator in order to render more glorious his country.32

29For instance, a marginal note on the Columbus drawing explains that the text for the

caption will be sent in a following mailing. All of the sheets have both vertical and horizontalcreases, suggesting that they were folded up for travel, mailed to Antwerp to be printed, andthen sent back to Florence and inserted into Alamannis album. See also Sellink, 2011b;

Van der Sman, 2011, 14041.30On the Accademia degli Alterati, see Blocker; Manni; Plaisance; Van Veen; Weinberg,

1954a and 1954b. Diaries of the academy and archival documents regarding its members arelocated in the Laurentian Library and the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze.

31The entry reads, Che il ritrovamento dellIndie nuove e` stato piu di dano a nostripaesi che dutile: BNCF, MS Magliabecchiano, IX, 124, c.279v.

32Soldani, 56: Quanto tale cognizione fusse perfetta nel nostro Alamanni ne puo` essere

ora testimonio, chi per rendere piu` gloriosa questa Patria, si e` proposto per soggetto diPoema degnissimo quell maraviglioso viaggio dAmerigo Vespucci, pel quale quella s` vastapenisola della nuova spagna, e del Peru` ritrovando, e del suo nome illustrandola, e nuovo

mondo al vecchio mondo aggiungendo, la informo` de precetti della nostra Religione.



Not coincidentally, Sassetti and Strozzi were writing about the Americasin the years just preceding Stradanos design of these American prints for theAlamanni. Sassetti was an esteemed member of the Academy before his travelsaround the world, and many of the letters that Sassetti wrote on his journeywere sent to members of the group, such as Bernardo Davanzati, PietroVettori, Francesco Buonamici, and Strozzi.33 Although Sassetti does notwrite about his brief experience in America, some of his letters refer to thediscoveries of Vespucci and Columbus.34 In December 1585, Sassetti wrotepassionately to his friend Michele Saladini, a Florentine merchant living inPisa, of Columbuss route and discovery, and then explained: But to returnto Columbus once more, I do not think that his glory was dictated by theaction of the wind . . . and I in particular know this so much so that I havehelped and urged our Tender one [il Tenero] to write about it: a worthy workof such greatness and wonder as to compete with the story of Ulysses.35 OurTender one here is the Accademia degli Alteratis pseudonym for GiovanniBattista Strozzi. The comment that Columbuss story rivals Ulyssess taleis intriguing, since Alamanni was involved with Stradano in producing anillustrated edition of Homers epic poem that never came to fruition. Thiscitation from Sassettis letter clearly shows that already by 1585 Sassetti hadcontacted Strozzi about writing a poem about Columbuss heroic travels.

But Strozzi chose to write about Vespucci rather than Columbus.36

He likely began writing the poem in the mid-1580s, when he and Sassettiwere obviously engaged in a discourse on the importance of writing aboutthe Italian navigators.37 Strozzi could have also been influenced by GiulioCesare Stellas (15641624) epic poem about Columbus, and perhaps itwas knowledge of Stellas poem that provoked Strozzi to write of Vespucciinstead of Columbus.38 In 1590, Il Colombeide (The Columbeis, 1589),

33Manni, 22v. Sassettis travels were principally to India, though he stopped in Brazil onhis way there. On Sassetti as a member of the Academy, see Blocker.

34For instance, Sassettis 1583 letter to Francesco Buonamici explains how his own

travels mirrored Columbuss: Sassetti, 355.35Dei, 12223: Ma per tornare unaltra volta a Colombo, io non credo che per levargli

la coniettura de venti se gli levi la Gloria dellazione sua . . . io in particolare sapete quanto ioho aiutato ed esortato il nostro Tenero a tentare la sua passata: opera degna e che ha in se in

grandezza e maraviglia, e ha in se altro che le novelle dUlisse.36On Strozzi, see Barbi; Fido. Barbi, 5556, speculates about the influence of Stellas

Columbus poem on Strozzi.37Barbi, 56; Fido, 288.38Fido, 281, also points out that all of these authors could have been inspired by Luis

Vaz de Camoess Os Lusiadas (1572) and Alonso Ercilla y Zunigas LAraucana (156989),two epic poems about Portuguese conquests in the late sixteenth century.



Stellas romantic text based on the writings of Gonzalo Fernandez deOviedo y Valdes (14781557) and Peter Martyr dAnghiera (14571526)and describing Columbuss discovery and interaction with the natives,was sent to the Accademia degli Alterati.39 Certainly the Academy knew ofStellas poem earlier, since it had already been published in a piratedversion in London in 1585. Similar to Stellas poem, Strozzis text aboutVespucci boasts of the navigators Florentine origins and describes him asa mythological hero. The writings of Sassetti, Stella, and Strozzi, who wereall involved in the Accademia degli Alterati, reveal that Alamanni andmembers of the Academy were discussing the accomplishments ofVespucci as well. That Luigi Alamanni wrote and read Sassettis funeraloration and that the two men exchanged letters, suggests that they werenot only colleagues, but close friends as well.40 Stradanos preparatorydrawings for the prints were born out of these literary activities, which wererelated to the discovery of the New World as considered among theAlterati.

3. SO U R C E S A T T H E M E D I C I C O U R T

Stradano and Alamanni had other ways in which to gain informationabout the New World that might have provoked the production of theseprints. Another Alamanni family member, Vincenzo di Andrea Alamanni(153791), had access to news about the Americas. From the late 1570sto the 1580s, he was an ambassador employed first by Grand DukeFrancesco de Medici (154787) and then by Grand Duke Ferdinandode Medici to work at the Spanish court in Madrid, where he suppliedinformation about imports from the Americas and sent updates aboutshipments being sent from Portugal to the Medici-controlled portat Livorno.41 It was Vincenzo Alamanni who was entrusted with theacquisition of Father Giovanni Pietro Maffeis Historiarum indicarum(History of the Indies, 1588) a book about the conversion and history of

39Barbi, 55. On Stellas Colombeide, see Bradner; Hofman, 1998, 1990, and 1994;Llewellyn.

40Alamanni, 4351. Furthermore, one letter from Alamanni to Strozzi indicates thatAlamanni sent Dante studies, perhaps meaning drawings, to Strozzi in order to gain his

insight on the work: Biagi, unpaginated.41Vincenzo Alamanni (153690) was likely Luigi and Ludovicos older cousin. Besides

being an ambassador and a member of the Accademia degli Alterati, he was also a member of

the Accademia Fiorentina and the Accademia della Crusca: Dizionario, 1:573.



the natives of both the New World and Asia on behalf of Grand DukeFerdinando.42

Before defining the significance of Maffeis text for Stradano, it isnecessary to expand on Grand Duke Ferdinandos cultural politics inrelation to the Americas, since Stradanos prints evoke the interests of theduke during this first year of his dukedom. In 1588, Ferdinando left hisposition as cardinal in Rome to become Grand Duke of Florence, followingthe sudden death of his brother Francesco. In Rome he had been an avidcollector of American objects, such as featherwork and hammocks: moreimportantly, he became the custodian of an important manuscript aboutMexico, the Historia general de las cosas de Nueva Espana (General Historyof the Things of New Spain), a codex written by the Franciscan friarBernardino de Sahagun (14991590).43 This manuscript recording thehistory and nature of New Spain was banned by King Philip II and was likelyentrusted to Ferdinando because he was cardinal protectorate of theFranciscan order and possessed an interest in the Americas. He brought thesetreasures to Florence and commissioned Ludovico Buti (15601611) tofresco American natives and a scene of the conquest of Mexico in hisArmory, a space for entertaining visiting dignitaries. Though Ferdinandoand his Medici predecessors had no concrete ties to the Americas, insubsequent years he would devote himself to the development of the portof Livorno and to the creation of a colony or at least an outpost in theNew World.44 Ferdinandos support of the publication of Maffeis book onthe land, people, and conversion of the New World and Asia was thereforerelevant to both his political agenda and to his religious and culturalinterests. The patronage of the book began during his cardinalship and thetext was ultimately published in 1588 after he became Grand Duke andwhile Stradano was working on these print designs.

Stradano refers to Maffeis text in an inscription on the verso of thepreparatory drawing for the America print (fig. 5) for the Nova Repertaseries.45 He writes with regard to one of the novel animals he portrayed in the

42ASF, Mediceo del Principato 4919, 504 (15 October 1588, Vincenzo di AndreaAlamanni in Madrid to Duke Ferdinando de Medici in Florence). This letter demonstratesthat Alamanni was reporting on the shipment of goods from the New World and was

working on acquiring Maffeis History of the Indies for the duke: Medici Archive Project,DocID 8424.

43See Markey, 2011.44On Ferdinando and the New World, see Markey, 2008, 165225; Mangiarotti; Ciano,

16171; Heikamp, 18; Guarnieri, 1963, 62120; Guarnieri, 1928; Uzielli, 3638; Ridolfi.45McGinty, 21; Achilles, 1982, 162; Baroni Vannucci, 1997, 283, 397; Van der Sman,

2011, 142.



drawing: See volume II of the Bergomese Jesuit Pietro Maffeis HistoriarumIndicarum.46 Stradano used Maffei and other contemporary textual sourcesabout the New World when designing the iconography of the prints in hisVenationes (Animal Hunt) suite of 104 engravings, also printed by theGalle family, begun as early as 1570 and initially dedicated to the Medici.47

Several of the prints in the series depict natives in feather skirts andheaddresses in idyllic landscapes, where they are seen procuring birds,animals, and pearls in great abundance and using novel means. For example,the print for the American Indians catching geese with gourds (fig. 8)illustrates an unusual style of hunting that was described in great detail inOviedos De la natural hystoria de las Indias (Natural History of the Indies,1526).48 These same Native Americans are also depicted in the sceneof natives using pelicans to fish, a Chinese method of fishing with birdsdescribed in Maffeis History.49 Stradano also used Jose de Acostas(15391600) Historia natural y moral de las Indias (Natural and MoralHistory of the Indies, 1590) for his preparatory drawings for a never-producedprint of Indians smoking out animals.50 This was another unusual meansof hunting in which Mexicans set fire to land in order to force animals outof hiding and then capture them.51 In comparison with the images ofhunters in the Venationes series, Stradanos New World representations inthe Americae Retectio and the Nova Reperta appear fanciful. While many ofthe hunt prints are certainly imaginary, their subject matter and the seriesas a whole are more ethnographic in conception, endeavoring to portrayrealistic representations of different types of hunting throughout the world.By contrast, while perhaps also based on the writings of Maffei, Oviedo, and

46Vides Petrus Mafforum . . . Historiarum Indicarum, Tome 2.47Many of Stradanos drawings for the hunt series were based on his own tapestry

designs produced in the preceding years for the Medici, and which were ultimately derived

from courtly hunting manuscripts. On the hunt series and their relation to literature aboutthe Americas, see Leesberg and Balis, Part VI, 192; Baroni Vannucci, 1997, 37374;Bokvan Kammen, 525; Achilles, 1980, 162. There is some uncertainty about the exact

dating of the specific prints from this series. Stradano seems to have continued to producedrawings for it throughout the 1590s, and Luigi Alamanni has been named as the auctorintellectualis of some of these prints as well: Leesberg and Leeflang, Part I, xxxviii.

48The preparatory drawing for this print is located in New York at the Cooper Hewitt

National Design Museum, inv. 190139131: Bokvan Kammen, 525; Fernandez deOviedo y Valdes, 2223. A similar scene with squash and geese is depicted in AlessandroAlloris tapestry of natives of the New World, indicating that contemporary artists used the

same source as Stradano.49Bokvan Kammen, 61, 51213; Baroni Vannucci, 1997, 387.50Baroni Vannucci, 1997, 31617; Bokvan Kammen, 372; Van Sasse van Ysselt, 2003.51De Acosta, 274.



de Acosta, the Americae Retectio and Nova Reperta prints of the Americasneither reflect current events nor endeavor to portray the New Worldrealistically. In this way, they are more similar to some of the allegoricalpaintings and cartography produced at the Medici court.

As a member of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence and as aparticipant in Vasaris workshop at the court, Stradano would have beencontinually confronted with the use of emblems and imprese in art.52 For

FIGURE 8. Giovanni Stradano, Indians Hunting for Geese with Gourds in theVenationes series, 1580s. Engraving. [NC266.St81 1776St81], Rare Book andManuscript Library, Columbia University in the City of New York.

52The terms emblem and impresa are often used interchangeably in modern scholarshipand both generally include a symbolic image and a motto. However, an emblem usuallyprovided an explanatory text and an image personifying a particular idea or allegory; an

impresa is generally a particular visual device that stands for an individual. These definitionsare based on Manning; Caldwell, 2001 and 2004. It should be noted that by the latesixteenth century the study and use of emblems (and particularly of imprese) were especiallypopular at the Medici court and within the Florentine academies. One of the Accademiadegli Alterati diaries from the 1570s and 1580s includes pages of analysis of imprese invarious different hands, and in 1573 Filippo Sassetti presented a lecture on imprese to theAccademia Fiorentina: BNCF, MS Magliabecchiano, IX, 124.



instance, Stradano likely aided Vasari with the frescoes in the Saladegli Elementi in the Palazzo Vecchio from the late 1550s, whichwere commissioned by Duke Cosimo and employed imprese.53 Two ofVasaris frescoed walls, like each of Stradanos prints, feature a hero orgod in the center of the composition acting out a narrative: Saturn isoffered fruits on one wall and Venus rises from the sea (fig. 9) on theadjacent wall.54 In the waters surrounding these figures emblematiccompositions such as a symbol of abundance with her cornucopia (atleft on the Saturn wall); a turtle with a sail alluding to one of Cosimosfavorite mottos borrowed from Augustus, festina lente (make hasteslowly, at right on the Saturn wall); and a triton blowing into a shell,representing fame (at right on the Venus wall) reveal different aspects ofMedici power.

Francesca Fiorani has shown how these emblematic frescoes in thePalazzo Vecchio communicated Medici control over the cosmos in a similarway as the cartography produced at the court.55 Stradano himself mademaps for the private rooms in the Palazzo Vecchio and was certainly awareof the traditional use of allegory in cartography.56 He would have knownwell Egnazio Dantis (153686) and Stefano Buonsignoris (d. 1589)painted maps in Cosimos Guardaroba Nuova, a collection space comprisedof cabinets decorated with different parts of the world, begun in 1563 andleft unfinished in the 1580s.57 Here the artists-cartographers incorporatedfantastic and mythological creatures in their stunningly accurate portrayalsof different regions. In Stradanos prints the visual morphology of allegory,as seen in Vasaris frescoes and in maps produced at the Medici court, areunited with knowledge about the New World acquired through circulatingtexts and news in order to convey a message regarding Florences propitiousrole in the Americas.

4. A M E R I C A U N V E I L E D

The frontispiece of Stradanos Americae Retectio series serves to introducethis celebratory print series. It exhibits an elaborate mythology rejoicing in

53See Baroni Vannucci, 1994, 79; Baroni Vannucci, 1991, 6.54Fehl, 211, has shown how other prints by Stradano resemble Vasaris work in the

Palazzo Vecchio, and has expanded on the relationship between the two artists.55Fiorani, 3335.56McGinty, 55.57On the Guardaroba Nuova, see Cecchi and Pacetti; Fiorani, 17140; Rosen.



the retectio, or discovery, of the Americas as an Italian endeavor. ThoughMagellan, a Portuguese explorer, is featured as the fourth print in thisseries, significantly, there is no reference to him or to his Portuguese originson the frontispiece. In the frontispiece the gods Flora and her husbandZephyr (symbols of Florence), Janus and a pelican (a symbol for Genoa),and Oceanus (a symbol for sea travel) present a globe, while set withinmedallions at the top of the sheet are the two Italian navigators, ChristopherColumbus and Amerigo Vespucci. At the upper corners of the composition,other symbols for Florence and Genoa, namely, Mars and Neptune, ridechariots. Thus, Florence, Vespuccis birthplace, is represented at left in thecomposition with images of Mars, Flora, and a portrait of Vespuccihimself, while Genoa, Columbuss birthplace, is represented at right withNeptune, Janus, and a portrait of Columbus. This entire scene floats abovethe waters off the west coast of Italy, allowing an Italocentric view of landat the bottom of the composition to highlight the cities of Florence andGenoa, again reminding the viewer of the origins of the navigators portrayedabove.

FIGURE 9. Giorgio Vasari, Cristofano Gherardi, and workshop, Birth of Venus,1555. Fresco. Florence, Sala degli Elementi, Palazzo Vecchio. Alinari/Art Resource,NY.



Stradano quite likely emulated another triumphant work of art whenhe designed this frontispiece.58 The organization of the composition ofthe Americae Retectio frontispiece print closely resembles a tapestry from TheSpheres series produced in Brussels around 1530 for John III of Portugal(150257) and his new Habsburg wife Catherine of Austria (150778).These three tapestries, each featuring a sphere held by mythological figuresand attributed to the design of Bernard van Orley (14911542), glorify thediscoveries of the Portuguese navigators during a period in which Portugalwas at the height of its mercantilist power, with possessions in bothAsia and Africa.59 Jerry Brotton writes of the final tapestry in the series,representing earth held by Jupiter and Juno (fig. 10): In one breathtakingvisual conceit the globe visualizes [Johns] claim to geographically distantterritories, whilst also imbuing his claims with a more intangible accessto esoteric cosmological power and authority reflected in the celestialiconography which surrounds the central terrestrial globe.60 As a Northerntapestry designer, Stradano could have known firsthand, or heard descriptionsof, these renowned textiles. While he emulates the basic composition ofVan Orleys tapestry of Jupiter and Juno, he substitutes different godsand turns the globe upright to make the New World and Europe mostprominent. In mimicking this propagandistic tapestry boasting of Portugalsnavigational and commercial prowess, Stradano usurped its message ofpower and glory on behalf of these two Italian navigators. Within theiconographic framework of Van Orleys tapestry, Stradano in his printincludes many more emblematic figures, as well as small details, portraits,and a map to emphasize Italys role in the discovery. Below the dove at thetop of the print, navigational devices, namely a sextant and a compass,represent the tools the explorers used to make the journeys possible.The minuscule ships depicted on the globe represent Columbuss andVespuccis voyages and are more subtle indicators of the travels of thetwo navigators.

The frontispiece also recalls preparatory drawings for, and commemorativeprints of, ephemeral events at the Medici court. The images of the two godsaboard chariots recall the floats that were paraded down the Arno or in thePitti Palace courtyard in Medici festivals, as well as wedding celebrations,such as the boats and seascape scenes used in the 1579 wedding betweenGrand Duke Francesco and Bianca Cappello (154887) (fig. 11), and in the

58For another reading of the iconography of the frontispiece, see Bettini, 1988;Marrani.

59On these tapestries, see Carretero, 1991, 6267; Carretero, 1999; Delmarcel, 268, 300.60Brotton, 18.



intermezzo for the 1589 celebration for Ferdinandos wedding.61 For thedrapery held by Flora and Janus, Stradano might have also looked totriumphal arches in public Florentine processions, where pagan gods wouldflank a coat-of-arms and drapery was used as decoration on arches and on thefacades of churches for special events. As a court artist who worked on theproduction teams of various Medici festivals and public events, Stradano

FIGURE 10. Attributed to the design of Bernard Van Orley, The Earth Protectedby Jupiter and Juno, 1530s. Tapestry. Madrid, Palacio Real.

61Scholars have noted the similarity between the Americae Retectio and art produced forpublic spectacles: McGinty, 53; Bettini, 1987, 415.



would have been quite familiar with this style of representation and itstriumphal intent.

The portraits of the two navigators within the medallions at thetop of the image, combined with the blatant omission of Magellan, areperhaps the most overtly Italianist aspects of the print. For the portrait ofVespucci, Stradano likely copied a dubious portrait of the navigator paintedby Domenico Ghirlandaio (144994) in a fresco of the Madonna dellaMisericordia in the family chapel in Ognissanti church in Florence (fig. 12).It is not certain whether the figure at the far left in the Ghirlandaiofresco that recalls Stradanos portrait actually represents Amerigo Vespucci,especially since Vespucci, who in the fresco looks to be an adult, wouldhave been an adolescent when the fresco was painted in the 1470s. ButVasaris having written in his Le Vite delle piu` eccellenti pittori, scultori, edarchitettori (The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects,1550) that the navigator was represented in the fresco, demonstrates thatamong sixteenth-century Florentines it was thought to be a true likeness of

FIGURE 11. Artist unknown, Parade boat for the wedding of Francesco I deMedici to Bianca Cappello in Raffaello Gualterotti, Feste delle nozze del serenissimoDon Francesco Medici Duca di Toscana et della serenissima sua consorte BiancaCappello. Florence, 1579. Woodcut. Spencer Collection, The New York PublicLibrary, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.



the explorer.62 Stradano reuses this same profile of Vespucci wearing a latefifteenth-century style hat in all of his representations of the navigator in hisother prints.63 Stradanos portrait of Columbus was most certainly based onthe portrait of the navigator first produced for Paolo Giovios (14831552)

FIGURE 12. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Madonna della Misericordia, 1470s. Fresco.Florence, Vespucci chapel in Ognissanti church. Scala/Art Resource, NY.

62Vasari, 3:255. On Vasaris comments on Vespuccis portrait within the Ghirlandaiofresco, see Cadogan, 19293; Douglas, who attributes a different portrait within theGhirlandaio to Vespucci; Conti, 16062, who attributes the likeness of an angel in the upper

left of the fresco of the Misericordia (and the adolescent at left in Ghirlandaios Depositionin the same church) to Amerigo.

63This image of Vespucci then becomes the typical mode of representation for the

navigator that is copied in other prints. Several prints of Vespucci appear to reproduceStradanos portrait of the navigator. For example, there are several anonymous prints ofthe navigator from the sixteenth century and a Crispin de Passe portrait of Vespucci basedon Stradanos image in Effigies Regum et Principum (Cologne, 1598). De Passe has alsoreproduced Stradanos Columbus in this same text and borrowed the captions. Theprintmaker and cartographer Levinus Hulsius also reproduced the two portraits in his1598 world map. The Medici portrait collection included a similar portrait of Vespucci

by Cristofano dellAltissimo (15251605), painted in the late sixteenth century. Thoughin Cristofanos painting the navigator is not depicted wearing a hat, Vespucci is againrepresented in profile with a prominent nose, perhaps indicating that the Florentine artist

had also looked to Ghirlandaios fresco.



portrait museum and then reproduced both in Paolo Giovios Elogiavirorum bellica virtute illustrium (Praise of Men Illustrious for Courage inWar, 1575) (fig. 13) and in a portrait within the Medici collection.64 Thisportrait type became the standard iconography for Columbus, and can beseen in many other portraits of the navigator, both painted and in print.65

Stradano used the most well-known images of the explorers to makethem easily recognizable to his viewers. With their names and originsinscribed around their likenesses, the medallions in Stradanos print recallcommemorative numismatics and endow these likenesses with antiquegrandeur.

The spatially manipulated map of the Tuscan and Ligurian coast at thevery bottom of the image makes clear that the discovery of the New Worldbegan from the northwestern coast of Italy, specifically from the navigatorshometowns, Florence and Genoa. Here the west coast of Italy is reorientedso that it is featured at the base of the page. Though Florence is actuallya good distance from the coast, it is depicted prominently at the lower leftof the map with an entire cityscape, quite close to the waters edge andframing the view of the coast. The Medici port of Livorno is also highlightedat the left with an image of a Medici fortress. Other important port townsare labeled and illustrated similarly with recognizable buildings. Genoamarks the very center of the map and is a larger coastal town in comparisonwith smaller towns labeled Cogoreto, Albizola, Savona. Cogoreto and Savonaare included on the map likely because Oviedo wrote that Columbus mighthave been from one of these towns outside of Genoa.66 By reorientingColumbuss and Vespuccis birthplaces on the map, Stradano appointsthese Italian cities as the starting points for the discovery of the New World.

Stradanos distorted map closely resembles Egnazio Dantis map ofLiguria in his frescoes in the Vatican (fig. 14) painted from 1580 to 1581,indicating either that the two one-time Medici court artists used the samesource to depict the coast or that Stradano knew Dantis frescoes in Rome.67

Within Dantis map a detail of Neptune in a chariot leading an allegory ofColumbus holding a compass includes tritons, fantastical sea creatures, and

64On the Giovio portrait, see Klinger, 2:5758. It is not certain whether Giovioincluded a portrait of Vespucci in his collection. Vespucci was not included in his Elogia.

65On Columbian iconography in general, see Ferro, 1992a and 1992b. A similarlikeness of Columbus, with a high forehead and with his head turned slightly to his right, waspainted in the map room of the Villa Farnese at Caprarola in the years preceding Stradanos

print: Kish, 48384.66Carrillo, 44.67Gambi and Pinelli, 2:20001, are uncertain what visual source Danti might have used

to depict Liguria, since there is no extant map of Liguria that predates the frescoes.



a banner stating, Christopher Columbus of Liguria: Discoverer of theNew World (Christophorur Columbus Ligur. Novi Orbis Repertor).The use of allegory and inscription in Dantis cartography are in the samevein as Stradanos allegory of Genoa both in the frontispiece and in theColumbus print. Dantis and Stradanos maps with their manipulatedwestward view of the coast of Italy, heroic representation of Columbus,and boastful Latin inscriptions reveal the way in which cartography andallegory were used as cultural propaganda.

Though Stradano is credited for the design of the image on thefrontispiece, it was likely the literary scholar Alamanni who chose the

FIGURE 13. Tobias Stimmer, Columbus, in Paolo Giovio, Elogia Virorum BellicaVirtute Illustrium, Basel, 1575. Woodcut. Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D.Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library,Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.



erudite Latin inscription for the caption below the image.68 The printscaption includes the characteristic signature of the artist and printmaker atleft and the dedication to the noble Alamanni brothers at right. Both thepreparatory drawing and the print include an interrogative title in the centerbetween the artists signature at left and the patrons names at right: QUISPOTIS EST DIGNUM POLLENT PECTORE CARMEN CONDEREPRO RERUM MAIESTATE, HISQUE REPERTIS?, which translates as:Who is able to compose a song worthy of a powerful heart on behalf ofthe majesty of these things that have been discovered? These Latin wordsare the first lines from book 5 of Titus Lucretius Caruss (9955 BCE) DeRerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) written in the first century BCE. Bythe sixteenth century the De Rerum Natura was available in several printed

FIGURE 14. Egnazio Danti, Liguria, 1580. Fresco. Vatican, Gallery of Maps.Scala/Art Resource, NY.

68There are very few differences between the preparatory drawing and the print of the

Americae Retectio frontispiece, indicating that the Galles closely reproduced Stradanos design.In the drawing Stradano used more identifying labels on the globe. The shape of the continentsis slightly more accurate in the print in comparison to the preparatory drawing, indicating that

the printmakers may have corrected the map based on sources available to them in Antwerp.



editions and was scrutinized within literary circles both as a significantscientific treatise and as a work of great poetry that was thought to haveinspired Virgil.69 The De Rerum Natura likely formed part of the readingsand discussion of the members of the Accademia degli Alterati, who were atthis time emulating the epic poetic form of Virgil.70 Lucretiuss discussionof technology and invention could have likewise shaped Alamannisconception of both of Stradanos print series, documenting the newinventions and discoveries of early modern man.

The last lines of book 5 of Lucretius, in particular, describe the ideaof progress in a manner that recalls the prints in the Nova Reperta series:

Ships, farms, walls, laws, arms, roads, and all the rest,Rewards and pleasures, all lifes luxuries,Painting, and song, and sculpture these were taughtSlowly, a very little at a time,By practice and by trial, as the mindWent forward searching. Time brings everythingLittle by little to the shores of lightBy grace of art and reason, till we seeAll things illuminate each others riseUp to the pinnacle of loftiness.

71

Like Lucretius, whose poem lists the various new inventions of his time,Stradanos Nova Reperta prints each represent a different result of progressin the sixteenth century, illustrating many of the examples that Lucretiuscites, including ships, arms, and painting. Lucretiuss discussion of earlyman is also intriguing with regard to Stradanos prints because it correspondswith many sixteenth-century descriptions of the people of the New World:

People did not know,In those days, how to work with fire, to useThe skins of animals for clothes; they livedIn groves and woods, and mountain-caves Relying on their strength and speed, theyd huntThe forest animals by throwing rocksOr wielding clubs there were many to bring down.

72

69On the general reception of Lucretius in the Renaissance, see Depue Hadzsits,24883; Brown, 2001 and 2010; Greenblatt.

70Blocker has found that another Academy member, Lorenzo Giacomini, was an avidreader and follower of Lucretius (private correspondence).

71Lucretius, 20001 (De rerum natura ll. 144857).72Ibid., 18687 (De rerum natura ll. 95369).



The idea of the unclothed noble savage who hunts wild animals with a club ishere described in Lucretius in a similar way that many sixteenth-centurysources described the New World native, and like Stradano depicts thenative in many of his hunt prints. For instance, Alison Brown has shown thatVespuccis writings about the New World were interpreted within theconceptual framework of Lucretius in early sixteenth-century Florence.73

Though written in the first century BCE, the De Rerum Natura must haveappeared shockingly modern and comprehensible to these sixteenth-centuryscholars who were considering new inventions and discoveries, and tryingto comprehend progress and this previously unknown land often equatedwith antiquity.

Lucretiuss evocative question used in the caption who is able tocompose a song worthy of a powerful heart on behalf of the majesty of thesethings that have been discovered? could have also been understood asa literal challenge to poets contemporaneously writing about the discovery.Perhaps the caption even alludes to Stellas Columbeidos and Strozzis textabout Vespuccis journey. Here Stradano has not chosen to write a song,but has rather designed images on behalf of the majesty of these things thathave been discovered. By referring to this other medium, the song or poem,within his own engraving, Stradano has commented on the paragone debatebetween the different arts, and has shown that the print is the worthymedium for depicting this majesty. The following three prints in the seriesthus represent visual printed songs dedicated to each discoverer.

5. C O L U M B U S A S H E R O I C C R U S A D E R

The second print in the series following the frontispiece features ChristopherColumbus and, like the other prints of the navigators in the series, it issaturated with symbolic imagery and formatted with a central image anda caption below. Here the caption describes Columbuss accomplishment:Christopher Columbus of Liguria. With the terrors of the ocean havingbeen overcome, Columbus has awarded almost all of the regions of thewhole other world, which he found by himself, to the Spanish king.74

Columbus is depicted as a knight in armor holding a nautical map in onehand and a crucifixion banner in the other. Tritons announce his voyageand Neptune, again the symbol for Columbuss birthplace, ushers him in

73Brown, 2001, 3940; Brown, 2010, 31, 8990, 109. Campbell, 323; and Greenblatt,229, have similarly pointed this out.

74Christopher Columbus Ligur terroribus Oceani superaris alterius pene Orbes regions

a se inventas Hispanis regibus addixit. An Salutis aVIID.



toward the shore. Nereids and other sea creatures surround him and Diana,goddess of the moon, leads his ships toward the Caribbean islands undera crescent moon.

Various textual sources could have functioned as Stradanos andAlamannis guides for designing the Columbian iconography. By the late1580s, one could read about Columbuss journey in Peter Martyrs writings,in Girolamo Fracastoros (14781553) poem about Syphilis (1530), inOviedos History (1526), in Las Casass (14841566) writings, and inFrancisco Lopez de Gomaras (151156) Historia general de las Indias(General History of the Indies, 1552). Giovanni Battista Ramusios (14851557) Navigazioni e viaggi (Navigations and Voyages, 1555) includedexcerpts from many of these sources, and Columbus was included inAndre Thevets (151690) and Giovios books of illustrious men in history.His biography was written by his son, Ferdinand (14881539), andpublished in 1571, was recorded by Lorenzo Gambara (14951585) inhis De navigatione Christophori Columbi (The Navigations of ChristopherColumbus, 1585), and was dramatized by Stellas recent Latin poem aboutthe navigator (1585, 1589).75 Much of the elaborate iconography and theemblematic compositions in the prints can be explained by these literarydescriptions of the navigator and his journey.

Without the inscription below the image and without Columbussname inscribed below his feet, one would have been able to identify thenavigator thanks to the various attributes surrounding him. For instance, theflag flying on the mast above Columbus bears his coat of arms. Though notof noble birth, in 1492 Columbus received a title and a patent of nobilityfrom the King and Queen of Spain that included the creation of an elaboratecoat of arms. In his History, Oviedo describes the coat of arms in great detailexplaining how the royal arms of Castile and Leon [were] conjoined withnewly-conceded arms and the confirmation of some old arms of hislineage.76 Columbuss arms, therefore, were comprised of the symbols ofthe castle and the lion for the houses of Castile and Leon in the upper twoquadrants, and of more personal symbols islands and anchors for thenavigator in the lower two quadrants. The islands in the arms are thenrepeated by the islands in the background seascape, and the three anchors

75Though Columbus wrote a journal recording his travels and wrote many letters to theKing and Queen of Spain, to the pope, and to friends, his writings were not published in the

sixteenth century and were subsequently lost. The writings of Ferdinand Columbus andBartolome de las Casas are based on his journal entries and letters. For more on Columbusswritings and their afterlife, see Lardicci.

76Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, 5556.



depicted elsewhere in the print likely also recall his coat of arms. These detailsand attributes liken the entire image to one elaborate Columbus impresa.

The Christian symbols in the image the crucifixion banner anda dove with a crusader cross at the prow of the ship are other significantfeatures of this intricate impresa that correspond with several descriptionsof the navigator in contemporary texts. Oviedo in particular refers toColumbus as the bringer of the Catholic faith throughout his texts,explaining in one section of his History : For Columbus was the cause ofso many good things, particularly the reimplanting of the Catholic faith ofChrist in these Indies, forgotten since time immemorial in such far-flungregions.77 Las Casas similarly describes Columbus as being endowed withdivine providence.78 Dressed in armor and holding a crucifixion banner,Columbus is depicted as a crusader who brought Christianity to the NewWorld. A passage from Ferdinand Columbuss biography of his fathermight define the meaning of the dove in the image as well: If we considerthe common surname of his forebears, we may say that he was trulyColumbus, or Dove, because he carried the grace of the Holy Ghost to theNew World that he discovered, showing those people who knew him notwho was Gods beloved son, as the Holy Ghost did in the figure of a dovewhen St. John Baptized Christ; and because over the waters of the ocean,like the dove of Noahs ark, he bore the olive branch and oil of baptism.79

In Stradanos print the dove could make reference to the Italian meaningof Columbuss name, the Holy Ghost and the dove that led Noahs ark.The Columbus print is the only engraving in the series to include theseChristian symbols, besides the frontispiece (which also features a dove), andhe is the only navigator wearing a full suit of armor, indicating that his role as aChristian crusader was a significant aspect of his commemoration in the print.

The mythological gods in the print also possess specific symbolicmeanings that can be understood in light of literature written aboutColumbus. While Neptune at right, like the Neptune on the frontispiece,certainly represents Genoa, the significance of Diana is less overt. J. C.Margolin and Alba Bettini each cite, as the source of inspiration forStradanos scene, an excerpt from Girolamo Fracastoros poem on syphilis,in which the coast of the New World is first seen under the light ofthe moon, the jurisdiction of the goddess Diana.80 Fracastoro wrote thisallegorical poem in Latin in the early sixteenth century about Columbus

77Carrillo, 90 (for the Spanish text, see ibid., 167).78Symcox, 50.79Columbus, 4.80Margolin, 1972; Bettini, 1987, 19495.



and the transfer of syphilis to Europe, and dedicated the first book toPietro Bembo (14701547) and the second book to Medici Pope Leo X(14751521). It was first published in 1530 and then subsequently wasmade available in various other editions throughout the century. It wouldhave certainly been known to the Luigi Alamanni and to members of theAccademia degli Alterati. In Fracastoros poem, Diana inflicts syphilis onthe central character, Ilceus, and then she, in turn, becomes the guide tosyphilitics. Fracastoro describes, without ever mentioning the navigatorby name, Columbuss arrival much in the same way that Stradano hasillustrated his approach to the land: It was night and the Moon was shiningfrom a clear sky, pouring its light over the trembling oceans gleamingmarble, when the great-hearted hero, chosen by the fates for this great task,the leader of the fleet which wandered over the blue domain, said, O Moonwhom these watery realms obey, you who twice have caused your horns tocurve from your golden forehead, twice have filled out their curves, duringthis time in which no land has appeared to us wanderers, grant us finallyto see a shore, to a reach a long-hoped-for port.81 In Stradanos print, asin Fracastoros poem, Diana guides Columbus to her land under themoonlit sky.

The waters through which Diana leads Columbuss ships are filled withmenacing sea monsters that could also be references to other textual sourcesabout his journey. For instance, Ferdinand Columbus describes Columbussship as being constantly surrounded by sharks: These beasts seize a personsleg or arm with their teeth . . . they still followed us making turns in thewater . . . their heads are very elongated and the mouth extends almost tothe middle of the belly.82 Though the monsters that Stradano representson both sides of the ship do not conform to our contemporary knowledgeof sharks, they do recall Ferdinands description of the fierce teeth and largeheads of the sharks encircling Columbuss ships.

Other sea creatures in the background, also prevalent in the Magellanprint, could reveal a continuation of a long tradition of portraying seamonsters in maps and images of the sea as symbols of unexplored anddangerous territories.83 For instance, sea monsters feature in nearly all of thesea imagery in Sebastian Munsters (14881522) Cosmografia universale,

81Eatough, 91 (book 3, ll. 10109).82Columbus, 247.83Though much has been written about the history of the representations of monsters in

the early modern period most famously by Wittkower, 1942; more recently by Dastonand Park I have not found a study on the significance of the representation of sea

monsters in particular.



first published in 1544, and in the maps within Ramusios Navigationi eviaggi from the 1550s. In editions of Alciatis Book of Emblems the dolphin-like creature, like the sea-creature with the curly tail in the upper leftof Stradanos composition, represents the dangers of the sea.84 PlinysNatural History, a familiar source for sixteenth-century scholars and artists,including Stradano who refers to it frequently in inscriptions on variousdrawings describes in great detail marvelous sea creatures, includingsharks, whales, tritons, and nereids in exotic waters in the Indian sea.85 Thesesea creatures in both the Columbus and the Magellan prints evoke thedangers of the sea in unknown territories, and at the same time likely derivefrom specific descriptions of the navigators journeys.

The tritons and the nereids in the image could possess multiplemeanings since they resemble creatures represented in art at the Medicicourt, figures in prints and emblem books, and also textual descriptions ofthe New World. For instance, Vasaris allegorical portrayal of Venus (fig. 9)in the Sala degli Elementi in the Palazzo Vecchio from the late 1540s,similarly depicts nymphs riding on satyr-like tritons and male sea godsblowing horns made out of shells. Vasaris and Stradanos sea gods couldderive from early prints such as Andrea Mantegnas (14311506) Battleof the Sea Gods (before 1481) and printed emblem books that includesimilar sea creatures. A scene from Grand Duke Francesco and BiancaCappellos wedding celebration (fig. 15) similarly illustrated tritons, in thiscase probably courtiers dressed as tritons, pulling a giant whale or somesort of sea creature in a procession.86 Various editions of Alciatis Book ofEmblems employ an image of a triton blowing a shell horn as a symbol forfame or immortality (fig. 16). An inscription below a 1551 edition describesthe creature as half fish and half man, announcing fame through his horn.87

Indeed, the tritons beside Columbuss ship, like the prints themselves,broadcast Columbuss fame to the world. These tritons could also simplyrepresent New World fish: when de Acosta describes the fish near Lima, hestates that they resembled Tritons or Neptunes, who are represented upon

84Alciati, 1584, 228v.85See Book IX in particular of Plinys Natural History. Several of Stradano drawings at

the Cooper-Hewitt (190139157, 190139159v, 190139124v, 1952375v) includeinscriptions citing certain passages in Pliny.

86Gualterotti, 55.87Alciati, 1551, 130: Tritone, che`; Trombetta di Nettuno, / E mezzo pesce, e mezzo

forma humana, / Lo cinge un Serpe & gli fa cerchio intorno, / Che ne la bocca tien la codastretta. / Cola buona fama, che dalcuno / Abbraccia qualche degna opera eletta. / In ogni

parte va suonando il corno / Del mondo o sia vicina, o sia lontana.



the water.88 The tritons thus possess at least a dual function in this image:they act as mythological emblems representing fame, and at the same timethey symbolize the exotic creatures in the waters surrounding the NewWorld. This anachronistic depiction again pairs fantasy and idealizedimagery derived from Medici court culture and from prints with firsthandreports about the voyages to make Columbuss journey both more plausibleand romantic.

The gesturing women located in the waters at the left in the Columbusprint are featured in all three of the prints of the navigators and representyet another type of symbolic sea creature. Because we only see them in bustlength, it is difficult to determine whether they are mermaids, sirens, ornereids. Their kind faces and pleasant interaction with one another tell usthat they are benevolent and quite different from some of the other moremenacing sea creatures in the print. The complex gestures of the womenconvey that they are telling a story. Perhaps these gestures should be read ina similar way as the emblematic compositions. In the late sixteenth century,

FIGURE 15. Artist unknown, Parade boat for the wedding of Francesco I deMedici to Bianca Cappello, in Raffaello Gualterotti, Feste delle nozze del serenissimoDon Francesco Medici Duca di Toscana et della serenissima sua consorte BiancaCappello. Florence, 1579. Woodcut. Spencer Collection, The New York PublicLibrary, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.

88De Acosta, 136.



FIGURE 16. Mercure Jollat, Emblem 133 in Andrea Alciati, Emblematum liber.Paris, 1534. Woodcut. Spencer Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor,Lenox and Tilden Foundations.



gestures were beginning to be codified in handbooks and illustrated texts.89

For instance, Giovanbattista della Portas (15351615) De humanaphysiognomonia (1586) discusses the way in which different emotions andstates of being are manifested through human expression and gestures.90

Perhaps these women are the Fates, telling the navigators stories and leadingthem to their destiny. In this visual medium, their hands tell the story ofthe navigators travels.

The story being told in Stradanos Columbus print also correspondsclosely to Stellas Columbeidos in terms of both the genre and style of therepresentation of the navigator. Stellas poem is the first fictional text onColumbus that incorporates classical elements along with a discussion ofthe navigators Christian mission.91 Stella based his poem on Virgils Aeneid,even emulating specific lines from the epic poem and referring to the fatum,or fate, that led the navigator like the fate that led Aeneas. Within thisclassical construct, Stella continually reiterates that Columbus neither cameto the Americas to dominate the natives nor to seek out treasures, but ratherto bring Christianity to its people. Similarly, Stradanos image combinesChristian symbols such as crosses and the dove in conjunction withrepresentations of the pagan gods. Just as Stella utilizes Virgils languageand style, Stradano used allegorical and symbolic visual elements, like thesea monsters and tritons, to fictionalize Columbuss journey. Though theiconography of the image derives from many nonfictional and biographicalsources, Stradano emulates the genre and style of Stellas poem to producea heroic image of the Italian navigator.

6. A W A K E N E D V E S P U C C I

The third print in the series, the Vespucci image (fig. 3), must be examinedsimilarly in light of Strozzis epic poem about the Florentine navigator.Though sources on Vespucci in the late Cinquecento included Vespuccisown letters and biographical texts by Thevet and others, it was likelyStrozzis poem that Alamanni, the Academy, and Stradano knew best.92

Extant today in only one canto, Strozzis text, written in Italian rather thanLatin, fictionalized and romanticized the tale of the navigator, much likeStellas text on Columbus. Stradano emulates Strozzis dramatic settingand the patriotism implied in the text. Throughout the canto Strozzi

89Valeriano was the first to visually catalogue gestures.90See della Porta, book 4.91See Hofmann, 1994.92On Vespuccis letters and biography, see Formisano; Luzzana Caraci.



describes the rays of the sun that shine through the sky in the dawn and tellsof the dangerous waters and fierce winds that Vespucci encountered. Inthe print Stradano nearly translates this passage visually by portraying aluminous rising sun in the horizon and representing choppy waters. Strozziwrites that Vespucci was born from the river Arno, and Stradano depictsseveral Florentine symbols to represent Vespuccis origins: in the backgroundat right, Mars, a symbol for Florence, rides a turtle, perhaps a reference tothe Medici motto, festina lente. Another turtle is visible at left in thebackground, and Minerva, who pushes Vespuccis ship, holds a giglio, orlily a symbol for the virgin of Florence, Santa Maria del Fiore anda spear with a Florentine lily at its end. Later in his text Strozzi alludes to acolumn broken in the waves. Stradano too depicts a broken columnar mastaboard Vespuccis ship in the foreground. Stradano has in many wayscaptured the patriotic fervor, setting, and drama of Strozzis poem in hisvisual rendering of the hero.

Yet other details in the print derive from studies, both of emblems andof other images of the New World, to produce a bizarre conglomerationof allegory and depictions of cannibalism. Stradano transformed theemblematic tritons from the Columbus print into fanciful cannibalisticNative Americans clutching human body parts. Half serpenthalf womanand half Amerindianhalf European, the New World nereid at the left ofVespuccis ship wears a peacock-feather headdress as a symbol of her richesand her pride in the way figures representing superbia, or arrogance, do inother sixteenth-century prints. She tames her scorpion tail with the clubshe holds in her left arm, and with her right arm she raises a human arm ona skewer. The devilish male triton next to her with pointy ears and beardholds a dismembered male torso as if it were a piece of antique statuary,rather than a piece of meat to be devoured. By the late sixteenth century,images of cannibals were widespread in European art, particularly in mapsand prints.93 Though it was common since Plinys time to represent cannibalswith men and women holding body parts on skewers, images rarely (if ever)portray cannibals dressed as mythological or allegorical figures. By doingthis, Stradano has represented these New World natives as proud, demoniccannibals, different from the cannibals depicted on mappaemundi and inearly Vespucci broadsheets. They are fantastical cannibals that referenceanthropophagy but also mask this gruesome practice playfully, in the guiseof personifications. In this way their discursive representation acts asnonthreatening figures of fantasy.

93See Davies.



The two Vespucci prints in the Nova Reperta series (figs. 5 and 6) mustbe examined here in relation to the Vespucci print in the Americae Retectiobecause of the commonalities they share with regard to the representation ofVespucci, the depiction of cannibals, and the imagined New World. TheVespucci prints in the Nova Reperta are even more overtly propagandisticthan the Americae Retectio works in their praise of the navigator andparticularly of his Florentine origin. First, Vespucci is the only navigatorportrayed in this series of some nineteen new inventions. Second, most otherprints in the series portray a community of people implementing a newinvention, whereas in the America and Astrolabe prints Vespucci isdepicted alone as the sole inventor of the New World and the Astrolabe, twothings that he did not invent.

In the Astrolabe print (fig. 6), Vespucci is pointedly connected to theFlorentine poet Dante, who in his Purgatory describes the Southern Cross(or four stars), Vespuccis navigational guide.94 Stradanos image is dividedinto two parts: at right a scene represents Vespucci, who stands in front ofa desk piled high with his nautical devices and a small crucifix. He gazes uptoward the Southern Cross in the sky at an armillary sphere that he holdswhile his shipmates sleep on the ground beside him. At left Stradanoincluded a large caption with the passage from Dantes Purgatory, both inItalian and in Latin, where Dante sees the four stars. Above this aninscription explains that Vespucci cited Dante in his letter and framesa portrait of the poet.95 In his famous letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco deMedici, which had been published as early as 1502 and enjoyed greatpopularity in various publications throughout the century, Vespuccidescribes the use of his astrolabe and writes: And while pursuing this, Irecalled a passage from our poet Dante from the first canto of Purgatorio,when he imagines he is leaving this hemisphere in journeying to the other.Wishing to describe the South Pole, he says: Then I turned to the right,setting my mind upon the other pole, and saw four stars not seen beforeexcept by the first people.96 Alamanni, as a Dante scholar and colleague ofGalileo, must have been particularly interested in this Vespucci letter. It wasquite likely his idea to emphasize the connection between these two greatFlorentines in the Nova Reperta print and to have this particular momentcommemorated. In his funeral oration for Alamanni, Soldani explicitlyconnects Vespuccis voyage to Dantes journey and describes Alamannis

94Alighieri, 57 (Purgatorio canto 1, ll. 227)95His verbis ab Americo Vespuccio in suis Epistolis adductis.96Formisano, 6.



fascination for the two travellers.97 By linking Vespucci to the great Florentinepoet, Dante, the print produces a claim for the large navigational impact ofVespucci and subsequently of Florence.

In the Astrolabe print, the representation of Vespucci recalls two othergreat men, Christ and Odysseus, two subjects that Stradano also designedfor the print series. The sleeping shipmates surrounding Vespucci evoke thesleeping apostles in the Garden of Gethsemane, likening the navigator toChrist.98 The composition of the print also closely resembles another emblemin Alciati that represents Odysseus in the land of the lotus-eaters. In the emblemOdysseus reaches toward a tree while a group of sleeping men lay below the tree.They represent the men who ate the lotus leaves and, as a result, forgot theirhomeland. Vespucci is thus portrayed as a hero like Odysseus, who did notforget his homeland, and like Christ, who engaged in prayer in the garden.

Vespucci is portrayed in a similarly heroic mode in the well-knownAmerica print (fig. 5) from the Nova Reperta. However, in this print thereis no mention of Dante, and Vespucci gazes, not toward the stars, but towarda semi-nude female personification of the New World. Sharing the samephysiognomy as the representations of Vespucci in Stradanos other prints,Vespucci here looks as if he has just set foot on land and, in a sense, iscontinuing the narrative begun in the Americae Retectio print. His ship isanchored nearby and his rowboat is beached behind him. In one hand heholds a banner with the Southern Cross and crucifix on a pole, and in theother hand, a compass. America gestures toward Vespucci. She is seated ona hammock and her Tupinamba club leans against the tree at the right.Stradano could have seen these two artifacts from the New World in theMedici collection, since inventories from Duke Ferdinandos reign revealthat he owned such items.99

97Soldani, 5657: Non lo distolse finalemente dadoperarsi in altrui benefizio la

Cosmografia, la quale misura i corpi, di cui fu intendissimo, come ne puo` essere indizio ildono, che fece allAccademia nostra del proffilo dellInferno di Dante, dal cui sacro viaggio,come di quello del Vespucci, fu indicibilmente studioso, ammirando, che quell sovrano

intelletto, non per lacque dellIndie, dellAustrale, del Magellanico, ovvero del Settentrionaleoceano; ma per le viscere della terra, per le bolge dellInferno, tra fuoco, tra martiri, tra demoni,e dannati, camminando, arrivasse al centro: volasse al Cielo, ove rimirando la gloria de Beati,saffittasse nel Sole, che muove il Sole, e laltre Stelle.

98Achilles, 1982, 161.99The hammocks are listed in Ferdinandos inventory from the 1580s: ASF,

Guardaroba Medicea 132, 340. The club depicted by Stradano does resemble one of the

Tupinamba clubs, thought to derive from the Medici collection and today located in theNational Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology. The 1631 inventory of the Armeria doeslist Quattro legni indiani di differente sorte (Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Guardaroba

Medicea 513, 19), so it is possible that Stradano saw both o

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