Bringing the world home: Germany and the Age of Discovery.

摘要

This dissertation examines the meanings and significance attributed to the Age of Discovery by German commentators between 1492 and 1580. Through analyses of travel narratives, cosmographies, merchant correspondence, botanical and medical texts, and political debates, I show how the interpretations that resonated most strongly within the various networks of German society (including publishers, humanists, merchants, and reformers) were those that directly addressed issues of concern to domestic audiences. This requirement of relevance necessarily foregrounded the "principle of attachment," by which the newly discovered lands and peoples of Africa, America, and Asia were assimilated using European (and, in this dissertation, specifically German) structures of thought. I argue further that these established structures of thought were not straitjackets that prevented the correct perception of the discoveries, before finally being tossed out in the face of the overwhelming novelty of the New World. Rather, their sophistication and their flexibility made them useful tools for interpretation, as they provided theoretical grounding for the empirical information brought back by the explorers. The success of Ptolemaic cosmography, merchant bookkeeping, and scholastic thought in making sense of the Portuguese and Spanish voyages of exploration is demonstrated by the confidence expressed in the words and actions of Renaissance Germans. From the beginning, the newly discovered territories were depicted as extensions of the European arenas of travel, navigation, and commerce, rather than as utterly different worlds. The incommensurability suggested by the concept of the "Other" does not appear in the patterns of interpretation that I trace out in this dissertation.