America Magica: When Renaissance Europe Thought it had Conquered Paradise

by Jean-Marc De Beer, Jorge Magasich-Airola, David Abulafia (Foreword)

The central characters in this book are the myths born of the European collective imagination about the lands beyond Europe and the beings who inhabited them. The New World was an irresistible attraction to Renaissance Europe and the great geographical discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries represent a unique moment in history, not only on account of the technical and human feat involved but also because the discoverers came to believe that they had reached the land of legends.

This is an enthralling account of the conflicting experiences of discovering the New World, drawing upon the intriguing tales of early discovery and amazing illustrations of the day. The authors invoke the unique exhilaration of exploration, investigating the conflict between the ambitious idealism and harsh realities that have always characterized and torn the country. After all, did people not go to America in search of both the Garden of Eden and the tribes of the damned?

Genres: Nonfiction

226 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

Reviews

[Scriptor Ignotus · Rating 3 out of 5]

An amusing cartography of the New World as late medieval and early modern Europeans imagined it: home to griffins, sirens, cynocephali, antediluvian giants, and bellicose Amazons (for whom the Amazon River was named due to a vague cultural memory, inherited from the ancient Greek sources, of the warrior women living near a great river); reputed site of King Solomon's mines, exotic realms of gold, and, of course, the Earthly Paradise. While easy to scoff at, such legends played a significant role in motivating the Spanish exploration and conquest of the Americas, localizing the content of perennial fantasies of earthly utopias, enchanted realms, and the recovery of a lost golden age of innocence and plenty in physical space. The conquistadors were both seekers and creators of their imagined worlds, leaving their stamp on the geographical placenames of the Americas no less than on their deeply-ingrained mythography. California is the name of a region close to Paradise, according to the Amadís de Gaula, an Iberian chivalric romance. These explorers were the true originators of the "American Dream," with its penchant for actualizing the fantastic, its get-rich-quick schemes, its medical and scientific quackery, its promise of easy salvation.

[Maya · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.75/5 stars.

[Deva · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains a lot of odd information about what European explorers/conquistadors expected to find in the Americas predicated on bible-based geography, European folklore, Greek legends, and fantastical travel narratives from the middle ages. Just where exactly are those four rivers leading out of The Garden of Eden? And the 22 nations of unclean peoples imprisoned by Alexander the Great? Apparently more than a few ships turned back in panic having thought they'd encountered griffins. Probably my favorite passage was Columbus' disappointment upon seeing sirens (actually manatees) "...they were not as beautiful as they are painted and in some way they had manshaped faces."