Page 648 - Art In The Age Of Exploration (Great Section on Chinese Art Ming Dynasty)

A WORLD UNITED

].H. Elliott

Q 9,1522, eighteen gaunt awe that, after leaving the Strait of Magellan, of Europeans as they moved to exploit the

n September
men, candles in hand, walked bare-footed to the "if we had sailed always westward, we should legacy of 1492.
shrine of Santa Maria de la Victoria in Seville to have gone without finding any island other These Europeans who moved out across the
give thanks for their safe return. It was just than the Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, world during the course of the sixteenth cen-
over three years since they had commended which is the cape of that strait at the Ocean tury, trading, settling, evangelizing, and—all
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themselves to the Virgin in that same shrine, Sea." The Europeans, in other words, had too often—killing, tended to see themselves as
on the eve of their departure as members of found space, and found it on an unimagined superior beings, providentially enjoying, and,
an expedition which was intended to reach the scale. But, paradoxically, even as their world where possible, diffusing, the supreme bless-
spice islands by sailing west, rather than east, expanded, it also began to shrink. A globe ings of Christianity and civility. To the non-
and somehow finding a way around, or through, encompassed became a globe reduced. European peoples, on the other hand, into
the great landmass of America. During the Indeed the very attempt to map the lands whose world they had trespassed, they natu-
course of those three years they accomplished and seas of the world through the device of the rally appeared in a very different light. Arriv-
their mission, but at a terrible cost. Mutinous globe may have helped to reduce unmanageable ing in their curious high-prowed ships, they
crews were struck down by cold, hunger and space to manageable proportions. The first known looked, with their pointed beards, their bulbous
scurvy; their commander, the Portuguese-born terrestrial globe was that of Martin Behaim of doublets and tall hats —the "hat men" as they
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Fernando Magellan, was killed by angry island- Nuremburg, dating from 1492. The first globe were called in India —like strange, and often
ers on a Pacific beach; and, of the five ships to record Magellan's route was made, also in sinister, intruders, unpleasantly prone to seize
which formed part of the original expedition, Nuremburg, around 1526, and appears in what was not rightfully theirs. Although, in
only one, the Victoria, limped home to Seville Holbein's famous painting of The Ambassadors the perspective of time, they can be seen as
with its much diminished crew. But these lone (National Gallery, London) of 1533. In selecting pioneers of global unity, breaking down the
survivors had done something that had never as his device a globe surmounted by an eagle,
before been accomplished. In their battered the Emperor Charles v was paying unconscious
little ship, under the command of a dour Basque tribute to this new European conceptualization
captain, Sebastian Elcano, they had circumnavi- of space—a conceptualization that became in-
gated the world. creasingly routine as the sixteenth century
Thirty years separated the departure of progressed. To see the world in terms of a globe
Columbus from Palos, in Andalusia, and the was to hold it in one's hands. In 1566, when
return of the Victoria to Seville's port of St. Francis Borja sent his son the gift of a
San Lucar de Barrameda. At the start of those sphere, the youth wrote back in his letter of
thirty years, Europe was still largely confined thanks to his father: "Before seeing it, I had
between the twin barriers of an impassable not realized how small the world is." 2
Atlantic Ocean to the west, and of a remote and A globe held in the hands is a globe con-
alien Asian landmass to the east. By the end trolled, and to be able to follow, with the twist
of them, Europeans had rounded the coasts of of a sphere, the voyages of fellow-Europeans
Africa to reach India and the Moluccas; they and see at a glance the lands they had settled
had encountered lands and peoples, quite out- was to participate, however vicariously, in that
side the realm of their preconceived ideas and sensation of power already generated by the
expectations, on the far side of the Atlantic; and voyages themselves and by the conquests of
now, after navigating a storm-swept passage to peoples and territories. The arrogance of the
the south of Patagonia, they had crossed the European as he contemplated the newly mapped
great expanse of the Pacific Ocean and found world was nicely caught in the engraved fron-
their way back home. tispiece to the Milicia y description de las Indias
The immediate effect of these three decades published in 1599 by a Spanish captain, Bernardo
of unprecedented achievement was to give those de Vargas Machuca, that portrayed him holding
Europeans who were interested in such matters a pair of compasses over a globe, while the
a new and overwhelming sense of the size of the accompanying motto consisted of the immortal
world. Columbus, it soon became apparent, had words: A la espada y el compds/Mds y mas y
grossly underestimated the distance between mas y mas ("To the compass and the sword, fig. i. Bernado de Vargas Machuca, frontispiece,
Europe and Cathay; and Antonio Pigafetta, the more and more and more and more"). Domina- militia y description de las Indias (1599). The
Italian Knight of Rhodes who had sailed aboard tion and expansion—these were to be the lead- New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden
the Victoria on its epic voyage, recorded with ing themes of the post-Columbus generations Foundations

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