# The time of Stradano's Nova Reperta

Samir Boumediene

► To cite this version:

Samir Boumediene. The time of Stradano's Nova Reperta. Alessandra Baroni. Giovanni Stradano. Le più strane e belle invenzioni del mondo, MUSE, pp.69-92, 2024. halshs-04380574

HAL Id: halshs-04380574

https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04380574v1

Submitted on 29 Oct 2025

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
# The ‘time’ of Stradano’s *Nova Reperta*
Samir Boumediene

Conceived in all likelihood at the end of the 1580s in Florence by the painter, Jan van der Straet (1523-1605), the *Nova Reperta* series was engraved in Antwerp for Philips Galle by Jan Collaert and later, by Adriaen Collaert. The opening title page is the best-known image of the power of discovery of the modern era (fig. 1), together with that of *Novum Organum* (1622) by Francis Bacon (1561-1626). This title page has been observed, reviewed, commented on and used as an emblem. However, it contains often overlooked details that, once examined, can change the way it is interpreted. By analysing these details and comparing them with Stradanus’s engravings and preparatory drawings,¹ as well as with other programmes invented by him, and placing them within the intellectual and material atmosphere that reigned in Florence, this essay aims to reinterpret *Nova Reperta* through the question of time.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Ph. Galle after J. Stradanus, Title page of *Nova Reperta*</figcaption></figure>
A «court painter» at the service of the Medici family, as Alessandra Baroni Vannucci has shown, Stradanus made a name for himself in the 1570s as a highly prolific creator of inventions for engravings.² His preferred format was the series, which usually consisted of a title page to set out the general philosophy of the project and then, several prints focusing on specific aspects of the chosen theme. The *Nova Reperta* fit this model – the title page is followed by nineteen prints, each one dedicated to a novelty of the time. These included the discovery of America, the invention of the compass, gunpowder, printing press, clock, distillery, the healing power of guaiacum, silkworm farming, stirrups, wind and water mills, the discovery of sugar, oil paint, eyeglasses, the calculation of longitudes, cleaning of weapons, use of the astrolabe and the invention of engraving on copper: the list of innovations is similar to the one in French called an ‘*inventaire à la Prévert*’. Why these inventions rather than others? In a certain sense, understanding the *Nova Reperta* means looking beyond the arbitrariness of the list to capture the consistency of the purpose.

The title page and nineteen engravings that make up the *Nova Reperta* are closely linked to two other series invented by Stradanus: *Americae retectio*, which further develops the print on the discovery of America (numbered printed plate of the series, henceforth *repertum* 1), and *Vermis sericus*, which extends the print devoted to silkworm farming (*repertum* 8). These series are similar not only in theme but also in the identity of their patrons.³ The *Nova Reperta* and *Americae retectio* are both dedicated to the brothers, Luigi (1558-1603) and Aloisio Alamanni, while *Vermis sericus* is dedicated to their sister, Costanza, and her husband, Raffaele de' Medici. A portrait of Dante by Stradanus is also dedicated by Philips Galle to Luigi Alamanni.

Like the Salviati and Strozzi families, the Alamanni family was also part of the Florentine aristocracy. One of its most important members, the poet Luigi – not to be confused with his nephew Luigi included in the dedications in the *Nova Reperta* –⁴ was sent into exile after conspiring against the Medici upon their return to Florence in 1530. In a recent book, Déborah Blocker showed how, in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the men of these ancient republican families were active in the field of literature and the aesthetic study of the visual arts.⁵ Although the scholarly activities, combined with a certain disregard for rules, marked a withdrawal from political life for these men of letters, they also provided a way for them to put their skills at the service of the Medici family. In the shadow of the powerful Accademia Fiorentina sponsored by the Medici, they met in the Accademia della Crusca and the Accademia degli Alterati. Alamanni’s activities at the latter, and to a lesser extent at the Academia Fiorentina, played a fundamental role in the conception of the *Nova Reperta*. Even the name Luigi chose for himself as an ‘Alterato’ – «Rinovellato» (*Renewed*) – is a good indication of his approach to the discoveries. A question which preoccupied the Alterati, like Alamanni but also Scipione Ammirato (the «Trasformato» – *Transformed*) or
Giovanni Battista Strozzi (the «Tenero» – *Tender*) in the 1580s was the ‘comparison of the arts’ in the broadest and all-encompassing sense of their plurality.⁶ In addition to talking about painting and sculpture, discussions focused on the benefits of trade, war and agriculture, on the respective merits of the liberal and mechanical arts, on the superiority of the humanities over arms, and on the comparison between ancient and modern artillery. The dignity of the Tuscan language compared to Latin played a fundamental role in these discussions and explained the Alterati’s interest in Dante. In addition to holding several discussions on the poet, Luigi Alamanni was involved, in particular, in the production of an illustrated version of the *Divine Comedy*.⁷ The painter chosen to create the series of illustrations was Stradanus, whose position at court made him an intermediary between the patrician’s sons and the Medici court.

The ties between the aristocratic families, and also Dante, with Stradanus and the non-European worlds form the sociological and intellectual basis of the *Nova Reperta*. Even though there is still some doubt over the precise dating of the programme, it is plausible that it was conceived between 1587 and 1589, as proposed by Lia Markey in the run-up to the centenary of the ‘discovery’ of America – 1492 –, the subject of the first plate that opens the series.⁸

## The ‘rhythm’ of discovery

In their account of the evolution of knowledge, Stradanus and Alamanni seem to have ascribed crucial importance to the conquest of the New World. And yet, the status assigned to it in the series is not easy to interpret. Most of the themes illustrated in the *Nova Reperta*, be it gunpowder, the mechanical clock, the oil mill or silk production, were by no means new in the 16th century. Moreover, in trying to make sense of the specific choice of technical innovations included in the prints, another discrepancy in the title page of the work needs to be addressed. Here, in fact, there are allusions only to the first nine inventions of the series, so it is quite probable that this was Stradanus and Alamanni’s original project. In a play on words typical of inventions of the time⁹ – facilitated by the use of Latin, between the adjective «novae» and the number ‘nove’ – the new (*nuove*) discoveries were perhaps initially limited to these nine (*nove*), to which the other ten were only added at a later date. From the 1570s onwards, numerous works such as the *La vicissitude et variété des choses* by Louis Le Roy highlighted the same discoveries to underscore the advances in knowledge of their time: printing, gunpowder, the compass, America and guaiacum.¹⁰

The *Nova Reperta* were part of the historiographical evolution that replaced the Renaissance programme of *restauratio* (restoration) and *renovatio* (renewal) with the praise for both technical and empirical innovations. The ten prints of the second part may, therefore, be linked to the first nine through several hypothetical connections:¹¹ the
production of silk, the four engravings dedicated to agriculture (water mill, windmill, oil mill, sugar mill); the gunpowder to the polishing of armour; the compass with longitudes and the astrolabe. The three remaining plates – oil painting, spectacles, engraving on copper – although indirectly linked to the invention of printing, are kept separate. In fact, if these three images, and the one for spectacles in particular, could be interpreted as anecdotes or even ironic considerations of such inventions,¹² they also seem to me to provide fundamental insights into an important aspect of the *Nova Reperta*, namely, that they highlight the power of vision and drawing as a means for appropriating space. This is a very ‘Florentine’ idea to which I will return in another essay, but one that bears mentioning here in the context of the reflection on ‘discovery’.

The second part of the series, although completing the first, groups together innovations whose power for change is less evident. Perhaps for this reason, the tone of the captions is more explicitly linked to the dispute between ‘ancient’ and ‘modern’ inventors. In the text of the plate with the calculation of longitudes, for example, Stradanus, and Alamanni, are keen to emphasise that the invention is due to a ‘modern’ – the illustrator and cartographer, Petrus Plancius (1552-1622), his fellow countryman and a Protestant. In the engraving of the mills, however, Stradanus specifies that, even though not modern – in the sense of contemporary – their invention certainly does not date back to antiquity, because he adds, «ignota Romanis fuisse dicitur», i.e. «it is said that it was unknown to the Romans».¹³ Inventions such as stirrups, distillation or the compass introduce a new idea that has less to do with their time than a move away from a certain concept of knowledge. In contrast to the importance accorded by the ‘ancients’ to the liberal arts, the *Nova Reperta* emphasise the transformative power of empirical and technical knowledge. While this reassessment of the mechanical arts originated in the Middle Ages, for example with Roger Bacon, it gained in importance, from the second half of the 16th century, as the work of his namesake, the Lord Chancellor Francis Bacon, demonstrates. In line with this view, the layout of the *Nova Reperta* prints juxtaposes the tools for the invention of each technique, along with the manufacturing process and the effects on the social world. There are, of course, several exceptions to this model, especially in the images for cosmography (*America*, *Compass*, *Longitudes*, *Astrolabe*). However, with the exception of the engraving dedicated to silk, the representation of technical processes is always focused on the production chain set in the depths of perspective.

In this respect, Stradanus’s point of view seems simple enough to sum up: true invention is social, and its preferred location is the ‘workshop’, which Stradanus depicts as an ideal rather than a real place. All workplaces are located in the same physical space – casting, goldsmithing, sales, etc. – even if, for example in *Horology* engraving, important stages of the manufacturing process are not portrayed.¹⁴ The unity of place is fictitious,
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Figure 2 Ph. Galle after J. Stradanus, *Impressio librorum*, from Nova Reperta</figcaption></figure>

but it allows the interaction of the crafts of forging metalworking, engraving and decoration to be linked together, because the innovation lies in this organisation of the work. A close connection between metalwork and alchemy is also implicit in the manufacture of gunpowder and firearms (*repertum* 3). By ignoring the teachings of scholasticism, medieval craftsmen are, therefore, credited by Stradanus and Alamanni with using their skills to invent objects useful to mankind. The metal chain – the common thread running through the first nine prints – is the best illustration of this inventive ability. Also used in the manufacture of cannons, clocks, castings for presses and stirrups, it shows how craftsmen worked together to transfer practical solutions to the problems they encountered from one field to another.¹⁵ A good example of this openness in the artisan world is the use, in the manufacture of watches, of techniques developed in artillery to miniaturise firearms, in particular to produce arquebuses with wheel-lock mechanisms.¹⁶

In this sense, the artisan workshops depicted in the *Nova Reperta* resemble the *trading zones* theorised by the historian of science, Pamela Long.¹⁷ These places represent a meeting point for various kinds of skills and knowledge, including the liberal arts. The *Impressio librorum* engraving (*repertum* 4) (fig. 2) is based entirely on this cooperation: on the one hand, the technique of iron, paper and ink and, on the other, humanistic knowledge of text, composition and correction. In this engraving, however, as in others, it is not so much the interaction between these areas of knowledge that is depicted but the hierarchy between
them. From the background to the foreground, there is a shift from manual and strenuous skills to intellectual knowledge, from the worker operating the printing press to the typesetter and then, the proofreader, wearing eyeglasses, who checks his work overseen by the supervisor and, in the upper right-hand register, the protective figure of Gutenberg.

In short, the «trading zone» is not so much a place of meeting but one of conquest. The production chain entails a process for honing materials, techniques and bodies. From cane to sugar, from roots to distillate, from the strenuous work of the forge, wheel and the press turned by strong bodies, to the more delicate tasks of goldsmithing or assembling, which require concentration involving visual focus. Stradanus shows the importance of manual as well as theoretical work. Physical labour does not require focus by the person undertaking it, whereas tasks performed by individuals absorbed in their work, or who oversee and play a supervisory role, are virtuous. A notable exception to this interpretation, would appear to be the worried expression of the figure in the foreground of the *Pulvis* engraving (*repertum* 3), who seems to realise the damaging effects of war.

Far from denigrating the liberal arts, the *Nova Reperta* instead are an attempt to redefine their relationship with the mechanical arts, without questioning the dominance of the former. From this standpoint, the print dedicated to oil painting (*repertum* 14) reflects the desire to affirm painting as a liberal art, i.e. as the end result of a complex chain of techniques, culminating in its power of expression. Intellectual know-how is, therefore, called upon to match technical know-how, to draw inspiration from it, to make it its own. But what exactly should it take from them? If invention is a social machine that provides new solutions to old problems by pooling knowledge, it also has another benefit in that it saves time. The engraving that best illustrates this, not surprisingly, is the one of the mechanical clock (*repertum* 5) (fig. 3). Stradanus placed a gear wheel in front of each of the workstations on the production line. A way of saying that just as a machine requires gears to engage correctly, a workshop also requires tasks to be correctly coordinated. Moreover, the simultaneous operation of each workstation is emphasised here. The real invention lies not in the diversity and sequence of tasks, but in their organisation that allows one to be started without waiting for the other to be completed.

The main reason for the technical breakthrough, and its fundamental effect, is the saving of time. As we know, mechanical clocks were first developed in textile cities. These were cities where working hours were extended by night lighting, as depicted in the *Horologia* engraving. Cities in which the pace of production, geared towards export, was accelerated by the monetisation of trade.

In the 15th century, in the Florence of Leon Battista Alberti, the medieval fear of not having enough time, rooted in the fear of death, gradually turned into a fear of wasting time, and thus into a desire to make the best use of it. Stradanus was well aware of this
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Figure 3. Ph. Galle after J. Stradanus, *Horologeria ferrea*, from Nova Reperta</figcaption></figure>

shift as it also permeated the artistic productions and business practices of his native city of Flanders. And it is, undoubtedly, in reference to this region that he recorded a history of discovery from the point of view of the workforce in the *Nova Reperta*. What made Europe so powerful in the Middle Ages was the presence of machines. It is surprising, by the way, if not disconcerting, to note the absence of slaves in the engraving on sugar (*repertum* 13). As in the two previous engravings, the focus is on the sugar mill, the 'ingenio de azúcar'.

But even more than the strength of its workforce, Europe's superiority was, in Stradanus's view, based on the genius of its engineers. Those harnessed the power of wind and water, but also that of horses. The caption accompanying the print of stirrups (fig. 4) (*repertum* 9) is revealing in this respect: «Having set foot on the ground, the riders, as soon as they get back on their horses, are immediately relieved, and the stirrup itself relieves them of their suffering». The stirrup prevents discomfort and thus saves time because the rider does not need to take long breaks to relieve it.

The 'machine' is social, and machines are mainly used to save time. Like Galileo, Stradanus and Alamanni may have been aware of the discussions taking place at the time among engineers in Venice, Urbino and Florence. But, in some ways, the Flemish artist goes one step further. By grouping inventions in the *Nova Reperta*, he also reveals their cumulative strength. The advances in navigation, highlighted in *repertum* 2, did not replace the horse, but increased its use. As major studies in the history of energy have shown, newtechniques do not always replace old ones, but often reinforce their urgency.¹⁸
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 4 Ph. Galle after J. Stradanus, *Staphæ sive stapedes*, from Nova Reperta</figcaption></figure>

This explains why so many medieval techniques appear in the *Nova Reperta*. Far from immediately establishing itself as a breakthrough, a new technique reveals its true effects over time. Its real power can only be measured when its action is combined with others. For instance, the creation of gunpowder (*repertum* 3) and remedies such as guaiacum wood (*repertum* 6) made clearer the importance of distillation (*repertum* 8). This vision of discovery is deeply rooted in an economic view of the world and, more specifically, in the form of trade corporations: to achieve the large-scale production of iron, Europeans had to free up the necessary labour in the countryside by building mills. This circular dynamic, whereby the development of one sector leads to the development of another, which in turn strengthens it, leads Stradanus to think about the history of knowledge in terms of economic growth.

Small, modest inventions produce unexpected effects when linked to the market. The innovation celebrated by Stradanus is the tearing down of the barriers erected among the arts. This is the sense of the title page – what was separate is placed together on the same earthly *continuum*, at the same time and in the same era. The *Nova Reperta* series could, therefore, be interpreted through a theme whose development owes much to the iconographic research conducted in Florence, that of truth revealed by time, *Veritas filia temporis*.
The innovation of discoveries

As already mentioned, it is difficult to place the role of America within the *Nova Reperta*. On the one hand, it fits into the cumulative and ongoing view of the technical discoveries we have just discussed, stemming from medieval inventions, such as the compass, gunpowder and the printing press. On the other hand, however, America cannot be called a medieval invention, and its discovery also implies a more discontinuous vision of the 'new'. It marks a break in the representation of space; to the point of questioning, in a certain sense, the purpose of saving time in the interconnection of worlds and arts. The hypothesis that I would like to discuss in the following paragraphs is that the title page of the *Nova Reperta* uses the theme of *Veritas filia temporis*, although not explicitly, to introduce this logic in the understanding of discovery.

In Florence, thanks to his links with Giorgio Vasari and Francesco Salviati. Stradanus must have been familiar with the theme of truth revealed by time, to which he dedicated a late engraving (fig. 5).¹⁹ Since the end of the 1510, this theme had been used principally in religious disputes, both by Protestants and Catholics, to denounce the hypocrisy of the opposing camp. The expression in images and texts was a commonplace *in utramque partem* (that can be used by both sides). At the same time, albeit less frequently, it was used by Salviati, in particular, to describe the neoplatonic progressiveness of knowledge. While such portrayals emphasised the temporal nature of truth, which always requires time, work and patience to be revealed, from the 1570s onwards, certain texts began to use it to account for the historic nature of European knowledge. If my hypotheis is correct, Stradanus would be one of the first to do the same in iconography by using the theme in his title page.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Figure 5. J. Collaert after J. Stradanus, *Veritas filia temporis*, from Nova Reperta</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_7.png" /><figcaption>Figure 6. J. Stradanus, Sketch for the title page of Nova Reperta, New York, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum 1901-39-149</figcaption></figure>

Discovery is not only about the converging acceleration of technology, but also about the unexpected and the uncertainty, which the American continent perfectly embodies. Its meridian line is indeed an obstacle to the longitudinal and trans-oceanic connection that Europeans had been trying to establish since the 15th century.²⁰ This ‘impediment’ was certainly not foreseen and Europeans were able to overcome it only thanks to the technical control they developed over

space and time. In the title page, this conquest is tangibly demonstrated by all the instruments scattered on the bare earth. A comparison between Stradanus’s preparatory sketch (fig. 6) and the engraving provides valuable information on this point. There is a transition from a central-axial symmetry that holds the printing press and clock together, to another axial symmetry, but in both cases, the vanishing point is occupied by America and the compass. The compass plays a fundamental role because it provides sailors with reference points when sailing away from the coast. In the 15th century, voyages on the high sea were the ones called ‘discoveries’, as Amerigo Vespucci indicates in this passage of his famous letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici dated July 18, 1500:

> I trust Your Magnificence will have heard of the new lands found by the fleet sent by the King of Portugal two years ago to make discoveries about the region of Guinea: such a voyage as that I do not call discovery, but merely a going to discovered lands, since, as you will see by the map, they navigate continually in sight of land, and sail along the entire southern part of Africa, which is to proceed upon a way discussed by all the authorities in cosmography.²¹

To discover, therefore, does not only mean setting foot in a foreign land, but also crossing an unknown sea, far from land. Vespucci’s criticism of the Portuguese, however, is not completely justified: first because their navigation along the coast of Africa led them to seek favourable winds in the high sea and second because the authors of the cosmography had not dealt with southern lands of Africa. What Vespucci wants to say is that his and Columbus’ undertakings had unprecedented outcomes: they revealed the compass’s true purpose.

This raises a question about Stradanus’s title page – why is America on the left in the final version? In the preparatory drawing, it was on the right and this change cannot only have occurred due to the inversion of the engraving in reverse. The sketch preserved in New York matches a precise vision of the project by Stradanus and Alamanni and it probably made sense that America was placed on the right. It is possible that the layout was inverted so that the order of the *reperta* followed the order in which they were read, i.e. from left to
right, so from *repertum* no. 1, America, to *repertum* no. 2, the compass. However, the compass
came before America. So, the effect has been placed before the cause. As already mentioned,
however, in the sketch America was on the right and I believe that this had a meaning that
perhaps has not been lost but only concealed in the engraving.

Let's take a look now at the presence of 'time' in the title page. It can be identified
through two main elements: the mechanical clock and the *ouroboros* held by the two figures
in the top left and right registers. The clock represents mechanical time, the time of
acceleration, while the *ouroboros* represents metaphysical time and eternity. There is an
overlap between the two objects which is highlighted by two details. Firstly (fig. 7), the
*ouroboros* has a sinuous shape. If Stradanus's intention was to represent the reptile's
serpentine movement, as the sculptor, Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1560), had already done in
Florence,²² he may also have reiterated it in the 'crenelated' shape of the clock wheels. The
second, more subtle detail is that the two *ouroboros* are facing opposite directions. The head
is turned clockwise to the right and anti-clockwise to the left.

Who are the two personifications holding them? There is an old man
on the right of the engraving and on the left of the drawing. Could it be
Father Time? The staff that he is holding in the other hand could be a
scythe, but he is unlikely to be him given that he does not have wings. It is
more plausible that he represents the past. The figure on the left of the
engraving, and on the right of the drawing, could, therefore, represent the
future. In a mechanical clock, the forward movement of the hands
represents the past accumulated during the course of the day, while to set
the chimes in the future, you have to wind it up by turning it anti-clockwise.
The two figures and their *ouroboros*, therefore, portray two aspects of time:
antiquity and the future. The present lies between them, the place of
contemporary discoveries (fig. 8). This type of layout is also found
elsewhere in 16th century Italian art. In addition to examples of
Michelangelo's work on the Medici family tombs in which the present is
surrounded by the past (*Dusk*) and the future (*Dawn*), the theme is also
addressed in Titian's *Allegory of Prudence* (fig. 9). In this painting, the future,
i.e. the young man, is looking in the opposite direction to the past because
the time of consciousness begins from the present. On the title page of the
*Nova Reperta*, historic time is shown as one-directional. The future arrives
on the scene following the same path as the past who is obviously facing
the other way. Anachronistic discoveries are fading or about to fade into
oblivion, while others are about to appear. The organisation of the title
page is set in motion by the personification of time who, by passing in front
of us, reveals the discoveries on the bare ground. The bareness of the
ground, like the naked girl who follows, allows different figures to be
superimposed on the one representing the future. Firstly, there is the
image of Beauty, emerging not from the sea, but from the future. As
indicated by Florence Buttay in her remarks on the famous coat of arms of

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /><figcaption>Figures 7-8. Ph. Galle
after J. Stradanus, Title
page for *Nova Reperta*
/detail)</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_9.png" /><figcaption>Figure 8. Titian, *Allegory of Prudence*, London, The National Gallery</figcaption></figure>

Palazzo Rucellai, this image is also and, above all, an allegory of fortune.²³ Before assuming the attributes of *kairos* (the wick, the shaved nape, the unstable sphere), Fortune had assumed those of beauty, in particular, her nudity. When Stradanus invented the *Nova Reperta*, the conflation between fortune and chance was already consolidated and explicitly expressed by *fortuna marina*. The girl who lands on the title page of the *Nova Reperta* fits into this model. Her sail is filled with wind like the one of a ship sailing towards a new land, or like a shipwreck running aground after a disastrous voyage in the version by Cornelius Cort (1533-1578), Stradanus’s colleague and partner. Seen in this way, the title page of the *Nova Reperta* expresses something very similar

to what Louis Le Roy states in his treatise: *kairos*, the moment to be seized, is the era itself. It is a question of understanding why the sixteenth century brought about such a progressive renewal of knowledge and yet showed no hint of decline, as often occurs in the fatal law of human vicissitudes.²⁴ Since it also refers to the land trodden by the girl, the nudity also refers to another element: America. Stradanus, who was associated with the printer, Cock, was undoubtedly familiar with the inventions of some of the Flemish artists who portrayed the New World, the youngest of the continents, as a naked girl. The image also appears as a detail in Cornelis Cort's famous map, *Americae Sive Quartae Orbis Partis Nova Et Exactissima Descriptio*, published by Plantin in 1562. And more explicitly, in the title page of Abraham Ortellius' *Theatrum orbis terrarum*, printed by Plantin in 1570. Stradanus takes the first engraving of the *Nova Reperta* directly from these two Flemish editions: here America appears in the guise of a naked girl, with a feather headdress on her head, who rises from her hammock like Venus from the sea. Showing herself to Europe, she turns her back on cannibalism which Stradanus depicts in the background, explicitly referencing Cort's map. In the title page, this awakening of the New World expresses the image of the future. It is America that the girl is showing, or more precisely, a map of America. Here, we find ourselves in the midst of allegorical art, which shows without explaining, swapping the agent for the object of the action. The appearance of America on the world map is the most important of all the discoveries because it completes the image of the globe. By revealing herself, she reveals the world in its entirety and even though it is about to end, this movement is still ongoing: the girl does not point her stick at any part of America. She is indicating the passage to the north-west which has not yet been discovered and where the future of universal exploration lies (fig. 10).
<figure><img src="image_10.png" /><figcaption>Figure 9. Ph. Galle after J. Stradanus, Title page of Nova Reperta (detail)</figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /><figcaption>Figure 10. C. Ripa, Veritas, from Iconologia</figcaption></figure>

The globe allows us to associate the naked girl with a final symbol: that of truth, according to an iconographic tradition collected by Ripa in the same period in which Stradanus invented the *Nova Reperta*. *Veritas filia temporis* (fig. 11): without showing it explicitly, the lateral movement of the title page from the past to the future literally reveals the truth to the observer. For confirmation of this, we can look at the iconography of Francis Bacon's works. The famous title page of Bacon's *Novum Organum* depicts discovery as a voyage that pushes back the boundaries of knowledge. A less famous title page, undoubtedly conceived in 1626 by the disciples of the Chancellor (his 'sons') to illustrate one of the posthumous works, reveals what is learned at the end of the journey: the «intellectual world» represented in the form of a globe (fig. 12). Only full knowledge of the physical world would allow access to this superior form of knowledge. This demonstrates the importance of America, as confirmed by the *Nuova Atlantide*, which was also published among the posthumous works by a publisher who chose *Veritas occulta tempore patet* as an imprint.

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /><figcaption>Figure 11. F. Bacon, Title page of Sylva sylvarum</figcaption></figure>
Coming back to Stradanus, as we have seen, the *Nova Reperta* series was designed at the same time as two programmes dedicated respectively to silk and the discovery of America. This second programme consisted of three engravings portraying Columbus, Vespucci and Magellan, and a title page with two figures lifting the veil from a globe (fig. 13). They are Janus and Flora. Janus is the god of transitions: physical ones that with the help of luck, take travellers from Europe to America, and temporal ones that every year replace old time with new. As for Flora, she is identified with spring, the season of renewal and rebirth. In the tradition of painting in Florence, especially in the art of Botticelli, Flora is associated with Zephyr. The wind that helps plants to reproduce by transporting the seeds, and also ships to reach faraway coastlines.

<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>Figure 12. J. Stradanus, Title page of *Americae retectio*</figcaption></figure>

*Americae retectio* literally means «the revelation of America», and the ambiguity of the genitive is very significant. America has been revealed and, in doing so, has revealed the truth about the world. That is why this programme adds the figure of Magellan to the figures of Columbus and Vespucci – he is considered as the first person to have circumnavigated the globe. To represent these voyages, Stradanus increases the mythological references, drawing in particular from the map engraved by Cornelis Cort, with his chariot of Neptune and his sea monsters. This profusion of details explains why the theme of truth revealed by time only appears in dotted lines. Yet, in a certain sense, it is explicitly invoked by the Latin inscription on the title page of the *Americae retectio* which in English goes more or less like this, «Who is able with mighty mind to compose a song worthy of the majesty of these things and these findings?» These are the first verses of Lucretius’ Book V of the *De natura rerum*.²⁵ And this is how the poem ends:
Sailings on the seas, tillings of fields, walls, laws, and arms, and roads, dress (and) the like, all prizes, all delights of finer life, poems, pictures, chiselled shapes of polished sculptures– all these arts were learned by practice and the mind's experience, as men walked forward step by eager step. Thus time draws forward each and everything and reason uplifts it to the shores of light. For one thing after other did men see grow clear by intellect, until with their arts they achieved the supreme pinnacle.

There is reason to believe that it is precisely this passage from *De natura rerum* that is commented on in the *Nova Reperta*. We can thus understand the chiasmus that links the two series invented by Stradanus and Alamanni. Whereas the *Nova Reperta* place America at the centre, the *Americae retectio* focuses on invention and the advancement of knowledge. The relationship that Stradanus, however, establishes between these two planes – between colonisation and knowledge – has another, more political meaning, with which I would like to conclude this paper.

## The ownership of the discovery

The importance attributed by Stradanus to the conquest of the New World raises an important question. Why, as 1592 approached, did Florence attach so much importance to a political operation conducted in the name of another authority, that of the King of Spain? There are three possible answers to this question that correspond to three methods to ‘appropriate’ the world. The texts accompanying the engravings provide an initial set of answers. On the title page of the *Nova Reperta*, the legendary figure of Flavius Amalfitanus, indicated as the inventor of the compass, is described as

«Italus», i.e. Italian. To point out, in other words, that the Spanish could not have circumnavigated the globe without the contribution of the Italians. And this is not wrong, given the role of funding by the Republics of Genoa and Tuscany in launching expeditions, as demonstrated by the correspondence between Portuguese shipowners and several Florentine scholars, Toscanelli in particular. Similarly, Christopher Columbus was presented as «Genovese», therefore, Italian. The term «inventor» attributed to him has a more limited meaning compared to that of Flavio Amalfitano: Columbus only found America but, as is well known, he did not ‘discover’ it. This honour went to Vespucci who was from Florence: he is the *denominator* (namer) of the New World but also the *retector*, i.e. the discoverer. While Columbus failed to see the vastness of the continent, Vespucci unequivocally identified it as a New World and emphasised the equally fundamental fact that this continent, detached from Asia, also concealed an ocean unknown to Europeans. For this reason, and because he was from Florence, Vespucci ultimately stole the limelight from
Columbus. It was he who, in the first *repertum*, encountered the allegory of America and named her with his own name, like a father passing on his name to his daughter. In the engraving for the astrolabe, he is the discoverer of unknown stars in the sky of the southern hemisphere (*repertum* 18).

The *Nova Reperta* thus reflect a symbolic appropriation of the Indies reiterated in *Americae retectio*. On the title page, the vastness of the sea is viewed from the coasts of Liguria and Tuscany. Flora, unveiling the globe with Janus, is also an allegory of Florence, especially in Botticelli's work. Lastly, the symbols of the Tuscan city adorn both the shields depicted on the title page and the flag hanging on the mast of the ship steered by Vespucci.

As the capital of the arts and knowledge, Florence, therefore, played a decisive role in producing new inventions. This symbolic appropriation, further underscored by the Tuscan-style architecture of some of the city workshops depicted in the *Nova Reperta*, extends in two directions. The first coincides with the one stamped on the pennant flown by Christopher Columbus' ship: evangelisation. The plate engraved with the crucifix in *Sculptura in Aes (repertum 19)* is not the only indication of the religious appropriation of the new discoveries. Although the list is not comprehensive, it is worth mentioning the dove on the title page of the *Americae retectio*, the cross formed by the sky that Vespucci observes with his astrolabe (fig. 14) and, above all, the soldiers asleep around him who, as Alessandra Baroni Vannucci has pointed out, are a clear reference to the iconography of the Resurrection of Christ.²⁶ The development of the *Nova Reperta* as an instrument to promote Christianity, and more specifically Catholicism, is an important aspect in the series. The caption that accompanies the *Impresso librorum* engraving (*repertum* 4) – «As one voice can be heard by many ears, so one printed page can be heard by a thousand others» – evokes the image of the preacher on his pulpit, whose words, when heard by the crowd of believers, can mobilise spirits anytime and anywhere, thanks to printing.

But the coincidence between the effects of these innovations and the interests of Catholicism are not always so obvious. Stradanus's treatment of the cosmographic innovations of his time is an example of this. The armillary spheres in the engravings dedicated to the compass (*repertum* 2) and astrolabe (*repertum* 18) imply a representation of celestial movements in a geocentric model. Similarly, the research into the bending of magnetic fields in the engraving dedicated to the calculation of longitudes (*repertum* 16) is accompanied by the Jesuit monogram IHS, further guaranteeing Catholic orthodoxy of what was originally the innovation of a Protestant.

In Stradanus's time, the scholars gathered in the Accademia Fiorentina and Accademia degli Alterati found another way to ensure that new discoveries were compatible with the Christian dogma in the *Divine Comedy*. In Canto 1 of Purgatory, on leaving Hell and
<figure><img src="image_14.png" /><figcaption>Figure 13. Ph. Galle after J. Stradanus, *Astrolabium*, from Nova Reperta</figcaption></figure>

the 'resurrection' of Virgil and Dante, reference is made to sailing on a new sea and the vision of four stars unseen since the Fall. The importance accorded to America in the *Nova Reperta* thus demonstrates the existence not only of another world but also of a new heaven, populated by stars whose existence confirms the Scriptures. Alamanni was so committed to the link between Dante's and Vespucci's cosmography that he set about retrieving the lessons on the subject given by Galileo in Padua, which the Florentine scholar had already presented at the Accademia Fiorentina.²⁷ In 1603, Jacopo Soldado's eulogy for Alamanni highlighted the link between Vespucci's religious and cosmographic endeavours and Dante's:

> [...] to make our homeland more glorious, the wonderful voyage of Amerigo Vespucci was chosen as the subject for a poem of great value. Thanks to this voyage, he explored the vast peninsula of New Spain, also discovering Peru, helping to make it famous with his name. He also added a new world to the old world and spread the teachings of our religion. Since this illustrious Academician had often heard from Alamanni's orations of how many degrees the equator has been crossed, and how one navigates, by means of the movement of the 'primum mobile' from East to West, with the same wind which blows constantly, and how one knows the distance to the pole from the height of the Sun, or the constellations visible in our northern hemisphere. He wasn't deterred from adopting other benefits of Cosmography, which measures celestial bodies, a field in which he was an expert, as demonstrated by the gift he made to the Academy: the profile of Dante's
Inferno. He was as deeply interested in Dante's sacred journey as he was in Vespucci's voyage, admiring how Dante's illustrious intellect had not ventured through the waters of the Indies, the Southern Ocean, the Magellan or the North Sea, but had explored the bowels of the earth, passing through the flames of Hell, among martyrs and demons, to reach the centre. From there he ascended the mountain of Purgatory, from the top of which he flew to the Heavens where he could admire the glory of the Blessed and see the Sun which governs the movement of the stars. [...] Alamanni, who had a deep respect for him and honoured him with great fervour, as shown by the two extraordinary addresses he delivered at the 'Accademia Fiorentina' [...].²⁸

This profile of the Inferno is probably the one reproduced by Stradanus in his portrait of Dante (fig. 15). While the reference to the poet could be a way of emphasising the Christian nature of the discoveries, it also highlighted the participation of Florence in the Catholic League still dominated by the Habsburgs in Italy and the Indies. Given that Stradanus was Flemish, he was the subject of the Catholic Monarch and, as such, an intermediary between Tuscany and the Hispanic world, both in Antwerp and Rome. Since the return of the Medici family to Florence, in particular following Cosimo's marriage to Eleanor of Toledo, the gift of the Republic of Siena to Florence by Charles V and finally, the creation of the title of Grand Duke, Tuscany had become an important ally of the Empire in Italy. As such, it took part in the battle of Lepanto and in the Portuguese war of succession. Loyalty to the House of Austria is shown by the flag hanging from the mast of the ship steered by Magellan in the last engraving of the *Americae retectio*, but also by the coat of arms that, with the columns of Hercules, two-headed eagle and motto «Plus oultre», takes pride of place on the title page of the *Mediceae Familiae Rerum Feliciter Gestarum Victoriae et Triumphi* (fig. 16).²⁹ How could this feat be pursued, how could Florence's participation in the Catholic union be strengthened, not only in Europe, but also in the Indies? The prints of the *Nova Reperta* and *Americae retectio* series are part of the answer to this question. They were probably designed around 1589, shortly after the coronation of Ferdinando as Grand Duke of Tuscany, who, as Lia Markey recalled, was less interested than his brother Francesco in collecting inventions and much more in the possibility of establishing a strong trade link with Brazil, for example, and even exercising military power there.³⁰

Stradanus's programmes transmit this desire to extend the symbolic appropriation of the Indies through more tangible attempts at appropriation. The first engraving of the *Nova Reperta* places the encounter between Vespucci and the Native Indian woman in a context that was not chosen at random. The tapir, sloth and the evocation of cannibalism: the scene takes place in Brazil and the comparison with Cornelis Cort's engraved map leaves no room for doubt. The title page of the *Americae retectio* also reveals the instrument of this expansionism: the port of Livorno with its fortifications but also with

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /><figcaption>Figure 14. Portrait of Dante by Stradano</figcaption></figure>
its legal system that welcomed religious minorities. In the early 1590s, the merchants of this port drew up plans to install a refinery there to process Brazilian sugar, which explains the inclusion of the *Saccharum* engraving (*repertum* 13) in the series. Ferdinando’s ongoing desire to strengthen the trade links between Brazil, Lisbon and Tuscany must have convinced him that there was an opportunity for him to seize, also to the informants that he kept in each of these places. When he became Grand Duke, the Catholic monarchy, which had to manage the Portuguese territories acquired in 1580-1581, also had to contend with a revolt in the Dutch Republic. Since the 1550’s, the British and French had intensified their reconnaissance operations in Brazil. Supporting the Catholic monarchy in this part of the world would thus have been a way to access American wealth without challenging the Habsburg monopoly. The project, only alluded to in the *Nova Reperta*, was formulated in 1608 by Ferdinando de’ Medici, who sought to acquire the captaincy of Espírito Santo from Philip III.³¹

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /><figcaption>Figure 15. Ph. Galle and H. Goltzius after J. Stradanus, *Mediceae familiae rervm feliciter gestarvm victoriae et trivmphi*</figcaption></figure>

The *Nova Reperta* conveyed an attributive concept of discovery, which from an economic and political point of view aimed at the recognition of a right. The first attempts to define ‘intellectual property’ in Venice, around 1474, are no exception to this type of claim. In the *Nova Reperta*, as in the papal bulls that defined the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly over the Indies, the discovery of a territory granted exclusive rights of exploitation to the entity that succeeded in settling there first. Hence the importance of the maps on the title pages of the *Nova Reperta* and the *Americae retectio*, but also in the rooms of Palazzo Vecchio. You only ever map what you hope to capture. There are, however, many ways to claim a conquest, and apart from exercising imperium (supreme power), Florence was able to extend its commercial and financial power over the Indies, at least until Cosimo II. Filippo Sassetti’s letters are a powerful testimony to the global perspective of Tuscany, and it is not insignificant that it was Alamanni himself, around 1589, who delivered his oration before the Alterati.³²
At this point, one final issue deserves to be raised. As noted at the beginning of this paper, the *Nova Reperta* were also accompanied by another programme, entitled *Vermis sericus*, which develops and completes the eighth printing of the *Nova Reperta* (fig. 17).

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /><figcaption>Figure 16 Ph. Galle after J. Stradanus, *Ser sive sericus*, from Nova reperta</figcaption></figure>

At the very least, this engraving is by no means a recent event for Stradanus’s contemporaries. It is the episode in which the Emperor Justinian is said to have received the silkworm eggs, the traditional starting point of the silk industry in Byzantine times. The inclusion of this invention in the *Nova Reperta* is all the more paradoxical in light of the fact that the textile industry, although it played a crucial role in the development of Florence, was mainly for wool. Of the seven major ‘arti’ or medieval guilds, the ‘Arte della Lana’ (wool guild) had always been more important than the ‘Arte della Seta’ (silk guild), and sometimes even more prosperous than the ‘Arte di Calimala’ (guild of cloth finishers). However, along with Lucca, Genoa and Milan, Florence had been one of the main silk centres in Italy since the Middle Ages, leading to the rapid spread of production of the precious fabrics throughout the peninsula in the 16th century. The importance of silk can, therefore, be understood in the light of the *translatio imperii* (transfer of authority): in the field of literature and luxury goods, Florence took over from Byzantium after its fall in 1453. But there was another, more practical reason for Stradanus’s interest in silk. Among the countless trading companies set up to participate in the silk trade, there was one founded in 1581 by a certain Lorenzo di Niccolò Guicciardini – descendant of the famous historian and cousin of the Alamanni family – and
by Noferi di Giovanni Battista di Lorenzo de' Rossi. Two years later, Luigi and Lodovico Alamanni joined the company, which was further expanded with the arrival of Giovanni d'Antonio Canigiani, Pier d'Agnolo di Giovanni de Rossi and Benedetto di Bernardo Mannero. A quick look at an accounts ledger of the two Alamanni brothers reveals that part of their funds, which were also invested in wool and a goldbeater's workshop, came from a loan from their brother-in-law Raffaele de' Medici, to whom, together with his wife Costanza, six plates of the *Vermis sericus*³³ series were dedicated. By making silk one of the most important innovations of the time, Stradanus actively promoted a business in which the Alamanni brothers had an interest.

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /><figcaption>Figure 17 Ph. Galle after J. Stradanus, *Vermis sericus*, title page (cat. 60)</figcaption></figure>

The title page of the *Vermis Sericus* (fig. 18) sets these two themes against each other: the centuries-old *translatio* (transfer) that brought silk moth eggs from Asia to Europe via Byzantium, and the annual and multiyear mechanism that was to enrich the company's members. Four oval medallions depict the natural cycle of the silk moth in an anticlockwise direction: once the egg has hatched, the silkworm eats the mulberry leaves in May, it weaves a cocoon in June, emerges as a moth in July and, in August, lays its precious eggs thus perpetuating production. The reproduction of the cycle is confirmation that production is sustainable: by discovering the progressive rhythm of the silkworm, it is possible to control and perhaps accelerate it.
Both the life form and the return on economic investment are truths revealed by time. The mature silkworm must be picked like a fruit from the tree. Although in a completely different way, the title page of *Vermis sericus* combines in one image a statement on the times revealing the true value of inventions, and a statement on being cautious and acting at the right time.

In conclusion, the *Nova Reperta* series and various programmes linked to it, when approached through the question of time, represent an elaborate treatise on history and decision-making. The subtlety with which these themes were developed explains the success of the programme, which was reprinted several times with many copies still preserved in various libraries, even though re-editions were rare in the 18th century. ³⁴ Although his list of innovations differs slightly from Stradanus’s, it is likely that Panciroli also refers to them in his *Rerum memorabilium libri duae quarum prior deperditatrum, posterior noviter inventarum est*, whose second volume was entitled *Nova Reperta sive rerum memorabilium & veteribus incognitarum*. ³⁵ It is also very likely that Bacon refers to them in several passages of his works, especially in aphorism 129 of *Novum organum* and at the end of *Nuova Atlantide*:

> For our ordinances and rites we have two very long and fair galleries. In one of these we place patterns and samples of all manner of the more rare and excellent inventions; in the other we place the statues of all principal inventors. There we have the statue of your Columbus, that discovered the West Indies, also the inventor of ships, your monk that was the inventor of ordnance and of gunpowder, the inventor of music, the inventor of letters, the inventor of printing, the inventor of observations of astronomy, the inventor of works in metal, the inventor of glass, the inventor of silk of the worm, the inventor of wine, the inventor of corn and bread, the inventor of sugars; and all these by more certain tradition than you have. Then we have divers inventors of our own, of excellent works; which, since you have not seen) it were too long to make descriptions of them; and besides, in the right understanding of those descriptions you might easily err. For upon every invention of value we erect a statue to the inventor, and give him a liberal and honorable reward. These statues are some of brass, some of marble and touchstone, some of cedar and other special woods gilt and adorned; some of iron, some of silver, some of gold. ³⁶

Lastly, an echo of Stradanus’s work can also be found in some 18th-century texts, such as the *Colombiade*, an epic poem in which Marie-Anne du Boccage revisits the conquest and evangelisation of America by adopting the critical view of progress that was beginning to develop in some areas of the European Enlightenment:

> Dans le siecle dernier, pour y guider tes pas,
> Un Génie inventeur prépara la Boussole;
> Le Salpêtre, enflammé par le souffle d'Eole,
> T'arma de son tonnerre; & pour graver tes faits,
> D'un Alphabet d'Airain l'art inventa les traits. ³⁷
<footnote n="1">¹ These drawings are preserved in Florence at the Laurentian Library (which houses the final drawings) and in New York at the Metropolitan Museum and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, which also hold less complete sketches.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² A. Baroni Vannucci, *Jan Van der Straet detto Giovanni Stradano: flandrus pictor et inventor*, Milan-Rome, Jandi Sapi Editori 1997.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ M. Brunner, *Alcune note sulla commissione dei disegni danteschi di Giovanni Stradano*, in C. Gizzi, *Giovanni Stradano e Dante*, Milan, Electa 1994, pp. 123-132.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ The full name of the Luigi Alamanni that interests us here is Luigi di Piero di Lodovico di Messer Piero Alamanni.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ D. Blocker, *Le principe de plaisir. Esthétique, savoirs et politique dans la Florence des Médicis (XVIe-XVIIe siècle)*, Paris, Les Belles Lettres 2022.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ In reality, the discussion of the dominance of the medieval arts was raised in Florence in 1546 by the Florentine philologist, Benedetto Varchi, cf. G. Sassu, *Il paragone fra le arti. Storia della civiltà europea a cura di* Umberto Eco, 2014.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ Unfortunately, for some unexplained reason, Canto 10 of the Inferno, in which Ulysses reminds Dante of his encounter with Circe and his desire to travel westwards, was not illustrated by Stradanus, even though it would have provided useful material for reflection upon the voyages of Columbus and Vespucci. The illustrated version of the *Divine Comedy* is in the Laurentian Library (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana), Mediceo Palatino 75. On Alamanni’s interest in Dante, see, among others, the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnam 558, fol. 86r, 98v-99r. For the drawings by Stradanus, see also Baroni Vannucci, *Jan Van der Straet detto Giovanni Stradano*, cit., pp. 205-213, nos. 139-166.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ L. Markey, *Stradano’s Allegorical Invention of the Americas in Late Sixteenth-Century Florence*, in *Renaissance Quarterly* 65 (2012) 2, Cambridge, The Renaissance Society of America, pp. 385-442; L. Markey (edited by), *Renaissance invention: Stradanus’s Nova Reperta*, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2020.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ My thanks to Michèle Clément, Professor at the University of Lyon 2, for her input.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ L. Le Roy, *De la Vicissitude ou variete des choses en l’univers, et concurrence des armes et des lettres par les premieres et plus illustres nations du monde [...] Par Loys Le Roy dict Regius [...]*, Paris, Pierre L’Huilier 1575, fol. 99r-101r.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹ A.B. McGinty, *Stradanus (Jan Van Der Straet). His Role In The Visual Communication Of Renaissance Discoveries, Technologies, And Values*, (Tuft University 1974), London, Ann Arbor 1974.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² J.-C. Margolin, *À propos des Nova reperta de Stradan*, in F. Laroque, F. Lessay (Edd.), *Esthétiques de la nouveauté à la Renaissance*, Paris, Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle 2018, pp. 1-28.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ The inscription, in fact, reads: «Aquarias quisquis molas antiquitus putat repertas, tota aberrat is via» («anyone who believes that water mills were invented in antiquity is utterly mistaken») and «Alata quae ventis agi nunc vult mola, ignota Romanis fuisse dicitur» («It is said that the windmill was unknown to the Romans»).</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ D. Howard, J. Keating, N. Atkinson, *Mechanisms*, in Markey, *Renaissance invention*, cit., pp. 169-173.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ H. Vérin, *Lagloire desingénieurs. L’intelligencetechnique du XVIe au XVIIIesième*, Paris, Albin Michel, 1993; S. de Beaune, L. Hilaire-Pérez, K. Vermeir (Edd.), *L’analogie dans les techniques*, Paris, CNRS Éditions 2017.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ D.-V. R. Gerhard, *L’Histoire de l’heure. L’horlogerie et l’organisation moderne du temps*, Paris, Maison des sciences de l’homme 1997; P. Brioist, *Léonard de Vinci: homme de guerre*, Paris, Alma 2013.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ P. Long, *Trading Zones: Arenas of Exchange during the Late-Medieval/Early Modern Transition to the New Empirical Sciences*, in *History of Technology*, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 2012, pp. 5-25.</footnote>

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ J.B. Fressoz, F. Locher, *Les révoltes du ciel: une histoire du changement climatique (XVe-XXe siècle)*, Paris XIXe, Éditions du Seuil 2020.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ S. Pierguidi, *Dalla «Veritas filia Temporis» di Francesco Marcolini all’«Allegoria» di Londra del Bronzino: Il Contributo di Francesco Salviati*, «Artibus et historiae», 26, (2005), 51, IRSA, pp. 159-172.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ L. Bénat Tachot, C. Jacquelard, M. Onetto Pavez, *La transversalité du continent américain. Lectures géopolitiques (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles)*, Paris, Le Manuscrit 2023.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹ R. Descendre, *La «Découverte»: histoire d’une invention sémantique (premiers éléments)*, in R. Descendre, J.-L. Fournel, *Langages, politique, histoire: avec Jean-Claude Zancarini*, Lyon, ENS Éditions 2015, pp. 399-412; L. Formisano (Ed.), *Iddio ci dia buon viaggio e guadagno: Firenze, Biblioteca Riccardiana, ms. 1910* (Codice Vaglienti), Florence, Polistampa 2006, p. 114.</footnote>
²² The statue of Ceres, Boboli Gardens, circa 1548-1558.

²³ F. Buttay-Jutier, *Fortuna. Usages politiques d'une allégorie morale à la Renaissance*, Paris, PUPS 2008.

²⁴ «Pourquoi est-il ainsi advenu plustots en ces temps qu'autres? & quelle raison en pourrons nous donner? [...] la fortune tourne & varie diversement, il advienne par casuelle rencontre des accidens semblables les uns aux autres. [...] La fortune a matiere assez plantureuse pour produire effects s'entreressemblans», cf. L. Le Roy, *De la Vicissitude ou variete des choses en l'univers*, fol. 29r.

²⁵ For Lucretius in the Renaissance, see A. Brown, *The Return of Lucretius to Renaissance Florence*, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press 2010; A. Palmer, *Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance*, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press 2014; P. Vesperini, *Lucrèce. Archéologie d'un classique européen*, Paris, Fayard 2017.

²⁶ A. Baroni Vannucci, *Le immagini del Nuovo Mondo nelle incisioni tra il XVI e il XVIII secolo*, paper presented at the International Congress *Lo sagrado y lo profano en la iconografía virreinal americana*, Lima, 19-20 April 2017.

²⁷ G. Galilei, *Le opere. Edizione nazionale*, vol. 10, Florence, Barbera 1900, p. 66; G. Galilei, *Due lezioni all'Accademia fiorentina circa la figura, sito e grandezza dell'Inferno di Dante*, Turin, G. Chiantore, 1925.

²⁸ *Prose fiorentine raccolte dallo Smarrito accademico della Crusca. [Parte prima-quinta]: Raccolta di prose fiorentine. Parte prima. Volume quarto contenente orazioni*, 1751, pp. 49-50.

²⁹ See also the engraving *Domus Austriacae Maiestas atque Potestas*, which repeats the theme of the four parts of the world, dominated by the House of Austria.

³⁰ L. Markey, *Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence*, University Park, Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania State University Press 2016.

³¹ B. Brege, *Renaissance Florentines in the Tropics: Brazil, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, and the Limits of Empire*, in E. Horodowich, L. Markey (Edd.), *The New World in Early Modern Italy, 1492-1750*, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2017, pp. 206-222.

³² Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Ashburnam 558, fol. 82r: *Prose fiorentine raccolte dallo Smarrito accademico della Crusca. [Parte prima-quinta]*, pp. 43-51.

³³ Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, *Acquisti e doni* 739, fol. 52v, 54v, 55v, 56r.

³⁴ D. Margócsy, *The Global Reception of Stradanus and the Political Use of the Nova Reperta*, in Markey, *Renaissance invention*, cit., pp. 115-133.

³⁵ G. Panciroli, *Rerum memorabilium jam olim deperditarum et contra recens [...] inventarum libri II, ital. primum consrpit, nec unquam hactenus, editi, nunc ero et lat. donti et notis [...] ill. per Henricum Salmuth, Ambergae, Typis Forsterianis, 1602*.

³⁶ F. Bacon, *New Atlantis*, J.H., 1628, pp. 44-45.

³⁷ M.A. Duboccage, *La Colombiade. Ou la Foi portée au Nouveau Monde*, Paris, Desaint et Saillant, Durand 1756, 69. See also pp. 32 and 78.