Full Description
"Nomen est omen". A name is a prophecy, a destiny, or even a promise. Why was South America once referred to as Peru, "Peruana", or "América Peruana"? What role did the Potosí Mountain play in shaping these designations? And how did these perceptions affect the lands of Brazil? This book offers new insights into these questions, exploring both the continuities and the shifts in European representations of South America. It reveals how, in the first two centuries of its history, Brazil compensated for the scarcity of gold and silver with brazilwood, sugar, the labor and souls of its indigenous peoples, the toil of enslaved Africans, and its geography.
Contents
Contents
Preface to the English Language Edition
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
Introduction
Part 1: Describing a Continent Called Peruana
1 Naming a Continent
2 Potosí, the Mountain of Silver
3 Image Matrices
1 Peruana
2 Blaeu's Mural Map
3 Cosmography-Maps
4 Images by Arnoldus Montanus
Part 2: From Mirage to Mines
4 "Pedestrian Realism" in Portuguese Cartography
5 Between Vapors and Earthquakes: the Origin of Metals and the Lands of Brazil
6 The Portuguese in Peru: Ambitious and Suspect
Conclusions: the Anti-shaman
Works Cited
Index
