From Nowhere: Utopian and Dystopian Visions of our - Chris J. Young

7. Honorius Philoponus (fl. 1621). Nova typis transacta navigatio. [S.l.: s.n.], 1621.
The Navigatio, first written sometime between the end of the eighth century and the beginning
of the tenth century, retells the legendary sixth-century expedition of St. Brendan and his monks
to the isle of the Blessed. Sometimes regarded as a Christian Aeneid, it combines classical, Celtic,
Christian, and pagan traditions. The story describes a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean by Abbot
Brendan Lehane and a group of monks and several non-believers in a quest to find the Garden
of Eden. The party explores the magical islands off the coast of ireland in search of the earthly
paradise, but divine guidance leads them to fantastic islands, including some that are populated
solely by sheep and birds or by mythical creatures such as griffins and sea monsters.
The image displayed shows the great fish Jasconius, on whose back the monks hold vigil each Easter. At the
end of their seven-year voyage the company finds a fog-encircled island of light, with bountiful fruit and
precious stones, known as the Promised Land of the Saints. After forty days on the island a young boy tells
them to leave, and promises Brendan that he will return to this paradise upon his death.
8. Giovanni Battista Ramusio (1485–1557). Delle navigationi et viaggi. Venice:
Giunti, 1559-1565.
The stories of Marco Polo’s thirteenth-century travels and adventures to China, india, and Persia have
inspired explorers, writers, and readers for centuries – the most notable of whom were Christopher
Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci. Marco Polo’s descriptions of gold, jewels, and spices gave the East
the alluring impression of paradise on Earth. in 1291 Marco Polo left Venice for China or ‘Cathay’,
where he spent seventeen years in Kublai Khan’s realm. Although scholars have questioned the
truth of Polo’s travel account, some even doubting whether he had ever travelled to the East, they
acknowledge that his knowledge of Eastern culture and geography are historically accurate.
Giovanni Battista Ramusio was a magistrate in the city-state of Venice in the sixteenth century.
Combining his passion for geography with his magisterial position in Venice, Ramusio had access
to geographical documents, such as Marco Polo’s Livres des merveilles du monde, which he translated
and included into a compilation of explorers’ first-hand accounts of their travels. First published
in 1550, Delle navigationi et viaggi was the first compilation of its kind, and paved the way for
other collected travel accounts, such as Richard Hakluyt’s The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and
Discoveries of the English Nation (1588-1600).
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