ABSTRACT

Ancient place names were applied to newly discovered locations; the Islands of the Blest were confused with the Canaries, and later the historian Oviedo identified the Hesperides and Atlantis with the New World, which was called America from 1507 onwards. In ancient times, it was thought that the world was basically bounded by two main barriers. Indeed, it was the vision of this shape that inspired the voyage of Christopher Columbus, for it was to map out an ideal spherical world that he travelled west. However, as an epic poem based on the Christian faith, the Lusiads always turns myths into allegories, making the false gods subject to the True God, just as the pagan world is subject to the chosen country. Galileo's contemporaries honoured him as a hero, according his discoveries particularly the telescope the status of modern day myths.