ABSTRACT
Sixteenth-and seventeenth-century voyages of exploration were as much intellectual as navigational exercises, guided as much by the pen as the rudder.3 The expeditions of Columbus and Vespucci, English efforts to chart America’s eastern seaboard, and repeated attempts to find short cuts to the Indies: all, of course, resulted in dramatic geographical discoveries. In the long run, however, even more significant was the slower intellectual quest to assimilate what was found on the ground into existing European knowledge and culture. Indeed, as Simon Schama amongst others has argued, in order properly to be understood, even the initiation of Columbus’ quest has to be seen as an earnest philosophical investigation - a mystical, neo-platonic search for an ideal.4 From inspiration through to popular impact then, these were adventures of ideas.
