ABSTRACT

During the Renaissance, European geographical discoveries were mostly made by sailing beyond the horizon, for which the explorers also needed to search beyond the boundaries of language. Accordingly, the relationship between things and words, res et verba, was a ubiquitous theme in early modern scientific debates, and translators participated in them as practitioners working across tongues and media in each translational act. This chapter analyzes a translation that became the first scientific geographical treatise about the “New World” in English, and addresses experience in the premodern practices of translation through two prisms: the experiences of the translating subject, showcasing the agency of the premodern translator in conveying novel experiences through a synthetic insight and crafting new meanings across scientiae; and experience as an object repurposed in the twists of cultural translation that helped make geographical exploration a public enterprise.