Mapping South American Promises: Potosí, Brazil, and European Visions

Andréa Doré (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

268 Seiten

2025
Brill (Verlag)
9789004695108 (ISBN)

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Based on maps, cosmographies, and travel accounts, this book explores a period when South America was called Peruana. The main attraction on the continent was the Potosí mountain, which influenced not only the description of the lands, but also exploration projects in Brazil.

“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.

Andréa Doré, Ph.D., is Full Professor of Early Modern History at the Universidade Federal do Paraná, Brazil. Her main interests are the Iberian territories in the early modern period, with an emphasis on their geographical descriptions through maps and reports. She has published several articles and book chapters on these topics, as well as the book Sitiados. Os cercos às fortalezas portuguesas na Índia (Alameda 2010).

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

Erscheinungsdatum	11.09.2025
Reihe/Serie	Mapping the Past ; 7
Verlagsort	Leiden
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 235 mm
Gewicht	622 g
Themenwelt	Schulbuch / Wörterbuch ► Lexikon / Chroniken
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Hilfswissenschaften
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geografie / Kartografie
ISBN-13	9789004695108 / 9789004695108
Zustand	Neuware