Shaping the Antipodes: Travel Narratives and Geographical Imagination in the Making of Pars Quinta.

MARTINEZ, CAROLINA

Dublin

Simposio; International Symposium on the History of Geographical Thought. Geographies of Identities and Imaginations.; 2019

University College Dublin, Belfield

One of the most lasting effects of the first European circumnavigation of the Globe (1519-1522) was reaffirming the hypothetical existence of Pars Quinta. When first discovered by the Spanish expedition, Tierra del Fuego was, in fact, considered the promontory of a yet undiscovered landmass covering the furthermost latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. In the early 17th century, far from discouraging the search of Terra Australis, the Dutch circumnavigation of the island further strengthened its theoretical existence. The political and economic expectations built around the discovery of Pars Quinta gave way to a geographical imagination that materialized in several cultural productions. Maps, charts, and atlases hinted at the existence of a fifth part of the world, cartographically recreated its appearance and location, and included a series of allegorical representations of the yet-to-be-found land. Abraham Ortelius s Typus Orbis Terrarum (1570) presented the detailed contours of an impressive Terra Australis across the Globe?s southern latitudes, while Guillaume Le Testu s 1556 Cosmographie Universelle dedicated entire sections to the possible riches and landscapes to be found in an Austral Land drawn que par imagination. Similarly, Henri-Lancelot Voisin de la Popelinière s Les Trois Mondes (1582) insisted on the advantages its eventual discovery would bring to France. An in-depth analysis of these sources shows that, due to its elusive nature, Terra Australis was of particular political and economic interest to the European rivals of the Iberian Crowns. This paper proposes that the ambiguous geographical nature of Terra Australis did not deter further exploration of the South Seas. On the contrary, due to this ambiguity, it became an object of speculation as well as a driving force of overseas expansion in the Early Modern Age.