Christophe Colomb Decouvre L’Amerique

Histoires De Carres > Automne-Hiver 2009

Realised for the five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, this carre pictures the drifting caravel Santa Maria, on board which the navigator discovered the island of Guanahani (San Salvador) on the 12th October 1492, which in fact he thought he was beaching in India. On the right and left, the hemispheres of Behain's globe illustrate the knowledge of contemporary cartographers, whose imprecision led Columbus to think that India was closer than it really was. At the top is the frontispiece of Les Voyages, the work by Theodore de Bry (1528-1598), famous for his pictorial descriptions of the first European expeditions in America.