Chapter 20

Latin literature on the “discovery” of America

The paper examines some aspects of the cultural impact of the Discovery of America on European Latin literary production. The difficulties of linguistic communication between European travelers and Native Americans and the solutions adopted in terms of language and vocabulary in the Decades de orbe novo of Peter Martyr of Anghiera are analyzed; in this text some themes are already present that will live on in the Latin epic literature with “Columbian” themes in the sixteenth century, such as the Syphilis by Girolamo Fracastoro, the De navigatione Christophori Columbi by Lorenzo Gambara and the Columbeis by Giulio Cesare Stella. Particular attention is dedicated to the progressive identification of Columbus with the Virgil’s Aeneas (as well as of the oceanic journey with the wanderings of Aeneas in the Mediterranean Sea), and to the birth of the myth of the “noble savage” in relation to the projection of the classical myth of the aurea aetas on the simple and gentle life of Native Americans.