COLUMBIAN ICONOGRAPHY NUOVA RACCOLTA COLOMBIANA

Let us go back to Christopher Columbus, to his diary of his first journey, as well as some of his other writings. The originality of the sites confronting the Discoverer, new landscapes, a flora and fauna never seen before, and even human beings different from Europeans, seems to often excite the senses of the Navigator and his mates, but it was hard to convey. His observation is striking. Gerbi wrote that through Columbus's eyes America had 'emblematic parrots and lizards. Myriads of singing birds fill the sky while the ocean is teeming with shoals of playful, multi-coloured fish.' Landscape and nature, portraits, feather-dressed natives, pygmies fighting cranes, depictions of the fountains of youth, engravings, ink, watercolour, gold and silver on paper illustrations plus woodcuts, there is even iconography on cannibalism. 655 pages on special watermarked Italian paper, profusely illustrated, much in colour. Printed on special watermarked paper (as in all this series) in Rome, 1996 First Edition.