Il continente americano tra immaginazione e rappresentazione dell'ignoto

The discovery of the American continent inspired wonder and incredulity in European man, bewildered by the existence of distant lands inhabited by peo-ples not mentioned in the sacred texts and never reached by Christianity. These places - in the collective imagination mate-rialized as treasure islands or shelters for mythical creatures and monstrous at the same time - slowly became better known and drawn on the maps. The essay briefly reviews the basic steps that in the early modern period led to a progressive un-derstanding of American lands and the reshaping of the world map.