IMAGENS DO MUNDO NATURAL ASIÁTICO NA OBRA BOTÂNICA DE CRISTÓVÃO DA COSTA基斯杜化‧高士德植物學著作中有關亞洲自然世界的圖像
The article analyzes how Cristóvão da Costa constructs, in his *Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales*, images of the “Asian natural world,” interrogating the relationship between travel experience, medical-natural knowledge, and visual culture. Starting from the hypothesis tha...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
October 2006
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40020/3735 |
| Summary: | The article analyzes how Cristóvão da Costa constructs, in his *Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales*, images of the “Asian natural world,” interrogating the relationship between travel experience, medical-natural knowledge, and visual culture. Starting from the hypothesis that iconography functions not merely as illustration but as a device for credibilization and translation of the distant for European audiences, the author mobilizes a comparative reading between textual descriptions and the engravings inserted in the work. The methodology thus relies on iconographic analysis and philological contextualization of passages in which the author claims direct contact with plants and practices (for example, tamarind, cinnamon, “sad tree,” stops in Goa, Cochin, and Malabar), confronting them with cases in which pictorial fidelity seems more problematic. The study suggests that, while certain species exhibit greater proximity to what was observed, others—originating from distant regions for which there is no evidence of personal testimony—may reveal mediation by sources, circulation of models, and limits of observation. It concludes that the images of nature in Costa articulate empirical authority, encyclopedic pedagogy, and mechanisms of cultural imagination, revealing an ecology of knowledge constructed between travel, printing, and knowledge networks. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |