A VIAGEM A GOA DO MÉDICO DE HENRIQUE IV亨利四世御醫果亞之旅
The article analyzes the *Voyage à Goa* of Henry IV's physician, attributing to it value as a privileged source for understanding the circulation of natural, colonial, and medico-pharmaceutical knowledge between the Mediterranean/Europe and the Indian subcontinent in the early seventeenth century. T...
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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/40020/3737 |
| Summary: | The article analyzes the *Voyage à Goa* of Henry IV's physician, attributing to it value as a privileged source for understanding the circulation of natural, colonial, and medico-pharmaceutical knowledge between the Mediterranean/Europe and the Indian subcontinent in the early seventeenth century. The author argues that the journey of the apothecary-naturalist Jean Mocquet should not be read merely as an exotic account, but as a practice of observation and collecting oriented by the court, in which the ethnography of plants, medicaments, and "singularities" articulates with the political and cognitive needs of royal power. Methodologically, the text is anchored in a critical reading of the travel account and in available biographical information, reconstructing Mocquet's social position within Henry IV's entourage, as well as the manner in which the narrative transforms empirical experience into classifiable knowledge for European circulation. Among the principal results, the account's function as a mediation between natural/Islamic/Indo-Islamic worlds stands out, as does the tension between admiration of "nature" and utilitarian purposes (medicine and applied botany), and the relevance of the courtly framing in explaining descriptive choices, documentary priorities, and strategies of legitimization of the traveler. The conclusion reinforces that Goa operates as a determining node in this network of cultural and scientific transfer. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |