42 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
42 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
# The Myth of Norumbega
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- The first person to put "Norumbega" on a map was Giacomo
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Gastaldi.[@KirsNor98, 34]
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- "Once Giacomo Gastaldi had placed a fully fledged country of *Nurumberg* on
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his map *Tierra Nueva*, in an edition of Ptolemy's Geography published in
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Venice in 1548, geographical ignorance allowed the non-existent land to
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flourish on innumerable other maps and globes. Thus until well into the
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second half of the seventeenth century, the mythical country of Norumbega
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continued to appear on maps."[@KirsNor98, 34]
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- "Just about everything concerning Norumbega is in dispute. The two generally
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agreed facts are: that in the mid-sixteenth century the name Norumbega
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referred to the Penobscot Bay area and, by extension, to what is now Maine
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and southern New Brunswick (an area of roughly between 44 and 46 degrees
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north); and that the name itself was spawned by a small inlet labeled
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*oranbega* on the maps drawn by Girolamo de Verrazzano in 1529 to illustrate
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his brother's account of a voyage made five years previously."[@KirsNor98,
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35]
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- As with most myths, the facts such as they are vary widely between sources.
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- The name "Norumbega" has a complicated history, unclear what its origin
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was. Horsford claimed it was a native word that was a corruption of a
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viking one.
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- "Two other statements are also uncontentious: that in the sixteenth century
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the region of Norumbega was attracting English would-be colonists, and that
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once sufficient firsthand knowledge reached Europe from early attempts at
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settlement and from further exploration, both the cartographical Norumbega
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and the tales associated with it entirely disappeared."[@KirsNor98, 35]
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- Except by Horsford and others in the later 18th.
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- "Many Renaissance cosmographers subscribed to the philosophy of natural
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harmony. It rested on the idea that the physical world was governed by laws
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ensuring perfect equilibrium."[@KirsNor98, 35]
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- Cartography wasn't really a science, had philosophical aspects as well.
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- "Accordingly, when Europeans heard about the New World, they anticipated that
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it would contain at least an embryonic counterpart of features of the
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geography and human behaviour of the Old World."[@KirsNor98, 35]
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- **Europeans went to the New World looking for the Old**, for what they had
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known and what was familiar.
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\pagebreak
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# References
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