Summary

Giovanni Battista Ramusio (July 20, 1485, Treviso, Venice) was a Venetian geographer, historian, and statesman. The founder of the genre of compilation of travelogues popular in the epoch of great geographical discoveries (Gaklut, Purches.

He was born in Venice in 1485 into the family of a city magistrate. By the age of thirty he had become chancellor of the Republic of Venice, working closely with Doge Alvise Mocenigo. From 1515 he was secretary of the Council of Ten. He had a son, Paolo.

He carried out several diplomatic missions as ambassador to France, Switzerland and Rome. A refined diplomat and proficient in several languages, he was appointed ambassador of the Republic of Venice to the European court of Louis XII. During this period he became interested in French expansion in North America. At this time the Republic of Venice was interested in maritime routes to the Americas, which was seen as an attractive new market for Venetian trade, as the latter suffered from pressure and the Ottoman advance in the Mediterranean. Thanks to his diplomatic connections, he easily succeeded in obtaining reports of the travels of the Breton navigator Jacques Cartier, sent by King Francis I to New France.

At the same time he demonstrated his ability to draw geographical maps and made detailed maps of all the new trading ports. A map with the ports of the Mediterranean was drawn by him in the rooms of the Doge's palace.

His major work, Delle Navigationi et Viaggi, is the first collection of geographical treatises of the modern age.

The work was published in Venice in three volumes [vol. 1-1550, vol. 3-1556, vol. 2-1559 (published posthumously)]. The first volume was published in 1550, soon followed by the third volume in 1556. Publication of the second volume was delayed because the manuscript was destroyed in a fire before being sent to the printer, and was finally published in 1559, two years after the author's death. "Delle navigationi et viaggi" was translated into several languages and reprinted several times, indicating the great popularity of the book on the continent.

This monumental work was one of the first to be written in the literary genre of the compilation travelogue. Like other authors of such works, Giovanni Ramusio himself never left Europe.

Delle navigationi et viaggi is a compilation of geographic observations and descriptions by Marco Polo, Nicolo Conti, Fernand Magellan, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Josaphat Barbaro, and a translation of Leo the African's Africa, the Third Part of the World. The work is a valuable source describing the histories of geographic discovery and exploration in Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

It is in this work that the map La Terra De Hochelaga Nella Nova Francia first describes Mount Mont Royal as Monte Reale and gives a schematic representation of the Iroquois village of Hochelaga, the first agglomeration of the future city of Montreal. The Navigationi e Viaggi maps were created by Giacomo Gastaldi.

Marco Polo's account can be found in the second (first edition) or third volume of Navigazioni e Viaggi. The text is rewritten, with numerous modifications and additions, sometimes important (the assassination of Ahmat, the description of Hangzhou, the deletion of Marco's name in the chapter on Xianyang). This text by Ramusio served as the basis for the first scholarly edition of Marco Polo, published by W. Marsden in 1812.

Sources

1. Giovanni Battista Ramusio
2. Рамузио, Джованни Баттиста
3. 1 2 3 4 Большая советская энциклопедия: [в 30 т.] / под ред. А. М. Прохорова — 3-е изд. — М.: Советская энциклопедия, 1969.
4. 1 2 3 Рамузио (Ramusio) Джованни Баттиста - статья в Большой советской энциклопедии. // БСЭ.
5. Claire Jowitt. Richard Hakluyt and Travel Writing in Early Modern Europe. — CRC Press, 2016-03-23. — 399 с. — ISBN 978-1-317-06310-0.
6. Peter Burke. Social History of Knowledge: From Gutenberg to Diderot. — John Wiley & Sons, 2013-06-06. — 278 с. — ISBN 978-0-7456-7686-9.
7. Giovanni Battista Ramusio. Secondo volume delle nauigationi et viaggi, raccolto gia da m. Gio. Battista Ramusio, et hora in questa nuoua editione accresciuto: nel quale si contengono l'Historia delle cose de Tartari, & diuersi fatti de' loro imperatori, descritta da m. Marco Polo gentil'huomo venetiano & da Hayton Armeno. Varie descrittioni di diuersi auttori,... et il viaggio della Tana. Con la descrittione de' nomi de' popoli,... Aggiuntoui in questa vltima editione la Descrittione dell'vna e dell'altra Sarmatia,... Con l'indice ... — appresso i Giunti, 1583. — 608 с.
8. ^ Alessandro Marzo Magno, Bound in Venice: The Serene Republic and the Dawn of the Book, Europa, 1º ottobre 2013, ISBN 978-1-60945-152-3. URL consultato il 23 agosto 2022.
9. a et b Treccani, art. Ramusio, Giovanni Battista (lire en ligne).
10. a et b Gadrat 2010.
11. Voir liste en italien.
12. ^ Aloisio Mocenigo,[2] also sometimes named as Alvise, and so confused with his later-era kinsmen and doges of Venice: Alvise I Mocenigo, Alvise II Mocenigo and Alvise Giovanni Mocenigo. Aloisio, probably with Ramusio's aid, sourced in France - and brought back to Venice - a hitherto unknown early manuscript of Pliny the Younger's Letters. This version of Pliny was printed in 1508 by the Aldine Press[3][4]