“There is no land unhabitable nor sea innavigable”

With this widely quoted phrase, in the 1520s, the merchant Robert Thorne the younger encouraged the English Crown to become actively involved in oceanic explorations. Thorne’s idea was to invest resources on a northern route to the East. The letter was addressed to Edward Lee, Henry VIII’s ambassador to Spain. We know that Thorne belonged to a Bristol circle of wealthy merchants, and that his family, especially, was deeply engaged in trade with the Iberian market. The close contacts established with Portugal and Spain over the years brought him extensive knowledge of new discoveries. It is indeed likely that his adventurous father, Robert Thorne the elder, had even boarded a ship to cross the Atlantic.

All these factors encouraged the younger Thorne to spend an important period of his life in Seville, a privileged port for oceanic navigation, where he became acquainted with the piloto mayor Sebastiano Caboto. Thorne could not remain indifferent to the cornucopia of treasures carried from the New World by the Iberian expeditions. Everyday life in Seville allowed him to touch with his hands images of undreamed-of lands full of riches. Thorne’s efforts seemed to vanish with his death in 1532, but his words were not forgotten. At the end of the 16th century, Richard Hakluyt printed Thorne’s letter three times.

Between Thorne’s death in 1532 and the first edition of his letter in 1582, England developed an increasing interest in opening trade to faraway places. In this slow process of awareness, the reception of Iberian nautical treatises and accounts of the new discoveries played a key role. The most relevant texts were circulating in their original editions as well as in translation.

Among others, the Breve compendio de la sphera (1551) of Martín Cortés de Albacar was particularly appreciated by English seamen. Translated first into English by Richard Eden in 1561, it went through many editions and was still being published in 1630. The same translator published in 1555 an English version of Pietro Martire’s book, which contained additions including a large part of Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés’ work (The Decades of the New World or West India). Some authors believe that Sir Francis Drake was navigating with Pedro de Medina’s Arte de navegar in hand. The book was very popular, but it was not translated into English until 1581. Martín Fernández de Enciso’s Suma de geographia (1519) was translated into English by John Frampton in 1578. Enciso’s way of writing has echoes of the textual genre of those sailing directions which were among the first ever printed for overseas travelling. While in a pathless ocean, as navigators, explorers, pilots and common people were trying to trace long-distance routes, improving their navigational know-how, Iberian books were the ones setting the framework for a world-scale change of mentality. [Luana Giurgevich]