The Editor Who Reshaped Europe's View of the World

This Earthly Globe tells the story of Giovambattista Ramusio, a sixteenth century Venetian editor who compiled Navigationi et Viaggi, a three volume collection of travel journals, exploration accounts and previously restricted government reports. Ramusio drew together material including Marco Polo's writings, which he checked against other sources, along with accounts of North Africa, Asia and the Americas that had rarely reached a wide readership before.

Andrea di Robilant traces how this quietly radical publishing project changed what educated Europeans understood about the wider world, told with the narrative pace familiar from his earlier books on Venetian history.

Di Robilant is an Italian born writer and former journalist, now teaching creative writing in Rome, and author of several works of narrative history including A Venetian Affair. The book will interest readers drawn to the history of exploration, cartography and the Renaissance world of ideas.

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