Animals from the far lands: a catalog of the species described by travelers between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries

• Grant number: 17/12152-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: January 01, 2018
• End date: November 30, 2021
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History - Ancient and Medieval History
• Principal Investigator: Maria Cristina Correia Leandro Pereira
• Grantee: Rafael Afonso Gonçalves
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 13/14786-6 - Writings on new worlds: a history of the construction of moral values in Portuguese, AP.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 18/18451-2 - 'O Livro de Duarte Barbosa': a study of the sixteenth century account of the Portuguese traveller, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to develop a catalog of the animals described in travel accounts to Asia and África, produced during the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. During this period, a significant number of European Christians launched in travels to destinations far beyond the limits of Christianity, such as India, China, Mongolia and the African coasts. To tell their countrymen what they had seen in those unknown lands, many of these travellers decided to write their own memories and impressions. Among the plural descriptions on these reports, the ones about the animals that inhabited those lands - some completely unknown, others familiar to them - draws attention. The aim of this research, therefore, is to promote an accurate cataloging of the species mentioned by travelers, seeking to know, among other things, how those animals were named and classified, in which places they were commonly found, what were their main characteristics and behaviors and how they were used by the natives.