Ligabue Magazine 9

18.00

Second semester 1986
Year V

One of the most priceless works bequeathed us by tbe great Humanist Giovan Battista Ramusio was a book he published between 1550 and 1559 under the title «Concerning Navigators and their Voyages», and which still provides the best of models for anyone intending to edit a collection of reports of journeys and geographical studies. Ramusio was an extremely learned man, with an elegant command of Latin and Greek and a knowledge of several oriental languages; at Padua University he had been a pupil of the great Pietro Pomponazzi and maintained his dose friendship with the philosopher even when, after he had taken up an appointment in the Chancellery of tbe Republic of Venice, it was not without its risks to be associated with a man whose celebrated essay on the immortality of the soul had been ceremonially burned in public by order of the Bishop.

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* Digital versions from no. 1 to 57 are obtained from a scan of the Magazine. They may therefore have imperfections in the display of texts and images.

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Ramusio was a man of such strength of character and such great learning that he was highly respected in spite of his spirit of independence; he was appointed as Secretary to the Venetian Senate when scarcely thirty years of age and amongst the many delicate tasks entrusted to him in this period was that of negotiating with Cabot when the navigator offered his services to Venice.

His vast culture and his familiarity with many illustrious literary figures, scientists and explorers of his day enabled him to make his exemplary collection of reports of the most famous journeys and voyages from antiquity up to his own day, from tbe circumnavigation of Africa by the Carthaginian Hanno to the expeditions of Alvise Ca’ da Mosto and Vasco de Gama. His book includes descriptions of Tartary, Persia, Muscovy and as far afield as Peru and Mexico; in short, the whole world, and Louis XII of France tried in vain to entice him to his court with offers of a Chair at the Sorbonne.

This reminder of the greatness of Ramusio on the five hundredtb anniversary of his birth is not so much an act of homage to an incomparable figure, who deserves much more extensive commemoration, for tanto nomini nullum par elogium, and if I have mentioned him here it is rather because we of Ligabue Magazine feel in some way similar to him.

Yes, I grant you that modesty is not foremost among the virtues of journalists, yet though I am aware of the gulf which separates Ramusio from me (and here I speak only for myselt), I can claim some resemblance, at least from a professional point of view. Ramusio never set foot in Africa nor Asia and he would never have had time to sail across the Atlantic, yet he learned a great many things by getting those who had had such experiences to relate them to him.

In fact, to illustrate my point, when I see Giancarlo Ligabue for the first time on his return from some expedition to the Pacific or an African desert or somewhere in South America, I immediately start asking for details of his trip. Which is exactly what I did when he got back from one of his ventures along the Cordillera of the Andes, where he left the Pan-American highway some thousand kilometres to the north of Lima to visit and study the prehistoric monument which has taken the name Sechin from the river which flows nearby and which may have originated as a mausoleum, may have been a shrine at which human sacrifices were made or may, says Ligabue, be a monument commemorating a people’s rebellion at which the perpetrators were bloodily massacred by the ruling oligarchy. Whatever the explanation, the stones of Sechin tell of tragic and terrible events, and the reader will find a careful study of the evidence on page 46. 46.

Let us stay for a moment in fabulous Peru, with an article as evocative as the photographs which accompany it: Hansruedi Dorig, that acknowledged expert on the world of the Incas, shows us how in parts of the country they still make bridges with icchu grass ropes and an almost religious devotion to ritual just as they did centuries ago. The bridges span such fearsome abysses that one only hopes that they are stronger than the one which, despite the protection of Saint Louis of France, collapsed at mid-day on July 2nd 1714 and caused the death of Dona Maria de Montemajor.

Naturally, I could not resist the temptation – on page 102 – to accompany Dorig’s present-day account with the opening pages of that fascinating book by Thornton Wilder «The Bridge of San Luis Rey».
The study of fossils, like that of minerals, often seems a rather arid pursuit to the outsider but such suspicions vanish when one experiences the stimulation a stone can exert on the imagination when it reveals a print left inside it many millions of years ago. On page 124 you will read a description of the fossil beds discovered at Bolca, in the province of Verona, and see how Bruno Berti has managed to tell an intriguing tale of fish and seaweeds that lived 50 and more million years ago.

In our last issue, I mentioned the successful visit of one of our more important contributors, Viviano Domenici, to the National Geographic Magazine and for this issue, on page 64, he has written a report of his visit which I think justifies our pride.

There are fifty-three islands in the Bijagés archipelago, off the coast of Guinea-Bissau, and there in the Bijagés, once reputed to be the haunt of cannibals and head-hunter Fausto Sassi of Swiss Television, who often returns to visit the islands, made a great friend by the name of José, and we are introduced to him on page 76. 76.

Our readers will know the name of Maurizio Leigheb well; this time, on the way back from a trip wandering around the Pacific, he stopped on the vast plains between the two legendary rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates and on page 24 he describes an area where they still use a boat called a mashuf which has remained practically unchanged for almost five thousand years!

Our friend the researcher Lenora Carey, another good sailor, has an intimate knowledge of the Indonesian island of Lambata, and on page 88 she takes us aboard a peledang to experience the thrill of whale-hunting, and incidentally tells us what use the natives of the island make of car-springs.

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