Between the far and the near: good and beauty in the early Portuguese travels

Abstract

Fifteenth century's Portuguese writings about African lands let emerge certain recurrent impressions on perfection ideals that do not hide the ethical basis on which they are supported, or rather, the ethic-moral principles upon their foundations are laid can be observed in judgments that indicate a positive or negative evaluation about distant places. This paper undertakes a survey on beauty's attributes regarding specifically people from abroad compared to the ones from the place of origin, for the purpose of observing certain regularities in the Portuguese expansion memory construction - with which also collaborated foreign envoys -, where the dual good and beauty and their corollaries could make intelligible novelties and oddities. Order, magnitude, harmony, prudence, fortitude and adornment, in contrast to bestiality, lack of proportion, physical force, imprudence and starkness, and as well as the inclusion of views on skin color, are some of the aspects explored in reading the historical settings of judgments in question within the specific set of fifteenth century's Portuguese voyages.