Proof, Witnessing, and the Credibility of Monsters in the Renaissance

Sir Walter Ralegh’s Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana (London, 1596) promised a gold-rich empire for England. It derives from the only known exemplar of a few fair copies of Ralegh’s first draft, which he circulated for advice and comments. This exemplar was edited and annotated by Sir Robert Cecil, Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary of State; Cecil ratified the work for circulation to potential sponsors of a new gold-hunting expedition to Guiana. While Cecil expunged references to spleen stones, the bacchanalian distractions of Guiana for drunkards, womanizers and tobacco-smokers, and a mysterious beast called Jawari, he left untouched Ralegh’s discussions of Amazons and of a headless people with faces in their chests.

These discussions of headless men and Amazons prompt us to ask why Ralegh and Cecil would have included them in a work conceived to authenticate claims about a gold-rich empire whose riches had yet to be unearthed. In this paper I shall interrogate the work that these spectacular claims performed, and how and why Ralegh and Cecil might have expected them to perform it. I then analyse the reception of the concept of headless people among the first artisans to illustrate them: the Amsterdam mapmakers of the workshop of Jodocus Hondius the Elder. The varied attempts to evaluate, understand and illustrate these beings reflect broader concerns over how to evaluate testimony about wonders in distant lands, and how those who have not witnessed a wonder might nonetheless participate in making knowledge about it. Comparing the strategies of Ralegh, Cecil and Hondius for producing reliable knowledge about wonders while preserving – even enhancing – their own reputations prompts us to re-think the relationship between wonders and credibility in the Renaissance.