During the early modern period, western Europe was transormed by the proliferation of new worlds - geographic worlds found in the voyages of discovery and conceptual and celestial worlds opened by natural philosophy or science. The response to incredible overseas encounters and to the profound technological, religious, economic and intellectual changes occurring in Europe was one of nearly overwhelming wonder, expressed in a rich variety of texts. In the need to manage this wonder, to harness this imaginative overabundance, the author of this text finds both the sensational beauty of early...