Personification of the Americas

The addition of America made these an even more attractive group to represent visually, as sets of four could be placed around all sorts of four-sided objects, or in pairs along the facade of a building with a central doorway.

America is often accompanied by an improbably placid caiman or alligator, reasonably comparable to Old World crocodiles, though the earliest images may show an exotic armadillo.

The very notion of a continent was uncertain,[4] and contemporary intellectuals tried to integrate the newly-discovered lands into the already complicated and disputed picture of world geography inherited from the Ancient Greeks.

Although not at all involved in the exploration of the Americas (the Habsburgs had by the 1520s made it very difficult for any Italians to travel there), the Medicis were very interested in them, and had acquired a good collection of artifacts, plants, and animals.

He says the naked New Spain held a "pine cone", no doubt intended to be a pineapple, and Peru "had with her a sheep with a long neck" – a llama.

[8] Depictions of America included exotic background details, especially fauna unknown in Europe such as "the parrot or macaw, turtle, armadillo, tapir, sloth, jaguar, and alligator.

"[9] However, the tattoos worn by both sexes, which astonished early writers, were omitted by artists based in Europe, though drawn by travelers.

[10] While Europe possessed the image of a noble or a Roman goddess, America "was usually envisioned as a rather fierce savage – only slightly removed in type from the medieval tradition of the wild man.

Coming from the "very exotic kingdom of Persia," the plate depicts the Persian diplomat Mohammad Reza Beg with his entourage, almost all men with turbans, moustaches, distinctive noses, and robes, some bearing falchions.

There, Europe is seen, in accordance with Ripa's depiction, as being the most nobly clad, in addition to being surrounded by relics of art, science, and the church.

[13] In addition to these disparate degrees of civility in their depictions, here Europe and America are shown to be in a direct relationship of religious superiority and subservience.