Abstract

This paper intends to consider a epochmaking experience for the west European society, caused by the discovery of the New World: the crossing over the borders of the consolidated knowledge and of the domesticated spaces of Mediterranean Europe, and then the projection onto the reconfiguration and the refoundation of a new vision of the world. A new vision that is constructed on this triple dynamism – travelling, discovering, knowing – from then on part of the European historic consciousness and its cultural memory.