Renaissance satire has long been a neglected field of study, which is most likely due to the difficulty decoding its targets, to its nonliterary utilitarian purpose, and to the menace of invective that always hovers over the satirical metagenre. This study aims at two objectives: to retrace the formal development of early modern satire by showing how the blending of four disparate traditions — Roman satura, Greek satyr play, Menippean satire, and medieval popular theater — created a form that not only dominated the period, but also laid the groundwork for the development of the modern variants of satire. This pivotal moment in the history of satire then gives way to the second objective: a concrete illustration of this theoretical development in the four authentic Pantagrueline chronicles of François Rabelais, an ideal case study that will considerably enhance the understanding of early modern satire in all its implications and intricacies.

An analysis of Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s 1583 expedition to North America, which was England’s first attempt at colonization beyond Britain, shows that the nation’s earliest expansionists perceived the significance of maps in supporting colonization. Gilbert recruited several specialists, including John Dee and Richard Hakluyt, who expended considerable time and resources conducting research for their maps and drawing up plans to survey the colony. A thorough examination of Gilbert’s sea chart and terrestrial maps clarifies how his circle used them to promote the expedition, to guide it to North America, and to assert their control over the territory. Scholars often depict early modern English colonizers as having little interest in cartographic materials, but Gilbert and his supporters proved that maps served a number of vital functions in preparing and executing a colonizing expedition.

One of the most prevalent metaphors for conversion in early modern England was the cure of a diseased soul. This article draws together religious controversy, medical manuals, and individual accounts of conversion to chart the variety of sources that inform this metaphor, from the practical experience of the sickbed to the typological traditions of biblical interpretation. It explores the varied language of spiritual sickness in order to reevaluate both the operations of religious feeling and recent accounts of metaphor as embodied, and suggests instead that conversionary cures open up the category of imagined sensation and the complex connections between bodily and spiritual feeling in this period.

The focus of this article is a vast seventeenth-century panorama of Constantinople, which is an exceptional drawing of the city, currently displayed at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The panorama is an elaborate piece of anti-Ottoman propaganda designed by the Franciscan friar Niccolò Guidalotto da Mondavio. Guidalotto also prepared a large manuscript, held in the Vatican Library, which details the panorama’s meaning and the motivation behind its creation. It depicts the city as seen from across the Golden Horn in Galata, throwing new light on both the city and the relationships between the rival Venetian Republic and the Ottoman Empire. It also trumpets the unalloyed Christian zeal of Niccolò Guidalotto and serves as a fascinating example of visual Crusade propaganda against the Ottomans in the early modern period.