An Avis Japonica in the Vatican? The nature of the Orient in late 16th century Rome

Abstract

The article explores the relationship between late 16th-century Rome and the nature of an extreme Orient, starting with the case of the arrival in the city of the popes of a female specimen of a rare bird too quickly named Avis Japonica by the papal physician Michele Mercati. At first, the reflection focuses on the presence and significance of this bird within the epistemological and geopolitical world that Mercati defined by the Vatican between the space of a museum and the pages of a book to both of which he gave the name Metallotheca. Then, following the traces of other birds that presented identical characteristics to the Avis called Japonica among the historiae, representations and naturalistic collections of 16^th century Europe, the analysis dwells on the epistemological, symbolic and political difficulties and implications that the study of the nature of distant worlds could assume in the papal Rome.