Late-Fifteenth-Century Pilgrim Travelogues as Sources for Reconstructing the Emotional Landscapes Aboard Ships from Venice to the Holy Land

Late medieval and Early modern ships can be compared with tiny cities – for they share all characteristics: the walls, ordnance, population, private and public spaces, officials and the hierarchy, and so many others. While the ship is a confined, almost compressed, physical and social space, people and goods move through it continuously in order to produce a peculiar dynamic of confinement and heterogeneity, even cosmopolitanism. Due to a very confined space aboard ships, all these cultural and emotional exchanges between passengers become intensified. Fears of pirates or storms amplify, but also prayers and hopes of deliverance multiply. Passengers get surprised by the features of the landscape or people in the countries they travel through, their preconceptions compete with the images they see for themselves. This paper reads a selection of travelogues (mostly focusing on Felix Fabri and Pietro Casola) through the aspect of the history and sociology of emotions, as well as from the imagological perspective. Also, some present-day seafaring stressors (physical, psychosocial, and social) and traumatic experiences are compared to those on board a Renaissance pilgrim ship.