travel. The young Englishmen who visited Italy in the sec-
ond half of the 16th century, for instance, promoted an in-
terest in the Italian language and literature, which
manifested itself in translations of works ranging from
bawdy tales to moral tracts. Books on morals and manners
seem to have achieved a particularly wide circulation in
translation. Castiglione’s Il cortegiano (1528; see COURTIER,
THE) progressed quickly into Spanish (1534) and French
(1538), then English (1561) and Polish (1566), and a
Latin version in 1571. A trilingual (Latin, French, Span-
ish) version of Il Galateo (1558) by DELLA CASAappeared
in 1598. Guevara’s Reloj de príncipes (1539) spawned
French, Italian, and English versions within two decades
of publication. The admiration accorded to Ariosto’s OR-
LANDO FURIOSOas the preeminent epic of the early Re-
naissance is reflected in numerous partial or complete
translations: into Spanish (1549), a French prose version
(1555), Latin extracts (1588), English (1591; see HARING-
TON, SIR JOHN), Dutch (1615), and German (1636), among
others. Two Spanish prose narratives that attracted the
translators and became influential throughout Europe in
their respective genres were the pastoral romance LA
DIANA(1559) by Jorge de Montemayor and Cervantes’s
novel DON QUIXOTE.
See also: TRANSLATION
transport See COMMUNICATIONS
transubstantiation The Roman Catholic doctrine that,
at a priest’s consecrating words, the deep reality (the “sub-
stances”) of the bread and wine in the Eucharist becomes
the body and blood of Christ, although the appearance (or
“accidents”) of the elements remains unchanged. The doc-
trine became a matter of fierce controversy in the 16th
century, when it was repudiated as unscriptural and idol-
atrous by leading reformers. In its place LUTHERtaught a
relatively conservative doctrine of “consubstantiation,” in
which the substances of the bread and wine are held to co-
exist with the substances of Christ’s body and blood. The
Swiss Protestant ZWINGLIwent much further, insisting
that the Eucharistic elements are mere symbols, while
Calvinists and most Anglicans held an intermediate posi-
tion, in which Christ was considered to be spiritually but
not physically present (see REAL PRESENCE). As the 16th
century progressed, the Catholic Church increased its em-
phasis on the importance of transubstantiation, as it pro-
vided a unifying belief, distinguishing Roman faith from
Protestant objections. Pius IV underlined papal commit-
ment to transubstantiation in a Bull of 1565.
travel Travel during the Renaissance was essentially a
serious matter, undertaken with a definite goal in mind
and, because of the many perils and discomforts that
beset it, never embarked on lightly. The concept of travel
for leisure or pleasure-seeking was unheard-of, although
there is evidence, increasing toward the end of the period,
of a minority for whom the experience of travel itself and
the acquisition of knowledge about foreign places and
people were the paramount objectives. The Renaissance
coincided with the start of the great age of European EX-
PLORATION, but of course not all journeys were undertaken
as trail-blazing voyages of discovery; travel in more or less
known lands—Europe, the Mediterranean basin, the Near
East—also played an important part in the fabric of Re-
naissance experience.
Travelers’ narratives of the late Middle Ages and Re-
naissance are the work of the very small number of people
who had both the incentive and the financial means to
travel as well as some specific purpose in mind in writing
up their experiences. There were four main categories of
motive: military, religious, mercantile, and diplomatic. A
war or crusade was obviously an occasion that took large
numbers of men far from home, but the ordinary illiterate
soldier left no written record. PILGRIMAGEwas another oc-
casion for travel, and here there are a number of surviving
accounts written primarily for the edification of the pious
at home but often also containing valuable information on
travel conditions en route to the major pilgrim destina-
tions of Rome, Jerusalem, and Santiago de Compostela.
Pilgrimage is also significant in that it was almost the only
respectable pretext on which a woman could travel.
Within Europe and the Near East, trade and commerce
were prime motives for travel, as they were for exploration
further afield. As far as DIPLOMACYis concerned, papal en-
voys and other ecclesiastics had always traversed Chris-
tendom on Church business, but in the Renaissance they
were joined by a growing number of secular legations.
Long-distance land travel in Europe still relied to
some degree on the old network of Roman roads, now
much decayed. In a feudal society the lack of any central-
ized body charged with repairing roads meant that the
local peasantry had to be coerced into doing the work as a
form of forced labor. The generally poor condition of the
roads meant that wheeled traffic was a rarity, and most
travelers relied on horses to cover any significant distance,
while the poorest walked; goods were mainly carried on
mules. Rivers were often a major barrier; to cross them the
choice lay between narrow wooden bridges or ferries be-
hind which the travelers’ horses and pack animals had to
swim. Mountains were an even more serious obstacle; the
passes of the Alps had a fearsome reputation for
avalanches, storms, and robbers, though the plight of trav-
elers was somewhat eased by the building of hospices on
major routes such as the St. Gotthard and Great St.
Bernard passes. Different countries and localities had dif-
ferent measures of distance, so journey lengths were gen-
erally reckoned in hours or days. An official courier on a
main route with regular changes of horses could make
much better time than an ordinary traveler relying entirely
upon his own beast.44770 0 ttrraannssppoorrtt