André Thevet (/təˈveɪ/;French:[təvɛ]; 1516 – 23 November 1590) was a FrenchFranciscanpriest,explorer,cosmographer and writer who travelled to theNear East andSouth America. His most significant book wasThe New Found World, or Antarctike, which compiled a number of different sources and his own experience into what purported to be a firsthand account of his experiences inFrance Antarctique, a French settlement near modernRio de Janeiro,Brazil.
Thevet was born inAngoulême, in southwesternFrance. At ten years of age, he entered theconvent of Franciscans of Angoulême. He visited Italy at the same time asGuillaume Rondelet. In 1549, thanks to the support ofJohn, Cardinal of Lorraine, he embarked on an extended exploration trip to Asia, Greece, Rhodes,[1]Palestine andEgypt. He accompanied the French ambassadorGabriel de Luetz toIstanbul.
Almost immediately after the expedition, he set sail again as thechaplain of the fleet ofNicolas Durand de Villegaignon, which intended to establish a French colony near what is nowRio de Janeiro,Brazil.[2] Thevet arrived there on 10 November 1555 but only stayed in the colony for about 10 weeks before returning to France.[2] He was made an almoner toCatherine de Médici and later was employed by the king.[2]
Thevet claimed in hisHistoire de deux voyages inaccurately to have accompaniedGuillaume Le Testu to America in 1550.[2]
Thevet died in Paris on 23 November 1590.[2]
Soon after Thevet's return to France from the Near East in 1554, he published an account of his voyage under the titleCosmographie du Levant.
On his return from the Americas, Thevet published a book titledLes singularitez de la France Antarctique in 1557.[3][4] Although purportedly based on his own firsthand experiences, Thevet also used previous published sources, as well as verbal accounts from other explorers and sailors and from indigenous Canadians who had been brought back to France.[2] Thevet later settled a court case with another scholar, who claimed to have been responsible for the actual writing.[3] An edition was printed in Antwerp byPlantin in 1558, and an English edition,The New Found World, or Antarctike, was printed in 1568.
Thevet's use of such a variety of sources not otherwise printed, despite the considerable errors and contradictions, means that his work remains valuable for the ethnography ofEastern Canada andBrazil .[2]Les singularitez de la France Antarctique contains the first descriptions in European texts of plants such as themanioc,pineapple,peanut andtobacco, as well as of the animalsmacaw,sloth andtapir.[5] The text also includes an account ofcannibalism that was one of the influences onMontaigne's essay on cannibalism.[3]
Once Thevet was established as cosmographer to the French court, he compiled hisCosmographie Universelle, intended to describe every part of the known world. A dispute arose with a collaborator, François de Belleforest, who left Thevet's employ to publish his ownCosmographie in 1572 before Thevet's work finally appeared in 1575.
In 1584, Thevet published a collection of biographies,Vrais pourtraits et vies des homes illustres, which was critical of Protestants. He left two unpublished manuscripts. One,Grand Insulaire, was an almanac of islands, and the other,Histoire de deux voyages, was an account of his travels.
