| Authorship Notes |
The 'Methodus apodemica' aimed at systematically instructing the reader in the art of profiting from the experience of travel. Its argument proceeds according to Aristotelian logic. Book I gives an overview of travel through a lengthy table of definitions with examples from literature and history. Book II - again composed almost entirely of a lengthy table - gives moral and practical advice for travellers seeking to improve themselves. Book III gives descriptions of Basel, Paris, Padua, and classical Athens, intended as models for the descriptions of foreign cities by future travellers. Book IV gives a schema for describing foreign countries according to the categories 'locus', 'locatum', and 'actio'.
Stagl suggests that the 'Methodus' 'remained an accepted authority on the theory of travel until late into the 17th century, although it was always more praised than read' (58). See Justin Stagl, A History of Curiosity (1995), pp. 57-62, see also Paola Molino, Alle origini della Methodus Apodemica di Theodor Zwinger: la collaborazione di Hugo Blotius, fra empirismo ed universalismo, 'Codices Manuscripti. Zeitschrift fűr Handschriftenkunde', LV-LVI, (2006), pp. 43-68. |
