Introduction: Moving Across, In, and As the World

Summary

In his Confessions, Augustine condemns “concupiscentia oculorum” (“the lust of the eyes”) as being the product of a “vana et curiosa cupiditas” (“vain and curious desire”) that distracts human beings from meditating on God and directs them to terrestrial rather than heavenly destinations. Yet in one of the most poetic passages of Book 10, he writes, “et eunt homines mirari alta montium et ingentes fluctus maris et latissimos lapsus fluminum et oceani ambitum et gyros siderum” (“people are moved to wonder by mountain peaks, by vast waves of the sea, by broad waterfalls on rivers, by the all-embracing extent of the ocean, by the revolutions of the stars”) (10.8.15). A passage on the memory's capacity to produce infinite space – Augustine sees these sites “in memoria… spatiis tam ingentibus quasi foris viderem” (“inwardly in my memory… with the same vast spaces between, as if I saw them abroad”) – takes a sharp detour as he contemplates how human beings move through and are moved by the world around them. People were and are still inspired to traverse the globe in search of its highest peaks and widest canyons, and upon arrival they are stirred by the earth's beauty, power, and grandeur. Even those most dedicated to a “life of the mind” (e.g., Augustine) find themselves drawn toward what lies beyond their books’ bindings. This suggests the impact of mobility on the human experience, underscored still further in the Confessions by the fact that venturing outside will reveal a world that is itself remarkably kinetic. The image Augustine offers is not a static artistic rendering of the natural world – a “landscape” in its original sense from the Dutch landschap – but a place in motion, where water flows and falls, the ocean embraces, and stars revolve. Despite his best efforts to turn his eyes toward God, Augustine is seduced by celestial, terrestrial, and embodied movements, both sensed and thereafter seen in memoria.

Leading up to the fourteenth century, observations like these became increasingly common as pilgrimage, commerce, warfare, and disease encouraged bodies to move through space.