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Map of the world, from a manuscript of Il Dittamondo by Fazio degli Uberti (1447). The Dittamondo is a didactic poem composed under Dante’s influence, that describes the known world through an imaginary journey. Like Farinata, his most famous ancestor, Fazio degli Uberti was a Ghibelline.

It’s not possible to fantasize a garden of Eden that would not be, at the same time, a walled garden — to keep strangers out. It also helps to pretend strangers are not quite like us, or demons. This approach is known to fail as soon as the inhabitants of the garden start asking too many questions. (Illustration from a French manuscript of Saint Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, 1400)