Abstract
Columbus' first letter on his revolutionary discoveries was first published in Spanish, but soon spread all over Europe in its Latin version. The first history of America was originally written in Latin by the Italian humanist Peter Martyr and the world came to know about its first circumnavigation again through a Latin text, written by the emperor's secretary Maximilianus Transylvanus. The role of the Latin language in this important phase of European historiography has always been limited to its function as the international European idiom. But even in the renaissance writing and reading in Latin was not as popular as English would be today. The true function of the Latin language in the historiography of early discoveries lies in its ability to integrate the experience of strange new worlds into European culture and thinking. Latinization worked as assimilation and played an imported role in the institution of a new, globalized European identity.
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