After 1550, Europe was flooded by literature on the overseas territories opened up by the explorer and trader. The collections of the Venetian scholar Gian Battista Ramusio, whose three-volume Delle navigazioni e viaggibegan to appear in 1550, were typical of the best in travel accounts. Their publication was both symptom and cause of a curiosity about the outside world, and an acceptance of the colonial destiny, that confirmed Europe's will to expansion. In these accounts the literate public, and through them the non-reading public, could acquaint themselves with realities far removed from the fabulous and fantastic compilations, descriptions of bisexual monstrosities and dog-headed men, with which their fathers had been regaled.