Chapter IX: Magellan’s Discovery (7)

[345] Documentary proof, as it was called, has been printed in the _Revue de Paris_, where (August, 1841) it is said that the certificate of Columbus’ marriage has been discovered in Corsica. Cf. Margry, _Navigations Françaises_, p. 357. The views of the Abbé Martin Casanova, that Columbus was born in Calvi in Corsica, and the act of the French President of Aug. 6, 1883, approving of the erection of a monument to Columbus in that town, have been since reviewed by Harrisse in the _Revue critique_ (18 Juin, 1883), who repeats the arguments for a belief in Genoa as the birthplace, in a paper, “Christophe Colomb et la Corse,” which has since been printed separately.

[346] Domingo de Valtanas, _Compendio de cosas notables de España_, Seville, 1550; _Bibl. Amer. Vet.,_ no. 183.

[347] The claim is for Pradello, a village neighboring to Placentia. Cf. Campi, _Historia ecclesiastica di Piacenza,_, Piacenza, 1651-1662, which contains a “discorso historico circa la nascita di Colombo,” etc.; Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, p. 67; Carter-Brown, vol. ii. no. 711.

[348] Napione, in _Mémoires de l’Académie de Turin_ (1805), xii. 116, and (1823) xxvii. 73,—the first part being printed separately at Florence, in 1808, as _Della Patria di Colombo_, while he printed, in 1809, _Del primo scopritore del continente del nuovo mondo_. In the same year J. D. Lanjuinais published at Paris, in reference to Napione, his _Christophe Colomb, ou notice d’un livre Italien concernant cet illustre navigateur_. Cf. the same author’s _Etudes_ (Paris, 1823), for a sketch of Columbus, pp. 71-94; _Dissertazioni di Francesco Cancellieri sopra Colombo_, Rome, 1809; and Vicenzio Conti’s historical account of Montferrat. In 1853 Luigi Colombo, a prelate of the Roman Church, who claimed descent from an uncle of the Admiral, renewed the claim in his _Patria e biografia del grande ammiraglio D. Cristoforo Colombo de’ conti e signori di Cuccaro_, Roma, 1853. Cf. _Notes on Columbus_, p. 73.

[349] _Ragionamento nel quale si confirma l’opinione generale intorno al patria di Cristoforo Colombo_, in vol. iii. of the _Transactions_ of the Society.

[350] A view of the alleged house and chamber in which the birth took place is given in _Harpers’ Monthly_, vol. liv., December, 1876.

[351] In his _Clarorum Ligurum elogia_, where the Genoese were taunted for neglecting the fame of Columbus.

[352] See his will in Navarrete, and in Harrisse’s _Fernan Colon_.

[353] _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, pp. xix, 2.

[354] The claims of Savona have been urged the most persistently. The Admiral’s father, it seems to be admitted, removed to Savona before 1469, and lived there some time; and it is found that members of the Colombo family, even a Cristoforo Colombo, is found there in 1472; but it is at the same time claimed that this Cristoforo signed himself as of Genoa. The chief advocate is Belloro, in the _Corres. Astron. Géograph. du Baron de Zach_, vol. xi., whose argument is epitomized by Irving, app. v. Cf. Giovanni Tommaso Belloro, _Notizie d’atti esistenti nel publico archivio de’ notaj di Savona, concernenti la famiglia di Cristoforo Colombo_, Torino, 1810, reprinted by Spotorno at Genoa in 1821. Sabin (vol. ii. no. 4,565), corrects errors of Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, p. 68. Other claims for these Genoese towns are brought forward, for which see Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_; J. R. Bartlett, in _Historical Magazine_, February, 1868, p. 100; Felice Isnardi’s _Dissertazione_, 1838, and _Nuovi documenti_, 1840, etc. Caleb Cushing in his _Reminiscences of Spain_, i. 292 (Boston, 1833), gave considerable attention to the question of Columbus’ nativity.

[355] Bernardo Pallastrelli’s _Il suocero e la moglie di C. Colombo_ (Modena, 1871; second ed., 1876), with a genealogy, gives an account of his wife’s family. Cf. also _Allgemeine Zeitung_, Beilage no. 118 (1872), and _Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, October, 1873.

[356] Philip Casoni’s _Annali di Genova_, Genoa, 1708.

[357] Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, p. 73. Harrisse, in his _Les Colombo de France et d’Italie, fameux marins du XV^e siècle_, 1461-1492 (Paris, 1874), uses some new material from the archives of Milan, Paris, and Venice, and gathers all that he can of the Colombos; and it does not seem probable that the Admiral bore anything more than a very remote relationship to the family of the famous mariners. Major (_Select Letters_, p. xliii) has also examined the alleged connection with the French sea-leader, Caseneuve, or Colon. Cf. Desimoni’s _Rassegna del nuovo libro di Enrico Harrisse: Les Colombo de France et d’Italie_ (Parigi, 1874, pp. 17); and the appendices to Irving’s _Columbus_ (nos. iv. and vi.) and Harrisse’s _Les Colombo_ (no. vi).

[358] Conferred by the Convention of 1492; ratified April 23, 1497; confirmed by letter royal, March 14, 1502.

[359] Such as New Andalusia, on the Isthmus of Darien, intrusted to Ojeda; and Castilla del Oro, and the region about Veragua, committed to Nicuessa. There was a certain slight also in this last, inasmuch as Don Diego had been with the Admiral when he discovered it.

[360] The ruins of Diego Columbus’ house in Santo Domingo, as they appeared in 1801, are shown in Charton’s _Voyageurs_, iii. 186, and Samuel Hazard’s _Santo Domingo_, p. 47; also pp. 213, 228.

[361] Papers relating to Luis Colon’s renunciation of his rights as Duke of Veraguas, in 1556, are in Peralta’s _Costa Rica, Nicaragua y Panamá_, Madrid, 1883, p. 162.

[362] Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, p. 3. Leclerc (_Bibl. Amer._, no. 137) notes other original family documents priced at 1,000 francs.

[363] The arms granted by the Spanish sovereigns at Barcelona, May 20, 1493, seem to have been altered at a later date. As depicted by Oviedo, they are given on an earlier page. Cf. Lopez de Haro, _Nobiliario general_ (Madrid, 1632), pt. ii. p. 312; Muñoz, _Historia del nuevo mundo_, p. 165; _Notes and Queries_ (2d series), xii. 530; (5th series) ii. 152; _Mem. de la Real Academia de Madrid_ (1852), vol. viii.; Roselly de Lorgues, _Christophe Colomb_ (1856); _Documentos inéditos_ (1861), xxxi. 295; _Cod. diplom. Colombo-Americano_, p. lxx; Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, p. 168; Charlevoix, _Isle Espagnole_, i. 61, 236, and the engraving given in Ramusio (1556), iii. 84. I am indebted to Mr. James Carson Brevoort for guidance upon this point.

[364] Vol. i. of the _Studi_ is a chronological account of Italian travellers and voyages, beginning with Grimaldo (1120-1122), and accompanied by maps showing the routes of the principal ones. Cf. Theobald Fischer, “Ueber italienische Seekarten und Kartographen des Mittelalte’s,” in _Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu_ Berlin, xvii. 5.

As to the work which has been done in the geographical societies of Germany, we shall have readier knowledge when Dr. Johannes Müller’s _Die wissenschaftlichen Vereine und Gesellschaften Deutschlands,—Bibliographie ihrer Veröffentlichungen_, now announced in Berlin, is made public. One of the most important sale-catalogues of maps is that of the Prince Alexandre Labanoff Collection, Paris, 1823,—a list now very rare. Nos. 1-112 were given to the world, and 1480-1543 to America separately.

[365] Santarem, _Histoire de la cartographie_, etc., vol. i., preface, pp. xxxix, 1, and 194. After the present volume was printed to this point, and after Vols. III. and IV. were in type, Mr. Arthur James Weise’s _Discoveries of America to the year 1525_ was published in New York. A new draft of the Maiollo map of 1527 is about its only important feature.

[366] See an enumeration of all these earlier maps and of their reproductions in part i. of _The Kohl Collection of Early Maps_, by the present writer. Bianco’s map was reproduced in 1869 at Venice, with annotations by Oscar Peschel; and Mauro’s in 1866, also at Venice.

[367] _Literature of Europe_, chap. iii. sect. 4.

[368] Cf., on the instruments and marine charts of the Arabs, Codine’s _La mer des Indes_, p. 74; Delambre, _Histoire de l’astronomie du moyen-âge_; Sédillot’s _Les instruments astronomiques des Arabes_, etc.

[369] Major, _Prince Henry_ (1868 ed.), pp. 57, 60. There is some ground for believing that the Northmen were acquainted with the loadstone in the eleventh century. Prescott (_Ferdinand and Isabella_, 1873 ed., ii. III) indicates the use of it by the Castilians in 1403. Cf. Santarem, _Histoire de la cartographie_, p. 280; _Journal of the Franklin Institute_, xxii. 68; _American Journal of Science_, lx. 242. Cf. the early knowledge regarding the introduction of the compass in Eden’s Peter Martyr (1555), folio 320; and D’Avezac’s _Aperçus historiques sur la boussole_, Paris, 1860, 16 pp.; also Humboldt’s _Cosmos_, Eng. tr. ii. 656.

[370] For instance, the map of Bianco. The variation in Europe was always easterly after observations were first made.

[371] Hakluyt, i. 122.

[372] _Journal of the American Geographical Society_, xii. 185.

[373] It is supposed to-day to be in Prince Albert Land, and to make a revolution in about five hundred years. Acosta contended that there were four lines of no variation, and Halley, in 1683, contended for four magnetic poles.

[374] Cf. notes on p. 661, _et seq._, in Bunbury’s _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. i., on the ancients’ calculations of latitude and measurements for longitude. Ptolemy carried the most northern parts of the known world sixty-three degrees north, and the most southern parts sixteen degrees south, of the Equator, an extent north and south of seventy-nine degrees. Marinus of Tyre, who preceded Ptolemy, stretched the known world, north and south, over eighty-seven degrees. Marinus had also made the length of the known world 225 degrees east and west, while Ptolemy reduced it to 177 degrees; but he did not, nor did Marinus, bound it definitely in the east by an ocean, but he left its limit in that direction undetermined, as he did that of Africa in the south, which resulted in making the Indian Ocean in his conception an inland sea, with the possibility of passing by land from Southern Africa to Southern Asia, along a parallel. Marinus had been the first to place the Fortunate Islands farther west than the limits of Spain in that direction, though he put them only two and a half degrees beyond, while the meridian of Ferro is nine degrees from the most westerly part of the main.

[375] Cf. Lelewel, pl. xxviii., and Santarem, _Histoire de la cartographie_, iii. 301, and _Atlas_, pl. 15.

[376] Cf. editions of 1482, 1486, 1513, 1535.

[377] The earliest instance in a _published_ Spanish map is thought to be the woodcut which in 1534 appeared at Venice in the combination of Peter Martyr and Oviedo which Ramusio is thought to have edited. This map is represented on a later page.

[378] There was a tendency in the latter part of the sixteenth century to remove the prime meridian to St. Michael’s, in the Azores, for the reason that there was no variation in the needle there at that time, and in ignorance of the forces which to-day at St. Michael’s make it point twenty-five degrees off the true north. As late as 1634 a congress of European mathematicians confirmed it at the west edge of the Isle de Fer (Ferro), the most westerly of the Canaries.

[379] Edmund Farwell Slafter, _History and Causes of the Incorrect Latitudes as recorded in the Journals of the Early Writers, Navigators, and Explorers relating to the Atlantic Coast of North America_ (1535-1740). Boston: Privately printed, 1882. 20 pages. Reprinted from the _N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg._ for April, 1882.

[380] Regiomontanus,—as Johannes Müller, of Königsberg, in Franconia, was called, from his town,—published at Nuremberg his _Ephemerides_ for the interval 1475-1506; and these were what Columbus probably used. Cf. Alex. Ziegler’s _Regiomontanus, ein geistiger Vorläufer des Columbus_, Dresden, 1874. Stadius, a professor of mathematics, published an almanac of this kind in 1545, and the English navigators used successive editions of this one.

[381] Cf. Kohl, _Die beiden General-Karten von Amerika_, p. 17, and Varnhagen’s _Historia geral do Brazil_, i. 432.

[382] Humboldt, _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 630, 670; Reisch’s _Margarita philosophica_ (1535), p. 1416; D’Avezac’s _Waltzemüller_, p. 64.

[383] Cf. Lelewel, _Géographie du moyen-âge_, ii. 160. The rules of Gemma Frisius for discovering longitude were given in Eden’s _Peter Martyr_ (1555), folio 360. An earlier book was Francisco Falero’s _Regimiento para observar in longitud en la mar_, 1535. Cf. E. F. de Navarrete’s “El problema de la longitud en la mar,” in volume 21 of the _Doc. inéditos (España)_; and _Vasco da Gama_ (Hakluyt Soc.), pp. 19, 25, 33, 43, 63, 138.

[384] _The Germaniæ, ex variis scriptoribus perbrevis explicatio_ of Bilibaldus Pirckeymerus, published in 1530, has a reference to this eclipse. Carter-Brown, vol. i. no. 96; _Murphy Catalogue_, no. 1,992. The paragraph is as follows: “Proinde compertum est ex observatione eclypsis, quæ fuit in mense Septembri anno salutis 1494. Hispaniam insulam, quatuor ferme horarum intersticio ab Hyspali, quæ Sibilia est distare, hoc est gradibus 60, qualium est circulus maximus 360, medium vero insulæ continet gradus 20 circiter in altitudine polari. Navigatur autem spacium illud communiter in diebus 35 altitudo vero continentis oppositi, cui Hispani sanctæ Marthæ nomen indidere, circiter graduum est 12 Darieni vero terra et sinus de Uraca gradus quasi tenent 7½ in altitudine polari, unde longissimo tractu occidentem versus terra est, quæ vocatur Mexico et Temistitan, a qua etiam non longa remota est insula Jucatan cum aliis nuper repertis.” The method of determining longitude by means of lunar tables dates back to Hipparchus.

[385] These were the calculations of Regiomontanus (Müller), who calls himself “Monteregius” in his _Tabulæ astronomice Alfonsi regis_, published at Venice in the very year (1492) of Columbus’ first voyage. (Stevens, _Bibl. Geog._, no. 83.) At a later day the Portuguese accused the Spaniards of altering the tables then in use, so as to affect the position of the Papal line of Demarcation. Barras, quoted by Humboldt, _Cosmos_, Eng. tr. ii. 671.

Johann Stoeffler was a leading authority on the methods of defining latitude and longitude in vogue in the beginning of the new era; cf. his _Elucidatio fabricæ ususque astrolabii_, Oppenheim, 1513 (colophon 1512), and his edition of _In Procli Diadochi sphæram omnibus numeris longe absolutissimus commentarius_, Tübingen, 1534, where he names one hundred and seventy contemporary and earlier writers on the subject. (Stevens, _Bibl. Geog._, nos. 2,633-2,634.)

[386] The polar distance of the North Star in Columbus’ time was 3° 28´; and yet his calculations made it sometimes 5°, and sometimes 10°. It is to-day 1° 20´ distant from the true pole. _United States Coast Survey Report_, 1880, app. xviii.

[387] Santarem, _Histoire de la cartographie_, vol. ii. p. lix. Columbus would find here the centre of the earth, as D’Ailly, Mauro, and Behaim found it at Jerusalem.

[388] _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 658. Humboldt also points out how Columbus on his second voyage had attempted to fix his longitude by the declination of the needle (Ibid., ii. 657; v. 54). Cf. a paper on Columbus and Cabot in the _Nautical Magazine_, July, 1876.

It is a fact that good luck or skill of some undiscernible sort enabled Cabot to record some remarkable approximations of longitude in an age when the wildest chance governed like attempts in others. Cabot indeed had the navigator’s instinct; and the modern log-book seems to have owed its origin to his practices and the urgency with which he impressed the importance of it upon the Muscovy Company.

[389] Appendix xix. of the _Report of the United States Coast Survey_ for 1880 (Washington, 1882) is a paper by Charles A. Schott of “Inquiry into the Variation of the Compass off the Bahama Islands, at the time of the Landfall of Columbus in 1492,” which is accompanied by a chart, showing by comparison the lines of non-variation respectively in 1492, 1600, 1700, 1800, and 1880, as far as they can be made out from available data. In this chart the line of 1492 runs through the Azores,—bending east as it proceeds northerly, and west in its southerly extension. The no-variation line in 1882 leaves the South American coast between the mouths of the Amazon and the Orinoco, and strikes the Carolina coast not far from Charleston. The Azores to-day are in the curve of 25° W. variation, which line leaves the west coast of Ireland, and after running through the Azores sweeps away to the St. Lawrence Gulf.

[390] Navarrete, _Noticia del cosmografo Alonzo de Santa Cruz_.

[391] Humboldt, _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 672; v. 59.

[392] _Cosmos_, v. 55.

[393] _Cosmos_, v. 59.

[394] Charts of the magnetic curves now made by the Coast Survey at Washington are capable of supplying, if other means fail, and particularly in connection with the dipping-needle, data of a ship’s longitude with but inconsiderable error. The inclination or dip was not measured till 1576; and Humboldt shows how under some conditions it can be used also to determine latitude.

In 1714 the English Government, following an example earlier set by other governments, offered a reward of £20,000 to any one who would determine longitude at sea within half a degree. It was ultimately given to Harrison, a watchmaker who made an improved marine chronometer. An additional £3,000 was given at the same time to the widow of Tobias Meyer, who had improved the lunar tables. It also instigated two ingenious mechanicians, who hit upon the same principle independently, and worked out its practical application,—the Philadelphian, Thomas Godfrey, in his “mariner’s bow” (_Penn. Hist. Soc. Coll._, i. 422); and the Englishman, Hadley, in his well-known quadrant.

It can hardly be claimed to-day, with all our modern appliances, that a ship’s longitude can be ascertained with anything more than approximate precision. The results from dead-reckoning are to be corrected in three ways. Observations on the moon will not avoid, except by accident, errors which may amount to seven or eight miles. The difficulties of making note of Jupiter’s satellites in their eclipse, under the most favorable conditions, will be sure to entail an error of a half, or even a whole, minute. This method, first tried effectively about 1700, was the earliest substantial progress which had been made; all the attempts of observation on the opposition of planets, the occultations of stars, the difference of altitude between the moon and Jupiter, and the changes in the moon’s declination, having failed of satisfactory results (Humboldt, _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 671). John Werner, of Nuremberg, as early as 1514, and Gemma Frisius, in 1545, had suggested the measure of the angle between the altitude of the moon and some other heavenly body; but it was not till 1615 that it received a trial at sea, through the assiduity of Baffin. The newer method of Jupiter’s satellites proved of great value in the hands of Delisle, the real founder of modern geographical science. By it he cut off three hundred leagues from the length of the Mediterranean Sea, and carried Paris two and a half degrees, and Constantinople ten degrees, farther west. Corrections for two centuries had been chiefly made in a similar removal of places. For instance, the longitude of Gibraltar had increased from 7° 50´ W., as Ptolemy handed it down, to 9° 30´ under Ruscelli, to 13° 30´ under Mercator, and to 14° 30´ under Ortelius. It is noticeable that Eratosthenes, who two hundred years and more before Christ was the librarian at Alexandria and chief of its geographical school, though he made the length of the Mediterranean six hundred geographical miles too long, did better than Ptolemy three centuries later, and better even than moderns had done up to 1668, when this sea was elongated by nearly a third beyond its proper length. Cf. Bunbury, _History of Ancient Geography_, i. 635; Gosselin, _Géog. des Grecs_, p. 42. Sanson was the last, in 1668, to make this great error.

The method for discovering longitude which modern experience has settled upon is the noting at noon, when the weather permits a view of the sun, of the difference of a chronometer set to a known meridian. This instrument, with all its modern perfection, is liable to an error of ten or fifteen seconds in crossing the Atlantic, which may be largely corrected by a mean, derived from the use of more than one chronometer. The first proposition to convey time as a means of deciding longitude dates back to Alonzo de Santa Cruz, who had no better time-keepers than sand and water clocks (Humboldt, _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 672).

On land, care and favorable circumstances may now place an object within six or eight yards of its absolute place in relation to the meridian. Since the laying of the Atlantic cable has made it possible to use for a test a current which circles the earth in three seconds, it is significant of minute accuracy, in fixing the difference of time between Washington and Greenwich, that in the three several attempts to apply the cable current, the difference between the results has been less than 7/100 of a second.

But on shipboard the variation is still great, though the last fifty years has largely reduced the error. Professor Rogers, of the Harvard College Observatory, in examining one hundred log-books of Atlantic steamships, has found an average error of three miles; and he reports as significant of the superior care of the Cunard commanders that the error in the logs of their ships was reduced to an average of a mile and a half.

[395] Lelewel, ii. 130.

[396] Humboldt, _Examen critique_, ii. 210.

[397] The breadth east and west of the Old World was marked variously,—on the Laon globe, 250°; Behaim’s globe, 130°; Schöner’s globe, 228°; Ruysch’s map, 224°; Sylvanus’ map, 220°; and the Portuguese chart of 1503, 220°.

[398] This sea-chart was the first which had been seen in England, and almanacs at that time had only been known in London for fifteen years, with their tables for the sun’s declination and the altitude of the pole-star.

[399] Cf. _Atti della Società Ligure_, 1867, p. 174, Desimoni in _Giornale Ligustico_, ii. 52. Bartholomew is also supposed to have been the maker of an anonymous planisphere of 1489 (Peschel, _Ueber eine alte Weltkarte_, p. 213).

[400] Strabo, i. 65. Bunbury, _Ancient Geography_, i. 627, says the passage is unfortunately mutilated, but the words preserved can clearly have no other signification. What is left to us of Eratosthenes are fragments, which were edited by Seidel, at Göttingen, in 1789; again and better by Bernhardy (Berlin, 1822). Bunbury (vol. i. ch. xvi.) gives a sufficient survey of his work and opinions. The spherical shape of the earth was so generally accepted by the learned after the times of Aristotle and Euclid, that when Eratosthenes in the third century, B.C. went to some length to prove it, Strabo, who criticised him two centuries later, thought he had needlessly exerted himself to make plain what nobody disputed. Eratosthenes was so nearly accurate in his supposed size of the globe, that his excess over the actual size was less than one-seventh of its great circle.

[401] There is a manuscript map of Hispaniola attached to the copy of the 1511 edition of Peter Martyr in the Colombina Library which is sometimes ascribed to Columbus; but Harrisse thinks it rather the work of his brother Bartholomew (_Bibl. Amer. Vet._, _Add._, xiii.) A map of this island, with the native divisions as Columbus found them, is given in Muñoz. The earliest separate map is in the combined edition of Peter Martyr and Oviedo edited by Ramusio in Venice in 1534 (Stevens, _Bibliotheca geographica_, no. 1,778). _Le discours de la navigation de Jean et Raoul Parmentier, de Dieppe_, including a description of Santo Domingo, was edited by Ch. Schefer in Paris, 1883; a description of the “isle de Haity” from _Le grand insulaire et pilotage d’André Thevet_ is given in its appendix.

[402] _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 647. One of these early engravings is given on page 15.

[403] Navarrete, i. 253, 264.

[404] Navarrete, i. 5.

[405] Navarrete, iii. 587.

[406] Harrisse, _Notes on Columbus_, p. 34; Morelli’s _Lettera rarissima_ (Bassano, 1810), appendix. A “carta nautica” of Columbus is named under 1501 in the _Atti della Società ligure_, 1867, p. 174, and _Giornale Ligustico_, ii. 52.

[407] Of La Cosa, who is said to have been of Basque origin, we know but little. Peter Martyr tells us that his “cardes” were esteemed, and mentions finding a map of his in 1514 in Bishop Fonseca’s study. We know he was with Columbus in his expedition along the southern coast of Cuba, when the Admiral, in his folly, made his companions sign the declaration that they were on the coast of Asia. This was during Columbus’ second voyage, in 1494; and Stevens (_Notes_, etc.) claims that the way in which La Cosa cuts off Cuba to the west with a line of green paint—the conventional color for “terra incognita”—indicates this possibility of connection with the main, as Ruysch’s scroll does in his map. The interpretation may be correct; but it might still have been drawn an island from intimations of the natives, though Ocampo did not circumnavigate it till 1508. The natives of Guanahani distinctly told Columbus that Cuba was an island, as he relates in his Journal. Stevens also remarks how La Cosa colors, with the same green, the extension of Cuba beyond the limits of Columbus’ exploration on the north coast in 1492. La Cosa, who had been with Ojeda in 1499, and with Rodrigo de Bastidas in 1501, was killed on the coast in 1509. Cf. Enrique de Leguina’s _Juan de la Cosa, estudio biográfico_ (Madrid, 1877); Humboldt’s _Examen critique_ and his _Cosmos_, Eng. tr. ii., 639; De la Roquette, in the _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris_, Mai, 1862, p. 298; Harrisse’s _Cabots_, pp. 52, 103, 156, and his _Les Cortereal_, p. 94; and the references in Vol. III. of the present _History_, p. 8.

[408] Vol. III. p. 8. The fac-simile there given follows Jomard’s. Harrisse (_Notes on Columbus_, p. 40), comparing Jomard’s reproduction with Humboldt’s description, thinks there are omissions in it. Becher (_Landfall of Columbus_) speaks of the map as “the clumsy production of an illiterate seaman.” There is also a reproduction of the American parts of the map in Weise’s _Discoveries of America_, 1884.

[409] Ongania, of Venice, announced some years ago a fac-simile reproduction in his _Raccolta di mappamundi_, edited by Professor Fischer, of Kiel. It was described in 1873 by Giuseppe Boni in _Cenni storici della Reale Biblioteca Estense in Modena_, and by Gustavo Uzielli in his _Studi bibliografici e biografici_, Rome, 1875.

[410] Pages 143, 158.

[411] He was born about 1450; _Les Cortereal_, p. 36. Cf. E. do Canto’s _Os Corte-Reaes_ (1883), p. 28.

[412] _Les Cortereal_, p. 45.

[413] See Vol. IV. chap. 1.

[414] Harrisse, _Les Cortereal_, p. 50, translates this.

[415] Printed for the first time in Harrisse, _Les Cortereal_, app. xvii. From Pasqualigo and Cantino down to the time of Gomara we find no mention of these events; and Gomara, writing fifty years later, seems to confound the events of 1500 with those of 1501. Gomara also seems to have had some Portuguese charts, which we do not now know, when he says that Cortereal gave his name to some islands in the entrance of the gulf “Cuadrado” (St. Lawrence?), lying under 50° north latitude. Further than this, Gomara, as well as Ramusio, seems to have depended mainly on the Pasqualigo letter; and Herrera followed Gomara (Harrisse, _Les Cortereal_, p. 59). Harrisse can now collate, as he does (p. 65), the two narratives of Pasqualigo and Cantino for the first time, and finds Cortereal’s explorations to have covered the Atlantic coast from Delaware Bay to Baffin’s Bay, if not farther to the north.

[416] Harrisse, _Les Cortereal_, p. 71.

[417] Ibid., p. 96.

[418] Some have considered that this Atlantic coast in Cantino may in reality have been Yucatan. But this peninsula was not visited earlier than 1506, if we suppose Solis and Pinzon reached it, and not earlier than 1517 if Cordova’s expedition was, as is usually supposed, the first exploration. The names on this coast, twenty-two in number, are all legible but six. They resemble those on the Ptolemy maps of 1508 and 1513, and on Schöner’s globe of 1520, which points to an earlier map not now known.

[419] These earliest Spanish voyages are,—

1. Columbus, Aug. 3, 1492—March 15, 1493.

2. Columbus, Sept. 25, 1493—June 11, 1496.

3. Columbus, May 30, 1498—Nov. 25, 1500.

4. Alonzo de Ojeda, May 20, 1499—June, 1500, to the Orinoco.

5. Piro Alonzo Niño and Christoval Guerra, June, 1499—April, 1500, to Paria.

6. Vicente Yañez Pinzon, December, 1499—September, 1500, to the Amazon.

7. Diego de Lepe, December, 1499 (?)—June, 1500, to Cape St. Augustin.

8. Rodrigo de Bastidas, October, 1500—September, 1502, to Panama.

[420] The Greenland peninsula seems to have been seen by Cortereal in 1500 or 1501, and to be here called “Ponta d’Asia,” in accordance with the prevalent view that any mainland hereabout must be Asia.

[421] See fac-simile on page 112, _post._

[422] Plate 43 of his _Géographie du Moyen-âge_.

[423] De Costa points out that La Cosa complains of the Portuguese being in this region in 1503.

[424] _Catalogue_ of February, 1879, pricing a copy of the book, with the map, at £100. This Quaritch copy is now owned by Mr. C. H. Kalbfleisch, of New York, and its title is different from the transcription given in Sabin, the Carter-Brown and Barlow catalogues, which would seem to indicate that the title was set up three times at least.

[425] _Verrazano_, p. 102.

[426] The editions of 1516 and 1530 have no map, and no _official_ map was published in Spain till 1790. The Cabot map of 1544 is clearly from Spanish sources, and Brevoort is inclined to think that the single copy known is the remainder after a like suppression. The Medina sketch of 1545 is too minute to have conveyed much intelligence of the Spanish knowledge, and may have been permitted.

[427] Vol ii. p. 143.

[428] This edition will come under more particular observation in connection with Vespucius. There are copies in the Astor Library and in the libraries of Congress, of the American Antiquarian Society, and of Trinity College, Hartford (Cooke sale, no. 1,950), and in the Carter-Brown, Barlow, and Kalbfleisch collections. There was a copy in the Murphy sale, no. 2,052.

[429] Cf. Santarem in _Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris_ (1837), viii. 171, and in his _Recherches sur Vespuce et ses voyages_, p. 165; Wieser’s _Magalhâes-Strasse_, p. 10. It will be seen that in the Latin quoted in the text there is an incongruity in making a “Ferdinand” king of Portugal at a time when no such king ruled that kingdom, but a Ferdinand did govern in Spain. The Admiral could hardly have been other than Columbus, but it is too much to say that he made the map, or even had a chief hand in it.

[430] Cf. Humboldt, _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 620, 621.

[431] A heliotype fac-simile is given in Vol. III. p. 9, where are various references and a record of other fac-similes; to which may be added Varnhagen’s _Novos estudos_ (Vienna, 1874); Ruge’s _Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_; Weise’s _Discoveries of America_; and on a small scale in H. H. Bancroft’s _Central America_, vol. i.

[432] This supposition is not sustained in Wieser’s _Karte des B. Colombo_ (1893).

[433] Pope Julius II. (July 28, 1506) gave to Tosinus, the publisher, the exclusive sale of this edition for six years. It was first issued in 1507, and had six new maps, besides those of the editions of 1478 and 1490, but none of America. There are copies in the Carter-Brown Library; and noted in the _Murphy Catalogue_, no. 2,049; and one was recently priced by Rosenthal, of Munich, at 500 marks. It was reissued in 1508, with a description of the New World by Beneventanus, accompanied by this map of Ruysch; and of this 1508 edition there are copies in the Astor Library, the Library of Congress, of the American Geographical Society, of Yale College (Cooke sale, vol. ii. no. 1,949), and in the Carter-Brown and Kalbfleisch collections. One is noted in the Murphy sale, no. 2,050, which is now at Cornell University.

[434] H. H. Bancroft (_Central America_, p. 116) curiously intimates that the dotted line which he gives in his engraving to mark the place of this vignette, stands for some sort of a _terra incognita_!

[435] _Les Cortereal_, p. 118.

[436] Harrisse, Cabots, p. 164. In his _Notes on Columbus_, p. 56, he conjectures that it sold for forty florins, if it be the same with the map of the New World which Johannes Trithemus complained in 1507 of his inability to buy for that price (_Epistolæ familiares_, 1536).

[437] Its date was altered to 1530 when it appeared in the first complete edition of Peter Martyr’s _Decades_. There are fac-similes in the _Carter-Brown Catalogue_ and in Santarem’s Atlas. It will be considered further in connection with the naming of America. See _post_, p. 183.

[438] Pl. xviii.

[439] The bibliography of Honter has been traced by G. D. Teutsch in the _Archiv des Vereins für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde_, neue Folge, xiii. 137; and an estimate of Honter by F. Teutsch is given in Ibid., xv. 586. The earliest form of Honter’s book is the _Rudimentorum cosmographiæ libri duo_, dated 1531, and published at Cracow, in a tract of thirty-two pages. It is a description of the world in verse, and touches America in the chapter, “Nomina insularum oceani et maris.” It is extremely rare, and the only copy to be noted is one priced by Harrassowitz (_Catalogue_ of 1876, no. 2), of Leipsic, for 225 marks, and subsequently sold to Tross, of Paris. Most bibliographers give Cracow, with the date 1534 as the earliest (Sabin, no. 32,792; Muller, 1877, no. 1,456,—37.50 fl.); there was a Basle edition of the same year. (Cf. Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 194; Wieser, _Magalhâes-Strasse_, p. 22.) Editions seem to have followed in 1540 (queried by Sabin, no. 32,793); in 1542 (if Stevens’s designation of his fac-simile of the map is correct, _Notes_, pl. 3); in 1546, when the map is inscribed “Universalis cosmographia ... Tiguri, J. H. V. E. [in monogram], 1546.” (Harrisse, no. 271; Muller, 1877, no. 1,457; Carter-Brown, no. 143; Sabin, no. 32,794.) The same map, which is part of an appendix of thirteen maps, was repeated in the Tiguri edition of 1548, and there was another issue the same year at Basle. (Harrisse, no. 287; Sabin, no. 32,795; Weigel, 1877, no. 1,268.) The maps were repeated in the 1549 edition. (Sabin, no. 32,796; Carter-Brown, no. 153.) The edition at Antwerp in 1552 leaves off the date. (Harrisse, no. 287; Weigel, no. 1,269; Murphy, no. 1,252.) It is now called, _Rvdimentorvm cosmographicorum libri III. cum tabellis geographicis elegantissimis. De uariarum rerum nomenclaturis per classes, liber I_. There was a Basle edition the same year. The maps continued to be used in the Antwerp edition of 1554, the Tiguri of 1558, and the Antwerp of 1660.

In 1561 the edition published at Basle, _De cosmogaphiæ rudimentis libri VIII._, was rather tardily furnished with new maps better corresponding to the developments of American geography. (Muller, 1877, no. 1,459.) The Tiguri publishers still, however, adhered to the old plates in their editions of 1565 (Carter-Brown, no. 257; Sabin, no. 32,797); and the same plates again reappeared in an edition, without place, published in 1570 (Muller, 1877, no. 1,457), in another of Tiguri in 1583, and in still another without place in 1590 (Murphy, no. 1,253; Muller, 1872, no. 763; Sabin, no. 32,799).

[440] Harrisse (_Les Cortereal_, p. 121) says there is no Spanish map showing these discoveries before 1534.

[441] Vol. III. p. 212, and the present volume, page 170.

[442] Vol. xl.; also Major’s _Prince Henry_, p. 388.

[443] J. P. Richter, _Literary Works of Da Vinci_, London, 1883, quoting the critic, who questions its assignment to the great Italian.

[444] The Portuguese portolano of about this date given in Kunstmann, pl. 4, is examined on another page.

[445] This Strasburg edition is particularly described in D’Avezac’s _Waltzemüller_, p. 159. (Cf. Harrisse’s _Notes on Columbus_, 176; his _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 117; and Winsor’s _Bibliography of Ptolemy’s Geography_ sub anno 1522.) The maps closely resemble those of Waldseemüller in the edition of 1513; and indeed Frisius assigns them as re-engraved to Martin Ilacomylus, the Greek form of that geographer’s name. There are copies of this 1522 Ptolemy in the Harvard College, Carter-Brown, Cornell University, and Barlow libraries, and one is noted in the _Murphy Catalogue_, no. 2,054, which is now in the Lenox Library. The map of Frisius (Lorenz Friess, as he was called in unlatinized form) was reproduced in the next Strasburg edition of 1525, of which there are copies in the Library of Congress, in the New York Historical Society, Boston Public, Baltimore Mercantile, Carter-Brown, Trinity College, and the American Antiquarian Society libraries, and in the collections of William C. Prime and Charles H. Kalbfleisch. There were two copies in the Murphy sale, nos. 2,055 and 2,056, one of which is now at Cornell University. Cf. references in Winsor’s _Bibliography of Ptolemy_.

This “L. F. 1522” map (see p. 175), as well as the “Admiral’s map,” was reproduced in the edition of 1535, edited by Servetus, of which there are copies in the Astor, the Boston Public, and the College of New Jersey libraries, and in the Carter-Brown and Barlow collections. A copy is also noted in the _Murphy Catalogue_, no. 2,057, which is now at Cornell University.

The American maps of these editions were again reproduced in the Ptolemy, published at Vienna in 1541, of which there are copies in the Carter-Brown, Brevoort, and Kalbfleisch collections. Cf. Winsor’s _Bibliography of Ptolemy_.

[446] Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 133. The edition of 1530 has no maps (ibid., no. 158).

[447] There is a copy in the Grenville Collection in the British Museum. Cf. Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 144; Zurla, _Fra Mauro_, p. 9, and his _Marco Polo_, ii. 363. Harrisse, in his _Notes on Columbus_, p. 56, cites from Morelli’s _Operette_, i. 309, a passage in which Coppo refers to Columbus.

[448] Harrisse (_Bibl. Amer. Vet._) gives the various ways of spelling the name by different authors as follows: “Albericus (_Madrignano_, _Ruchamer_, _Jehan Lambert_); Emeric (_Du Redouer_); Alberico or Americo (_Gomara_); Morigo (_Hojeda_); Amerrigo (_Muñoz_); Americus (_Peter Martyr_); Almerigo Florentino (_Vianello_); De Espuche, Vespuche, Despuche, Vespuccio (_Ramusio_); Vespuchy (_Christ. Columbus_).” Varnhagen uniformly calls him Amerigo Vespucci; and that is the signature to the letter written from Spain in 1492 given in the _Vita_ by Bandini.

[449] The facts relative to the birth, parentage, and early life of Vespucci are given by the Abbé Bandini in his _Vita e lettere di Amerigo Vespucci_, 1745, and are generally accepted by those whose own researches have been most thorough,—as Humboldt in his _Examen Critique_; Varnhagen in his _Amerigo Vespucci, son caractère, ses écrits, sa vie, et ses navigations_, and in his _Nouvelles recherches_, p. 41, where he reprints Bandini’s account; and Santarem in his _Researches respecting Americus Vespucius and his Voyages_, as the English translation is called. In relation to representatives of the family in our day, see Lester’s _Vespucius_, p. 405. The newspapers within a year have said that two female descendants were living in Rome, the last male representative dying seven years ago.

[450] Humboldt says that it cannot be true of either voyage, and relies for proof upon the documentary evidence of Vespucci’s presence in Spain during the absence of Columbus upon those expeditions. But he makes a curious mistake in regard to the first, which, we think, has never been noticed. Columbus sailed on his first voyage in August, 1492, and returned in March, 1493. Humboldt asserts that Vespucci could not have been with him, because the letter written from Cadiz and jointly signed by him and Donato Nicolini was dated Jan. 30, 1493. But Humboldt has unaccountably mistaken the date of that letter; it was not 1493, but 1492, seven months before Columbus sailed on his first voyage. The _alibi_, therefore, is not proved. There is indeed no positive proof that Vespucci was not on that voyage; but, on the other hand, there is nothing known of that period of his life to suggest that he was; and, moreover, the strong negative evidence is—unusually strong in his case—that he never claimed to have sailed with Columbus.

[451] _The history of the Life and Actions of Admiral Christopher Colon._ By his son, Don Ferdinand Colon. [For the story of this book, see the previous chapter.—ED.]

[452] _Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, with other Original Documents relating to his Four Voyages to the New World._ Translated and edited by R. H. Major, Esq., of the British Museum, London. Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1847.

[453] The very name he bore had a divine significance, according to the fanciful interpretation of his son, Don Ferdinand Colon. For as the name Christopher, or Christophorus,—the Christ-bearer,—was bestowed upon the Saint who carried the Christ over deep waters at his own great peril, so had it fallen upon him, who was destined to discover a new world, “that those Indian nations might become citizens and inhabitants of the Church triumphant in heaven.” Nor less appropriate was the family name of Columbus, or Colomba,—a dove,—for him who showed “those people, who knew him not, which was God’s beloved Son, as the Holy Ghost did in the figure of a dove at Saint John’s baptism; and because he also carried the olive-branch and oil of baptism over the waters of the ocean like Noah’s dove, to denote the peace and union of these people with the Church, after they had been shut up in the ark of darkness and confusion.” Saint Christopher carrying Christ, appears as a vignette on Cosa’s chart.

[454] _A Discourse of Sebastian Cabot touching his Discovery, etc._ Translated from Ramusio (1550) by Hakluyt for his _Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation_, 1589, and in later editions.

[455] [See Vol. III. chap. i.—ED.]

[456] For the distinction which possibly Cabot meant to convey between _terra_ and _insula_, see Biddle’s _Memoir of Sebastian Cabot_ (London 1831), p. 54.

[457] Humboldt (_Examen critique_, vol. iv.), supported by the authority of Professor Von der Hugen, of the University of Berlin, shows that the Italian name Amerigo is derived from the German Amalrich or Amelrich, which, under the various forms of Amalric, Amalrih, Amilrich, Amulrich, was spread through Europe by the Goths and other Northern invaders.

[458] [See Vol. III. p. 53.—ED.]

[459] On the 20th of May, according to one edition of the letter,—that published by Hylacomylus at St-Dié.

[460] [After a picture in the Massachusetts Historical Society’s Gallery (no. 253), which is a copy of the best-known portrait of Vespucius. It is claimed for it that it was painted from life by Bronzino, and that it had been preserved in the family of Vespucius till it was committed, in 1845, to Charles Edwards Lester, United States consul at Genoa. It is engraved in Lester and Foster’s _Life and Voyages of Americus Vespucius_ (New York, 1846), and described on p. 414 of that book. Cf. also Sparks’s statement in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc._, iv. 117. It has been also engraved in Canovai among the Italian authorities, and was first, I think, in this country, produced in Philadelphia, in 1815, in Delaplaine’s _Repository of the Lives and Portraits of distinguished American characters_, and later in various other places. The likeness of Vespucius in the Royal Gallery at Naples, painted by Parmigianino, is supposed to be the one originally in the possession of the Cardinal Alexander Farnese (_Bulletin de la Société de Géographie de Paris_, iii. 370, by Jomard). That artist was but eleven years old at the death of Vespucius, and could not have painted Vespucius from life. A copy in 1853 was placed in the gallery of the American Antiquarian Society (_Proceedings_, April, 1853, p. 15; Paine’s _Portraits and Busts_, etc., no. 28). C. W. Peale’s copy of the likeness in the gallery of the Grand Duke of Tuscany is in the collection belonging to the Pennsylvania Historical Society (_Catalogue_, 1872, no. 148). There is also a portrait in the gallery of the New York Historical Society (_Catalogue_, no. 131), but the origin of it is not named. De Bry gives vignette portraits in parts iv., vi., and xii. of his _Grands Voyages_. See Bandini’s _Vita e lettere di Vespucci_, chap. vii. for an account of the various likenesses.—ED.]

[461] “Et quoniam in meis hisce bis geminis navigationibus, tam varia diversaque, ac tam a nostris rebus, et modis differentia perspexi, idcirco libellum quempiam, quem Quatuor diætas sive quatuor navigationes appello, conscribere paravi, conscripsique; in quo maiorem rerum a me visarum partem distincte satis juxta ingenioi mei tenuitatem collegi: verumtamen non adhuc publicavi.” From the _Cosmographiæ introductio_ of Hylacomylus (Martin Waldseemüller). St.-Dié, 1507. Repeated in essentially the same words in other editions of the letter.

[462] In the original: _En este viage que este dicho testigo hizo trujo consigo a Juan de la Cosa, piloto, e Morigo Vespuche, e otros pilotos_. The testimony of other pilots confirmed that of Ojeda. The records of this trial are preserved among the archives at Seville, and were examined by Muñoz, and also by Washington Irving in his studies for the _Life of Columbus_. See also _ante_, p. 88.

[463] The title of this work is _Cosmographiæ introductio cum quibusdam geometriæ ac astronomiæ principiis ad eam rem necessariis. Insuper quatuor Americi Vespucii navigationes_. The name of the editor, Martinus Hylacomylus, is not given in the first edition, but appears in a later, published at Strasburg in 1509. [See _post_, p. 167.—ED.]

[464] See Major’s _Henry the Navigator_, p. 383. The title of Lud’s four-leaved book is _Speculi orbis succinctiss. sed neque pœnitenda neque inelegans declaratio et canon_.

[465] “_Et quarta orbis pars quam quis Americus invenit, Amerigen quasi Americi terram, sive Americam nuncupare licet._”

[466] “_Nunc vero et hæc partes sunt latius lustratæ, et alia quarta Pars per Americum Vesputium, ut in sequentibus audietur, inventa est, quam non video cur quis iure vetet ab America inventore, sagacis ingenii viro, Amerigen quasi Americi terram sive Americam dicendum, cum et Europa et Asia a mulieribus sua sortitæ sint nomina._” _Hylacomylus._

[467] [Vespucci himself says that his mission was “per ajutare a discoprire.” An astronomer was an important officer of all these early expeditions. Isabella urged Columbus not to go without one on his second voyage; and in his narrative of his fourth voyage, Columbus contends that there is but one infallible method of making a ship’s reckoning, that employed by astronomers. Cf. Humboldt, _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 671.—ED.]

[468] Herrera,—of whom Robertson says that “of all Spanish writers he furnishes the fullest and most authentic information upon American discoveries”—accuses Vespucci of “falsehoods” in pretending to have visited the Gulf of Paria before Columbus.

[469] [Varnhagen thinks there is reason to believe, from the letter of Vianello, that Vespucius made a voyage in 1505 to the northern coast of South America, when he tracked the shore from the point of departure on his second voyage as far as Darien; and he is further of the opinion, from passages in the letters of Francesco Corner, that Vespucius made still a final voyage with La Cosa to the coast of Darien (_Postface_ in _Nouvelles recherches_, p. 56). Harrisse (_Bibl. Amer. Vet., Additions_, p. xxvii) gives reasons, from letters discovered by Rawdon Brown at Venice, for believing that Vespucius made a voyage in 1508.—ED.]

[470] Cf. Navarrete, iii. 297, for the instructions of the King.

[471] “Noticias exactas de Americo Vespucio,” in his _Coleccion_, iii. 315. The narrative in English will be found in Lester’s _Life of Vespucius_, pp. 112-139.

[472] May 10, 20, 1497, and Oct. 1, 15, 18, 1499.

[473] Cf. _Examen critique_, iv. 150, 151, 273-282; v. 111, 112, 197-202; _Cosmos_, Eng. tr., ii. 678.

[474] Humboldt, _Examen critique_, iv. 50, 267, 268, 272; Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 57; Navarrete, iii. 317.

[475] This part is given in English in Lester, p. 175.

[476] It is translated in Lester, pp. 151-173; cf. Canovai, p. 50.

[477] These instances are cited by Santarem. Cf. Ternaux’s _Collection_, vol. ii.

[478] Harrisse, _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 64; Humboldt, _Examen critique_, v. 209. There were other editions of Albertini in 1519 and 1520, as well as his _De Roma prisca_ of 1523, repeating the credit of the first discovery in language which Muller says that Harrisse does not give correctly. Cf. _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, nos. 96, 103, 106; _Additions_, 56, 74; Muller, _Books on America_ (1872), no. 17.

[479] _Bibl. Amer. Vet._, no. 107.

[480] Editions at Venice in 1572 and 1589 (Sabin, vol. iv. no. 16,161).

[481] Cf. Vol. IV. p. 96.

[482] Sabin, vol. ii. no. 6,102.

[483] Carter-Brown, ii. 114. It was reprinted at Florence in 1859, and at Milan in 1865.

[484] Santarem enumerates various others; cf. Childe’s translation, p. 34 etc. Bandini (_Vita e lettere di Vespucci_, cap. vii.) also enumerates the early references.

[485] Though Guicciardini died in 1540, his _Historia d’Italia_ (1494-1532) did not appear at Florence till 1564, and again at Venice in 1580. Segni, who told the history of Florence from 1527 to 1555, and died in 1559, was also late in appearing.

[486] Dec. i. lib. iv. cap. 2; lib. vii. c. 5.

[487] Robertson based his disbelief largely upon Herrera (_History of America_, note xxii.).

[488] Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 793; Murphy, no. 142; Leclerc, no. 2,473. There was a German translation in 1748 (Carter-Brown, iii. 866; Sabin, vol. i. no. 3,150), with annotations, which gave occasion to a paper by Caleb Cushing in the _North American Review_, xii. 318.

[489] Santarem reviews this literary warfare of 1788-1789 (Childe’s translation, p. 140).

[490] Sabin (_Dictionary_, iii. 312) gives the following contributions of Canovai: (1) _Difensa d’Amerigo Vespuccio_, Florence, 1796 (15 pp). (2) _Dissertazione sopra il primo viaggio d’Amerigo Vespucci alle Indie occidentali_, Florence, 1809. (3) _Elogio d’Amerigo Vespucci ... con una dissertazione giustificativa_, Florence, 1788; con illustrazioni ed aggiunte [Cortona], 1789; no place, 1790, Florence, 1798. (4) _Esame critico del primo viaggio d’Amerigo Vespucci al nuovo mondo_, Florence, 1811. Cf. Il Marquis Gino Capponi, _Osservazioni sull’esame critico del primo viaggio d’Amerigo Vespucci al nuovo mondo_, Florence, 1811. Leclerc, no. 400; copy in Harvard College Library. (5) _Lettera allo Stampat. Sig. P. Allegrini a nome dell’ autore dell’elogio prem. di Am. Vespucci_, Florence, 1789. (6) _Monumenti relativi al giudizio pronunziato dall’Accademia Etrusca di Cortona di un Elogio d’Amerigo Vespucci_, Florence, 1787. (7) _Viaggi d’ Amerigo Vespucci con la vita, l’elogio e la dissertazione giustificativa_, Florence, 1817; again, 1832. There was an English version of the _Elogio_ printed at New Haven in 1852. Canovai rejects some documents which Bandini accepted; as, for instance, the letter in Da Gama, of which there is a version in Lester, p. 313. Cf. also Varnhagen, _Amerigo Vespucci_, pp. 67, 69, where it is reprinted.

[491] Irving got his cue from this, and calls the voyage of 1497 pure invention. The documents which Navarrete gives are epitomized in Lester, p. 395, and reprinted in Varnhagen’s _Nouvelles recherches_, p. 26.

[492] Childe’s translation, p. 24.

[493] Childe’s translation, pp. 65, 66.

[494] There is another laying down of his course in a map published with a volume not seldom quoted in the present work, and which may be well described here: _Studi biografici e bibliografici sulla storia della geografia in Italia publicati in occasione del IIIº Congresso Geografico Internazionale, Edizione seconda_, Rome, 1882. Vol. i. contains _Biografia dei viaggiatori Italiani, colla bibliografia delle loro opere per Pietro Amat di San Filippo_. The special title of vol. ii. is _Mappamondi, carte nautiche, portolani ed altri monumenti cartografici specialmente Italiani dei secoli XIII-XVII, per Gustavo Uzielli e Pietro Amat di San Filippo_.

[495] He gives his reasons for this landfall in his _Le premier voyage_, p. 5.

[496] We have no positive notice of Bermuda being seen earlier than the record of the Peter Martyr map of 1511.

[497] See Vol. III. p. 8, and the present volume, p. 115.

[498] Where (p. 106) he announced his intention to discuss at some future time the voyages of Vespucius, and to bring forward, “selon notre habitude,” some new documentary evidence. He has since given the proposed title: _Americ Vespuce, sa Correspondance_, 1483-1491; _soixante-huit lettres inédites tirées du porte-feuille des Médicis_, with annotations.

[499] See p. 108.

[500] This Vianello document was printed by Ferraro in his _Relazione_ in 1875.