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Page 33
Some importance, however, attaches to this map in its assisting us
to fix approximately the time of the fabrication of the Verrazzano
letter. If it were constructed in 1529, as some would infer, with
the portions relating to the discovery upon it, then it is the
earliest recognition of the CLAIM to this discovery yet produced,
irrespective of the letter. But it is by no means certain that it
was originally made in that year. Nothing appears on the map itself
giving that date in terms; but it is left to be inferred exclusively
from the language of the legend, which states that the discovery was
made FIVE YEARS AGO, without any indication, either in the legend
itself or elsewhere on the map, to what time that period relates;
and leaving the discovery, therefore, to be ascertained from
extraneous sources. If the discovery be assumed to have been made in
1524, then indeed the map, according to the legend, would have been
constructed in 1529. But no person, unacquainted with the letter,
can determine from this inscription, or any other part of the map,
the date either of the discovery or map; and this precise difficulty
Euphrosynus Ulpius apparently encountered in attempting to fix the
time of the discovery for his globe, as will hereafter be seen. Why
the time of the discovery should have been left in such an ambiguous
state, compatibly with fair intentions, it is difficult to
understand. The year itself could and should, in the absence of any
date on the map, have been stated directly in the legend, without
compelling a resort to other authorities. It is not unusual, it is
true, for valuable maps and charts of this period to be left without
the dates of their construction upon them; but when, as in this
case, a date is called for, there seems to be no reason why it
should not have been given. This circumstance creates the suspicion
that the legend did not belong to the map originally, but was added
afterwards, as it now appears on the copy in the Vatican; or if it
were upon it then, that it was intended to mislead and conceal the
true date of the map. But whatever may be the secret of its origin,
this legend furnishes no positive evidence as to the time when the
map was made, or pretended to have been made; and we are left to
find its date, if possible, by other means.
A fact which indicates that this map could not have existed as late
as 1536, in the form in which it is now presented, if it existed
then at all, is that the western sea is delineated upon a map of the
world, made in that year, by Baptista Agnese, an Italian
cosmographer, without any reference to the Verrazzano discoveries,
under circumstances which would have led him to have recognized them
if he knew of them, and which would have required him to have done
so if this map were his authority. This sea is laid down by Agnese
in the same manner as it is shown on the Verrazzano map, approaching
the Atlantic, from the north, along a narrow isthmus terminating at
latitude 40 Degrees, with the coast turning abruptly to the west;
the ocean being thus represented open thence from the isthmus to
Cathay. A track of French navigation, not a single voyage, expressed
by the words: el viages de France, is designated upon it, leading
from the north of France to this isthmus, referring obviously to the
voyages of the fishermen of Brittany and Normandy, to the coasts of
Nova Scotia and New England. No allusion is made to the voyage of
Verrazzano, or to the discoveries attributed to him by the Verrazano
map. The Atlantic coast on the contrary, is plainly delineated after
the Spanish map of Ribero, as is shown by the form, peculiar to that
map, of the coast, at latitude 40 Degrees, returning to the west. It
is apparent, therefore, that the two maps of Agnese and Verrazano,
both representing the western sea in the same form, must have been
derived from a common source, or else one was taken from the other;
and that the map of Agnese could not, in either case, have been
derived from a map showing the Verrazzano discovery, and must
consequently have been anterior to the Verrazano map in its present
form.
It militates against the authenticity of the Verrazano map and the
early date which it would have inferred for itself, that there is
not a single known map or chart, either published or unpublished,
before the great map of Mercator in 1569, that refers to the
Verrazzano discoveries, or recognizes this map in any respect before
that of Michael Lok, published by Hakluyt, in 1582; or any before
Lok, that applies the name of the sea of Verrazano to the western
sea. The unauthenticated and until recently unnoticed globe of
Euphrosynus Ulpius, purporting to have been constructed in 1542, of
which we will speak presently, is the only evidence yet presented of
the existence of the Verrazano map, as it now appears, beyond the
map itself. The whole theory of the early influence of the
Verrazzano discovery, or of the Verrazano map, upon the cartography
of the period to which they relate, and its consequently proving
their authenticity, as advanced by some learned writers, is
therefore incorrect and is founded in a misconception of fact.
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