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Page 4
The description of the voyage is followed by what the writer calls a
cosmography, in which is shown the distance they had sailed from the
time they left the desert rocks at Madeira, and the probable size of
the new world as compared with the old, with the relative area of
land and water on the whole globe. There is nothing striking or
important in this supplement, except that it emphasizes and enforces
the statements of the former part of the letter in regard to the
landfall, fixes the exact point of their departure from the coast
for home again at 50 Degrees N. latitude, and gives seven hundred
leagues as the extent of the discovery. The length of a longitudinal
degree along the parallel of thirty-four, in which it is reiterated
they first made land, and between which and the parallel of thirty-
two they had sailed from the Desertas, is calculated and found to be
fifty-two miles, and the whole number of degrees which they had
traversed across the ocean between those parallels, being twelve
hundred leagues, or forty-eight hundred miles, is by simple division
made ninety-two. The object of this calculation is not apparent, and
strikes the reader as if it were a feeble imitation of the manner in
which Amerigo Vespucci illustrates his letters. A statement is made,
that they took the aim's altitude from day to day, and noted the
observations, together with the rise and fall of the tide, in a
little boat, which was "communicated to his majesty, in the hope of
promoting science." It is also mentioned that they had no lunar
eclipses, by means of which they could have ascertained the
longitude during the voyage. This fact is shown by the tables of
Regiomontanus, which had been published long before the alleged
voyage, and were open to the world. The statement of it here,
therefore, does not, as has been supposed, furnish any evidence in
support of the narrative, by redeem of its originality. Such is the
account, in brief; which the letter gives of the origin, nature and
extent of the alleged discovery; and as it assumes to be the
production of the navigator himself, and is the only source of
information on the subject, it suggests all the questions which
arise in this inquiry. These relate both to the genuineness of the
letter, and the truth of its statements; and accordingly bring under
consideration the circumstances under which that instrument was made
known and has received credit; the alleged promotion of the voyage
by the king of France; and the results claimed to have been
accomplished thereby. It will be made to appear upon this
examination, that the letter, according to the evidence upon which
its existence is predicated, could not have been written by
Verrazzano; that the instrumentality of the King of France, in any
such expedition of discovery as therein described, is unsupported by
the history of that country, and is inconsistent with the
acknowledged acts of Francis and his successors, and therefore
incredible; and that its description of the coast and some of the
physical characteristics of the people and of the country are
essentially false, and prove that the writer could not have made
them, from his own personal knowledge and experience, as pretended.
And, in conclusion, it will be shown that its apparent knowledge of
the direction and extent of the coast was derived from the
exploration of Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese pilot in the service of
the king of Spain, and that Verrazzano, at the time of his pretended
discovery, was actually engaged in a corsairial expedition, sailing
under the French flag, in a different part of the ocean.
II.
THE VERRAZZANO LETTER NOT GENUINE
No proof that the letter ascribed to Verrazzano, was written by him,
has ever been produced. The letter itself has never been exhibited,
or referred to in any authentic document, or mentioned by any
contemporary or later historian as being in existence, and although
it falls within the era, of modern history, not a single fact which
it professes to describe relating to the fitting out of the
expedition, the voyage, or the discovery, is corroborated by other
testimony, whereby its genuineness might even be inferred. The only
evidence in regard to it, relates to two copies, as they purport to
be, both in the Italian language, one of them coming to us printed
and the other in manuscript, but neither of them traceable to the
alleged original. They are both of them of uncertain date. The
printed copy appears in the work of Ramusio, first published in
1556; when Verrazzano and Francis I, the parties to it, were both
dead, and a generation of men had almost passed away since the
events which it announced had, according to its authority, taken
place, and probably no one connected with the government of France
at that time could have survived to gainsay, the story, were it
untrue.[Footnote: Verrazzano died in 1527; Louise, the mother of
Francis I in September, 1582, and Francis himself in March, 1547.]
Ramusio does not state when or how he obtained what he published. In
the preface to the volume in which it is printed, dated three years
before, he merely speaks of the narrative incidentally, but in a
discourse preceding it, he obscurely alludes to the place where he
found it, remarking that it was the only letter of Verrazzano that
he had "been able to have, because the others had got astray in the
troubles of the unfortunate city of Florence." The origin of the
manuscript version is equally involved in mystery. It forms part of
a codex which contains also a copy of a letter purporting to have
been written by Fernando Carli, from Lyons to his father in
Florence, on the 4th of August, 1524, giving an account of the
arrival of Verrazzano at Dieppe, and inclosing a copy of his letter
to the King. The epistles of Carli and Verrazzano are thus connected
together in the manuscript in fact, and by reference in that of
Carli, making the copy of the Verrazzano letter a part of Carli's,
and so to relate to the same date. But as the Carli letter in the
manuscript is itself only a copy, there is nothing to show when that
was really written; nor is it stated when the manuscript itself was
made. All that is positively known in regard to the latter is, that
it was mentioned in 1768, as being then in existence in the Strozzi
library in Florence. When it came into that collection does not
appear, but as that library was not founded until 1627, its history
cannot be traced before that year, [Footnote: Der Italicum von D.
Friedrich Blume. Band II, 81. Halle, 1827.] Its chirography,
however, in the opinion of some competent persons who have examined
it, indicates that it was written in the middle of the sixteenth
century. There is, therefore, nothing in the history or character of
the publication in Ramusio or the manuscript, to show that the
letter emanated from Verrazzano. Neither of them is traceable to
him; neither of them was printed at a time when its publication,
without contradiction, might be regarded as an admission or
acknowledgment by the world of a genuine original; and neither of
them is found to have existed early enough to authorize an inference
in favor of such an original by reason of their giving the earliest
account of the coasts and country claimed to have been discovered.
On the contrary, these two documents of themselves, when their
nature and origin are rightly understood, serve to prove that the
Verrazzano letter is not a genuine production. For this purpose it
will be necessary to state more fully their history and character.
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