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Page 40
This disastrous expedition, therefore, went no further north, than
the Jordan or Santee. It demonstrated the falsity of the stories
told to Peter Martyr by Francis, the Chicorane, as he was called,
one of the Indians seized in the first expedition and taken by
Ayllon to Spain, of the vast provinces with uncouth names which were
upon his authority transferred to the royal cedule granted to Ayllon
on the 12th June, 1523. [Footnote: P. Martyr, Dec. VII. o.2;
Navarrete III. 153.] That region remained unknown, therefore, until
the voyage of Gomez, and to it and it alone can the names on these
maps, within the limits before designated, be attributed.
These maps passed at once into Italy; and that of Ribero, bearing
the date of 1529 and the arms of the then reigning pontiff, Clement
VII, and his successors, the most finished of the three copies known
to exist, is still to be found at Rome, and is reasonably supposed
to have been the original; and like the last decade of Peter Martyr
in 1526, which mentions the discoveries of Gomez, to have been sent
to the Holy Father at his desire, in order to keep him informed of
the latest discoveries. [Footnote: Nouvelles Annales des Voyages.
Nouvelle series, tome xxxv. Annee 1853. Tome troisieme. Paris. Les
Papes geographes et la cartographic du Vatican. Par R. M. Thomassey.
Appendix p. 275.] Other copies of the Spanish charts showing the
exploration of Gomez, found their way in to Italy about the same
time, proving that there was then no interdict against their
exportation from Spain to that country, at least. [Footnote: In
regard to the freedom which the charts of the Spanish navigators so
enjoyed there is confirmatory proof in Ramusio. In the preface to
his third volume, dedicated to his friend Fracastor of Florence, he
writes: "All the literary men daily inform you of any discovery made
known to them by captain or pilot coming from those parts, and among
others the aforesaid Sig. Gonzalo (Oviedo) from the island of
Hispaniola, who every year visits you once or twice with some new
made chart."] This appears by a volume which was published in Venice
in 1534 under the auspices of Ramusio, [Footnote: M. d'Avezac in
Bulletin de la Societe de Geographic for July and August, 1872.]
embracing a summary of the general history of the West Indies by
Peter Martyr and a translation of Oviedo's natural history of the
Indies of 1526, containing the account of Gomez' voyage, with a map
of America upon which the discoveries of Gomez are laid down the
same as upon the Spanish maps of 1527 and 1529, before mentioned.
The following colophon, giving the origin of this map, is to be
found at the end of the translation of Oviedo: "Printed at Venice,
in the month of December 1534. For the explanation of these books
there has been made an universal map of the countries of all the
West Indies, together with a special map, taken from two marine
charts of the Spaniards, one of which belonged to Don Pietro
Martire, Councillor of the Royal Council of the said Indies, and was
made by the pilot and master of marine charts, Nino Garzia de
Loreno, in Seville. The other was made also by a pilot of the
majesty, the emperor, in Seville. With which maps the reader can
inform himself of the whole of this new world, place by place, the
same as if he had been there himself." [Footnote: This volume has no
general title, but contains three books, primo, secondo & ultimo
della historia de l'India Occidentali. It is very rarely found with
the large map of America. We are indebted to the kindness of James
Lonox, Esq. of New York, for the use of a perfect copy in this
respect.] The special map here referred to is one of Hispaniola, in
the same volume, and was undoubtedly taken from that of Nuno Garcia,
in the possession of Peter Martyr. It was therefore made in or
before the year 1526, since Martyr died in that year. The map of
America, by the pilot of the emperor at Seville, was probably the
anonymous map of 1527 before mentioned, as it appears not to have
had the name of the author upon it. These facts prove at least that
the map of Ribero was in Italy in the year 1529, and that the map of
1527 may have been there before that year.
It was from the delineation of the coast on one or other of these
two maps, which are in that respect almost identically the same,
that the description of it in the Verrazzano letter was derived.
This will now be made manifest by the application of that
description to the map of Ribero, so much of which as is necessary,
is here reproduced for that purpose.
In making the proof thus proposed, it is to be borne in mind that
the letter is positive and explicit as to the extent and limits of
the discovery or exploration which it describes. It fixes them by
three different modes which prove each, other: 1. By giving the
latitude of the commencement and termination of the voyage along the
coast; 2. By a declaration in two different forms of the entire
distance run, and 3. By a statement of intermediate courses and
distances, from point to point, between the landfall and the place
of leaving the coast, separately, making in the aggregate the whole
distance named. There can be therefore no mistake as to the meaning
of the writer in respect of the extent of the exploration.
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