Europe - The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques And Discoveries Of The English Nation - Volume 4 - Collected By Richard Hakluyt
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Taken Out Of The Second
Volume Of Nauigations And Voyages, Fol.
17.
Of the notable Cosmographer
M. Iohn Baptista Ramusius, Secretaire to the State of Venice: Written in
Italian in the yeere, 1557.
D'alla parte poi di sotto la nostra Tramontana, che chiascuno scrittore et
Cosmographo di questi et de passati tempi fin'hora vi ha messo e mette mare
congelato, et che la terra corra continuamente fino a 90. gradi verso il
Polo: sopro questa mappa-mondo all' incontro si vede che la terra va
solamente vn poco sopra la Noruega et Suetia, e voltando corre poi Greco e
Leuante nel paese della Moscouta et Rossia, et va diritto al Cataio. Et che
cio sia la verita, le nauigationi che hanno fatte gl' Inglesi con le loro
naui, volendo andare a scoprire il Cataio al tempo del Re Odoardo Sesto
d'Inghilterra, questi anni passati, ne possono far vera testimonianza:
perche nel mezzo del loro viaggio, capitate per fortuna a i liti di
Moscouia doue trouarano all' hora regnare Giouanni Vasiliuich Imperatore
della Rossia e gran Duca di Moscouia, il quale con molto piacere e
marauiglia vedutogli, fece grandissime carezze, hanno trouato quel mare
essere nauigabile, e non agghiacciato. La qual nauigatione (ancor che con
l'esito fin hora non sia stata bene intesa) se col spesso frequentarla et
col lungo vso et cognitione de que' mari si continuera, e per fare
grandissima mutatione et riuolgimento nelle cose di questa nostra parte del
mondo.
The same in English.
Moreouer (hauing before spoken of diuers particularities, in an excellent
Map of Paulus Venetus) on that part subiect to our North pole, where euery
writer and Cosmographer of these and of former times hitherto, haue, and
doe place the frozen Sea, and that the land stretcheth continually to 90.
degress, towards the pole: contrarywise, in this mappe is to bee seene,
that the land extendeth onely a litle aboue Norway and Swethland, and then
turning it selfe trendeth afterwards towards the Southeast and by East,
vnto the countrey of Moscouie and Russia, and stretcheth directly vnto
Cathay. And that this is true, the nauigations which the English men haue
of late made, intending to discouer Cathay, in the time of Edward the sixt,
king of England, are very sufficient witnesses. For in the mids of their
voiage, lighting by chance vpon the coast of Moscouie (where they found
then reigning Iohn Vasiliwich Emperor of Russia, and great Duke of
Moscouia, who after he had, to his great delight and admiration, seene the
English men, entertained them with exceeding great curtesies) found this
sea to be nauigable, and not frozen.
[Sidenote: The great hope of the Northeastern dicouerie.] Which nauigation
to Cathay, although it be not as yet throughly knowen, yet if with often
frequenting the same, and by long vse and knowledge of those seas it bee
continued it is like to make a wonderfull change and reuolution in the
state of this our port of the world.
* * * * *
The testimonie of Gerardus Mercator in his last large Mappe of Europe,
touching the notable discoueries of the English, made of Moscouie by the
Northeast.
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