INTRODUCTION.
The Following Letters Bear To Have Been Written By Some Italian Public
Agents And Merchants, To Their Employers And Friends, And Contain A
Curious Record Of The First Impressions Made On The Public Mind By The
Wonderful Discoveries Which Navigation Was Then Opening Up To The
European World.
They are selected from the _Novus Orbis_, a work which
was published by _Simon Grynaeus_ early in the sixteenth
Century.
According to M. de la Richarderie,[2] this collection was formed by Hans
Heteirs, canon of Strasburg, and was printed under the care of Simon
Grynaeus, by Isaac Hervag, in folio, at Basil in 1532. We learn likewise
that it passed rapidly through several editions, having been reprinted at
Basil in 1535, 1537, and 1555; and at Paris in 1582. The edition used on
the present occasion is printed at Basil in 1555 by Jo. Hervag. Its
principal contents, besides those translated for the present chapter, are
the voyages of Cada Mosto, already given; the discovery of America by
Christopher Columbus, which will form the first article in our subsequent
volume; the voyages of Vincent Alonzo Pinzon, and of Americus Vespucius,
which will be attended to hereafter; and the travels of Marco Polo, which
have been already given at full length from a better source.
The language of the _Novus Orbis_ is perhaps the most barbarous Latin
ever composed for the press, and its punctuation is so enormously
incorrect that it would have been easier understood without any points
whatever.
As already mentioned, the edition here used is dated in the year 1555,
little more than fifty years after the discoveries they commemorate; and
the letters themselves are dated in 1501, 1502, and 1503, immediately
after the return of the earliest of the Portuguese voyages from India.
Indeed the first letter seems to have been written only a day or two
after the arrival of the first ship belonging to Cabrals fleet.
This work is accompanied by a very curious map of the world, on one
planisphere, much elongated to the east and west, which may be considered
as a complete picture of the knowledge then acquired of the cosmography
of our globe. The first meridian is placed at the island of Ferro, and
the degrees of longitude are counted from thence eastwards all round the
world, so that Ferro is in long. 0 deg. and 360 deg. E. In every part of the
world, the outlines are grossly incorrect, and it would serve no purpose
to give an extended critical view of this map; yet a few notices
respecting it may gratify curiosity.
Europe is singularly incorrect, especially in the north and east. America,
called likewise _Terra Nova_, has an approximated delineation of its
southern division, stretching far to the south, as if the cosmographer
had received some tolerable notices of Brazil, Cape Horn, and the coasts
of Peru and Chili. But instead of the continent of North America, the
island of Cuba is delineated in a north and south direction, reaching
between the latitudes of 10 deg.
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