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.
