RESEARCHES
RESPECTING
AMERICUS VESPUCIUS,
AND HIS VOYAGES.
BY
THE VISCOUNT SANTAREM,
EX PRIME MINISTER OF PORTUGAL, MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, ETC. ETC. ETC.
TRANSLATED
BY E. V. CHILDE.
BOSTON:
CHARLES C. LITTLE & JAMES BROWN.
1850.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by CHARLES
C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN, in the Clerk's Office of the District
Court of the District of Massachusetts.
CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED BY BOLLES AND HOUGHTON.




RESEARCHES.
INTRODUCTION.
THE discovery of the New Continent, which we
owe to the genius of Columbus, was a fact of the
utmost importance, on account of the remarkable
influence it exercised in developing the human intellect. It enabled Astronomy, Physics, Botany, and
Mineralogy, to add greatly to their stores by means
of new observations and numerous experiments and
to it the moral sciences themselves too have not been
less indebted.' From the comparison also of new
idioms, manners, customs and opinions, invaluable
materials have been extracted for the history oi
man.2
Since that event more than three thousand works
have been written upon the history and geography
I Ancillon, Description of the Revolutions of the Political System
of Europe. Vol. i. p. 191, et seqq.
2 Ibid.




4                RESEARCHES, ETC.
of this vast portion of the globe, and upon the expeditions which took place between the years 1492 and
1540.   Notwithstanding, however, this immense
number of literary productions, and the minute investigations they contained respecting the leaders
and dates of these early expeditions, this part of the
history of the geography of the New Continent remained in great obscurity up to the commencement
of the present century. Till then there was a multitude of problems concerning the history and geography of the New Continent, which the research of
many learned men had failed to solve.
Certain authors had indeed sought to ascertain if
the New World had been known to the ancients,
while others occupied themselves with the same
question either in the hope of tarnishing the fame of
Columbus,l or with a view to investigate the causes
and traditions which led him to the enterprise that
immortalized his name; or, finally, for the purpose of
proving that this part of the world was the famous
Atlantis of Plato.
Thus, since the sixteenth century, a savant of immense erudition, the celebrated Las Casas is found
discussing in his History of the Indies all the pasI Although the roundness of the earth, and the antipodes, are found
in almost all the cosmographical treatises of the fourteenth century, it
is well known that at the end of the fifteenth many persons were unwilling to admit them as facts, and sustained a contrary opinion for the
purpose of opposing themselves to the voyage of Columbus. Libri,
History of the Sciences in Italy. Vol. ii. p. 197.




INTRODUCTION.                      5
sages, whether from ancient authors or from those of
the Middle Age, which in his opinion exerted a powerful influence on the mind of Columbus.1 Then
Scherer, in 1777, made a collection of certain geographical fragments respecting the knowledge which
the ancients possessed of the existence of a New
Continent.2   And later, that is, in 1783, Masdeu
occupied himself also in bringing together the observations of ancient authors, such as Plato, Aristotle,
Diodorus Siculus, Posidonius, Strabo, Seneca, Pliny,
Saint Clement of Alexandria, ZElian, Apuleius and
Origen, which bore upon the existence of a continent separated from ours by the great ocean.3
Passages from  these  authors we have  seen  this
learned Spaniard grouping in one mass, for the purpose of showing that their united testimony proves
that from the time of Solon to that of Origen, and
even for a much longer period, comprising nine centuries, the tradition of another continent than our
own has prevailed among the nations of the old
world. But, on the other hand, nothing which is
met with in the works of Adam of Bremen,4 Torfteus,
1 General History of the Indies, 1559. An unedited MS. in the
library of M. Ternaux. Vide chaps. 5 -11.
2 Scherer, Historical and Geographical Researches touching the
New World.
3 Masdeu, Critical History of Spain. Vol. iii. b. 6, p. 324, et seq.
"Clement of Alexandria " is here substituted, by a mistake of the
author, for Clement of Rome, to whom Masdeu refers.
4 An author of the eleventh century, in whose work it is pretended
that there are indications of America's having been visited in his time
by the people of the north. But those who have put their faith in




6                RESEARCHES, ETC.
Gottlob Fritsch, Daniel Victor, Erasmus Schmid, nor
of Cassel of Bremen, tends satisfactorily to solve the
question, whether the New Continent had ever been
visited by Europeans.
We have, therefore, thought it perfectly useless to
repeat what has been already said by others, or to
criticize anew these passages, especially as one of the
most illustrious savans of our day, (M. de Humboldt,) 1 has very lately entered into a discussion of
the same.
Previously to the year 1825, the discussions which
appeared concerning the New Continent were rather
matters of mere erudition than historical treatises
upon positive facts. But then was brought forth one
of the most important memorials of modern times,2
which shed a new light upon many points of the
highest interest, and opened to the world documents,
hitherto unedited, of great value, respecting the earliest stages of discovery of the New Continent.  We
here allude to the work of our very learned friend,
M. de Navarrete,3 which has brought to the acquaintthis author forgot perhaps that he himself was completely ignorant of
the geography of the Baltic; that he had doubts whether Russia had,even been reached by this sea, and moreover reckoned Esthonia and
Courland among the number of the isles. See his work De Sits
Danica.
1 Critical Examination of the History of the Geography of the New
Continent. Vol. i. p. 15, et seq.
2 See these expressions in the Critical Examination by M. de
Humboldt. Vol. i. p. 15 of the Introduction.
3 Collection of Voyages and Discoveries which the Spaniards made
by sea since the end of the fifteenth century.




INTRODUCTION.              7
ance of savans an enormous quantity of documentary
matter and new opinions, by means of which may be
entirely re-written a large portion of the history of
the New Continent, as it was known to us before this
important publication. Following the production of
M. de Navarrete, came the interesting I4fe of Columbus, by Mr. Washington Irving; and not long ago,
M. de Humboldt published the result of his erudite
labors.
In 1826, M. de Navarrete having consulted us
regarding the voyages which Americus Vespucius
pretended to have undertaken at the expense of Portugal, this question, so important to the geographical
history of the New Continent, from that moment
fixed our attention, and we consequently communicated to the learned Spaniard a memoir, in which
we ventured to express our opinion on the subject,
such as he was pleased to introduce into his own
work.
To this memoir we afterwards added numerous
notes and considerable new matter, all of which are
contained in the present volume, although we acknowledge that it was not in such a form they were
originally intended to appear, but in a work superior
in method and of greater extent. The kind reception, however, they met with from many savans, and
particularly from the Geographical Society of Paris,
together with the repeated applications which were
made to us at different times by one of the greatest




8              RESEARCHES, ETC.
authorities in this branch of science, our learned
friend and fellow-laborer the Baron de Walckenaer,
decided us to collect the several detached pieces
hitherto published in M. de Navarrete's work, and
in the volumes of the Bulletin of the Geographical
Society, and to make to them many additions, which,
with the analytical table, are now for the first time
given to the public.
We are quite aware, and feel bound to admit, that,
according to the strict rules of historical criticism,
the highest importance should be attached to those
documents, and to the testimony of those authors
alone, which belong to the first half of the sixteenth
century. Neither were we at any time ignorant of the
fact that this importance gradually diminishes in proportion to the distance at which we leave this epoch
behind. But the impartial reader will doubtless
acknowledge that, in a discussion of this sort, the
opinions of critics and historians of a later date, when
they bear upon the same subject, should be cited for
examination.' For in order thoroughly to appreciate
the merits of a controversy, one ought to have before
his eyes all that has ever been written on either side
of it.
We have thought it necessary also to give all the
bibliographical indications, and to point out the
sources, whence is to be obtained a profound and
accurate knowledge of the question. And if this
method is not indispensably necessary to historical




INTRODUCTION.                9
criticism, it is at least of vast utility, in our opinion,
for a correct appreciation of the truth.  So that,
without being over anxious about the criticism to
which we may expose ourselves, we have taken upon
us to detail whatever historians, geographers, and
savans, in great numbers, have thought and spoken
relative to Vespucius and his voyages, in the conviction that those who read our book without partiality
will feel obliged to us, for having spared them the
trouble of new investigations in search of materials
whereon to form an opinion for themselves. We
fancied, besides, that, by confining ourselves to the
testimony and documents beginning with the commencement of the sixteenth century, we might break
the thread of the history of this controversy, which,
we may venture to say, has endured since the time
of Vespucius to the present day.
It is not without regret that we have occupied
ourselves with this question in a controversial manner, we who, in all our works successively published
in the course of twenty years, have always most carefully avoided every sort of disputation. Nevertheless, our convictions upon the subject we proposed to
treat were profound, and unfortunately, no argument
to alter them has as yet presented itself. We had,
moreover, the firm assurance that a controversial
discussion of points, which have not been sufficiently
elucidated, is always a gain to science. And, indeed,
it is impossible to gainsay the importance and utility




10             RESEARCHES, ETC.
of such a discussion, when one sees how little was
known to Forster, a writer at the end of the last
century, about the Cabots and their voyages, and
how all that concerns these navigators has been
cleared up and illustrated by the invaluable work of
M. de Navarrete, and especially by the learned
labors of Mr. Biddle.' Convinced then of this truth,
we have not hesitated to take up the question of
Americus Vespucius, and of the first epoch of the
discovery of the New Continent. The result of our
investigations we now submit to the judgment of the
learned.
We cannot by any possibility incur the charge of
national partiality in what we have said, for our
pleadings are rather in favor of the incontestable
rights of Columbus, of Hojeda, of Lepe, of Cabral,
and of Pinzon.*  We have mistrusted the authenticity of documents coming to us under the name of
Vespucius, and have expressed the very slight faith
with which we were inspired by narratives, upon certain subjects of great importance, ascribed to the
Florentine navigator. And if any one will take the
trouble to follow us attentively, he will acknowledge
that we have not attacked every weak point and
every doubtful problem which is to be found in the
I Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, with a review of the History of
maritime Discovery, illustrated by documents from the Rolls, now
first published. London, 1831.
* It must be borne in mind that the author is Portuguese. -TR.




INTRODUCTION.                11
letters of Americus Vespucius, but that, on the contrary, our incredulity as to the claims of the Florentine is the result of the most thorough investigation.
Yet, let this be as it may, we have preferred, as says
a learned professor,' to present as doubtful what is
true, rather than as true what is doubtful.
The reader will also perceive by many passages in
this book, that we have not attempted to conceal the
part which Italians took in the voyages and discoveries of the fifteenth, and particularly of the sixteenth
centuries. If our convictions, derived as they are
from a conscientious study of documents, have extorted from our pen any expression respecting Vespucius which may appear too severe, it must be
attributed to the profound impression made upon us
by the inconceivable injustice committed against the
noble and dignified character of Columbus; and,
moreover, be it remarked that in severity our observations upon the Florentine navigator fall far short
of those employed by a great number of most learned
writers, beginning with Las Casas, his contemporary,
and ending with M. de Navarrete, of our day.
If this first portion of our literary task fails to give
perfect satisfaction to certain critics, instead of complaining, we will say to them beforehand, in the
words of Forster, that " it is the lamentable fate of
the learned not to be able, with all their pains, to
1 Ampere. Literary History of France. Vol. i. Introduction.




12             RESEARCHES, ETC.
obtain the information they would wish with respect
to all the objects of their researches." 1
There are other points, however, that we will attempt to discuss in the second part of our work, for
the prosecution of which we have succeeded in
amassing an immense quantity of materials.
We cannot close this introduction without expressing the most hearty gratitude to our very
learned friend, M. Jomard, for the zeal and kindness with which he has had the goodness to place
at our disposal many volumes of his rich and valuable library, besides a great number of materials
for cartographical purposes, which are found collected in the precious depository of plans and charts
in the Royal Library,- a collection of literary
treasures increasing in value every day, thanks to
the enlightened and untiring zeal of its able and
learned founder.
M. Ternaux-Compans ought also here to receive
a token of our lively gratitude for the instructive
liberality with which he has spread before us the
sumptuous stores of his splendid American Library.
And with such aids as these it has been that we
have succeeded in accomplishing a new and critical
treatise upon the history of one of the most memorable and most fruitful discoveries which the human
race has ever witnessed.
1 Forster, History of Voyages and Discoveries in the North, (London, 1786,) p. 427.




CHAPTER I.
NEITHER in the original chancelleries (Chancellarias originaes) of the king Don Manuel, from 1495
to 1503, inclusive, nor in the 82,902 documents of
the chronological-records, (Corpo chronologico,) or
the 6,095 of the chest-records, (Corpo das gavetas,) nor yet in the numerous letters missive from
kings, princes, and other personages, -letters deposited in the royal archives, have we found the
slightest mention of the name of Vespucius, or of
those of Giuliano del Giocondo and Bartolomeo del
Giocondo.
We ought to add that we have never encountered
the name of Vespucius in the exceedingly valuable
collection of manuscripts belonging to the royal
library of Paris, which we examined during our stay
in that city, which furnished us with materials for
our critical memoirs published in volumes XII.
XIII. and XV. of the Annales des Sciences, and
which Balbi speaks of in the second volume of his
]Essai Statistique, when treating of literary archives.
Neither is any mention made of his name in the
manuscript, No. 10,023, entitled, Journal des FVoyages des Portugais, depuis l'an 1497 jusqu'en 1632,
a manuscript originally composed in Portuguese by




14         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
a native of Portugal, and evidently taken from an
cient memoirs, as appears from the orthography and
double letters, which are still preserved.
One should regard, then, as extremely suspicious
the pretensions of Vespucius, and place very little
faith in all he says in his letters to Piero Soderini,
which were translated into Portuguese and published in 1812, by the Royal Academy of Lisbon,
in its Collection of Notes relating to the History
and Geography of the People beyond the Sea.
Our opinion, thereupon, has in no way changed,
notwithstanding that of the learned Portuguese editor, who pretends, "that Pedro Alvares Cabral,
returning to Portugal, where he arrived in 1501,
encountered, in passing Cape Vert, a squadron of
three vessels, in which was found Vespucius, who
conversed with him." It is probable that the editor
extracted these lines from a passage in the twentyfirst chapter of a memoir upon the voyage of Pedro
Alvares Cabral, written by a Portuguese pilot, and to
be found in the third number of the second volume
of the Collection above cited. This is the passage:
"We reached the Cape of Good Hope on Palm
Sunday; the wind being favorable, we doubled the
Cape, and touched at a place, near Cape Vert,
called Besenegue, where we found three vessels,
which the king of Portugal had sent to reconnoitre
the new land that we had discovered on our way to
Calcutta."




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  15
How can any one believe that the name of Vespucius was so obscure as to escape being mentioned
by the Portuguese pilot in his narrative? Because
Cabral met these three vessels, does it follow that
this was the supposed expedition of Vespucius, notwithstanding the coincidence of his first letter with
the passage we have quoted? And hence to draw
any affirmative conclusion in favor of Vespucius, is
it not to make forced inductions of a most unsatisfactory nature? In our judgment, this said passage
is not a proof of sufficient authority to supply the
absence of written documents, and to induce us to
put entire credit in the letters to Piero Soderini.
On the other hand, it is incredible that Damiao
de Goes, a Portuguese historian living at the time
of these discoveries and voyages, a man, too, of the
greatest learning and of undoubted faith, whose
stores of knowledge were prodigious, and who, after
having travelled throughout Europe, became chief of
the Royal Archives at the Torre do Tombo, where he
left nothing untouched which could aid him in composing his Chronicle of the King Don Manuel; it is
incredible that he who did not forget to speak of
Pietro Pascoaligo, Venetian ambassador at Lisbon,
in the sixty-second chapter of the first part of his
work, never thought of mentioning the name of so
celebrated a personage as Vespucius, while in every
page he talks of other very indifferent persons; and
that too when alluding, in the sixtieth chapter of




16          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
the first part of the same Chronicle, to the return of
Pedro Alvares Cabral, and to his arrival at Cape
Vert, he briefly says: " And thence, he (Cabral)
went to Cape Vert, where he encountered Pedro
Dias, who separated from him in the pursuit of his
voyage to the Indies, as we have above remarked."
How is it possible to imagine that this author knew
nothing of the pretended meeting of Cabral and
Vespucius?
Damiao de Goes, during his residence at Padua,
maintained the most intimate relations with Julio
Sprone and other learned individuals; he interested
himself greatly, too, in the voyages undertaken by
the Portuguese at that time, and so familiarly acquainted with the subject had he become, that, on
his departure for Holland, his Italian friends never
ceased to consult him, and he it was who sent to
Ramusio the manuscript work of Father Luiz Alvares. Nor is it possible for me to believe that this
learned Portuguese historian, who was ignorant of
no circumstances attending the voyages of Cadamosto, as is evident from the eighth chapter of the
Chronicle of the Prince Don Joao, although not his
contemporary, should just happen to know nothing
of Vespucius's expedition.
How can it be supposed that Damiao de Goes was
ignorant of the discoveries which Vespucius in his
letters to Piero Soderini pretends to have made,
when, after having visited Milan, Lombardy, Rome,




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  17
Ferrara and Venice, he became acquainted with a
great number of savans in all these places, and maintained a literary correspondence with the cardinals
Bembo, Bonamico, Sadoleto, Cristoforo Madruccio,
John Magnus, his brother Olaus Magnus, and many
other distinguished personages?
On his return to Portugal, Damiao de Goes, by
an order dated June the 3d, 1548,1 and signed by
Don Joao III. was appointed chief of the royal Archives of the Torre do Tombo, as a reward for his services. He then engaged with great zeal in collecting
all the materials necessary for the composition of the
Chronicles which he afterwards published, and in
properly arranging all the documents under his care.
Is it then within the range of possibility that the
voyage, and consequent renown of Vespucius, could
have remained unknown to him, if indeed this voyage had really taken place only forty-five years before? Is it permissible to believe that Damiao de
Goes would have met with no traces of these voyages; that he, who in the course of his travels had
amassed a great quantity of manuscripts and rare
documents, which were sent by him to the Infant
Don Fernando, Duke da Guarda, and son of the
King Don Manuel, would have found not a single
one relative to Vespucius, if any such had existed?
Let no one pretend that Damiao de Goes, prejuChancellery of the King Don Joao III. Book 60th, leaf 43.
2




18           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
diced in favor of his own countrymen, purposely
kept silent, that he might obscure the glory of Vespucius, because Vespucius was a foreigner; for to
Portugal already belonged the honor of this discovery, which was made by Pedro Alvares Cabral, the
year preceding the date of Vespucius's hypothetical
voyage; in addition to which, Damiao de Goes was
a historian of undoubted integrity, and his narrative
of the voyage of Cadamosto, a foreigner as well as
Vespucius, was written with the utmost impartiality.
HIow could it have possibly happened that the
chief of the royal Archives knew nothing of the
books and papers of Vespucius, when at the end of
his compendium  the latter says: "As soon as he
had arrived in Portugal, he presented to the King,
Don Manuel, his books and papers, which his Majesty desired to see and examine?" 1
We ought to remark also, that we have ourselves
seen a letter, written by Pietro Pascoaligo, Venetian Ambassador at Lisbon, to his brothers in Italy,
dated the 23d of October, 1501, the very year of
Vespucius's imaginary voyage, and that while the
writer speaks of the expedition of Cortereal, he
makes not the slightest allusion to Vespucius, who
was, like himself, Italian.
1 Can it be believed that the King Don Manuel, who occupied himself so zealously in reforming the documents in the Archives, as to go
in person to the depository of the Torre do Tombo, forgot to collect the
books and papers which Vespucius speaks of, if indeed they existed,
and neglected to have them copied, when they concerned an affair of
such importance to his reign?




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  19
Besides, we have examined with attention those
sections of our Records of public diplomatic law in
Portugal, which treat of our national relations with
Spain and Italy, and in none of them is to be found
any thing respecting Vespucius. Ruy de Sande,
too, Don Manuel's Minister in Spain, says not a
single word of this Florentine in his despatches, written during 1500 and 1501, precisely the years in
which Vespucius made his pretended discoveries,
nor does Joao Mendes de Vasconcellos in his official
correspondence of 1502, and the years following,
ever make mention of his name.1
Neither Goes, nor the manuscipt in the royal Library at Paris, which we have already quoted,
speaks of any important expedition in 1501, although
they both allude to a voyage undertaken in that year
by Joao da Nova, a very insignificant navigator
when compared to Vespucius. And in this we find
fresh cause for doubting the reality of the voyage
and discoveries imputed to the latter.
As to his second voyage, Damiao de Goes says
literally nothing, while other writers on the subject
vary greatly in their narratives. Pedro de Mariz,
1 We will add that at the epoch spoken of, it was the custom of
our kings, either directly or through their ambassadors, to communicate all the remarkable events of the day to foreign monarchs, and
especially to him of Spain, on account of family alliances existing with
that sovereign. In these correspondences of the time, not having
found any thing touching Vespucius or his discoveries, we are led still
further to discredit the stories of the Florentine.




20           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
in his fifth dialogue, observes, without, however,
indicating the year, " That the King Don Manuel
sent a squadron of six vessels, commanded by Gon9alo Coelho, and that the captain, after having lost
two out of the six, returned with the rest to Portugal, where he arrived subsequently to the death of
the King."
Father Simao de Vasconcellos and several other
chroniclers give the same account, but Damiao de
Goes, in his chronicle, states in precise terms that
Gon~alo Coelho departed with six vessels the 10th
of June, 1503. If we could but recover the work
of this Portuguese captain upon America, which he
wrote by order of the king, after having himself
personally ascertained the truth, we might be able
to form a correct idea of the voyage of Coelho, and
decide also as to the part which Vespucius took in
it.  But unhappily it is lost, and the only tradition
respecting it which has reached us is, that its author
presented it to the king, Joao III.1
We have likewise inspected in the Royal Archives
of the Torre do Tombo all the documents concerning
Gongalo Coelho, and the genealogical memoirs of
his family, and in none of them do we find any thing
about Vespucius.
1 But supposing that Vespucius actually shared in this expedition,
the facts that Gonsalo Coelho was charged with the command, and
wrote the history of it, are they not quite sufficient to destroy his
exclusive pretensions to the discoveries claimed by him, and to deprive
him of the glory of having his name given to these regions?




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 21
We should moreover add that the Florentine,
speaking in his first letter of his arrival in the port
of Besenegue near Cape Vert, makes not the slightest allusion to his rencounter with Pedro Alvares
Cabral.
All that we have said demonstrates that the pretensions of Vespucius have very little foundation in
truth, and that many historians and geographers
have been led into error respecting him. And this
can be shown in a manner still more clear by comparing different passages in his own writings. Is it
not a contradiction, when, after having described in
his first letter his voyage of 750 leagues of coast, he
says: " that not having found in this country any
mines, &c. &c.," and finishes, speaking always in a
collective sense; and afterwards remarks; "Thus
it was decided, I being charged with the sole command of the squadron"?. Whence we must conclude that on first quitting Lisbon, he was not in
command. Further on he adds: " We agreed
with the first captain to make the signals to the
squadron, &c. &c."
After the exposition we have made, and after the
documents published by the Italians respecting
Vespucius, it is our opinion that the discoveries to
which he laid claim have a very slight foundation,
and at the best are extremely doubtful.
To gain full and entire credit for a fact, criticism
in our day demands proofs, the truth of which can



22            RESEARCHES RESPECTING
not be called in question. It is no longer satisfied
with simple tradition, and discards documents whose
character is worse than  doubtful.   Nevertheless,
without a more thorough and profound examination
of the subject, we will not venture to assert that
Vespucius was in neither of these expeditions, as a
navigator and cosmographer one of the most skilful;
and notwithstanding all that he wrote, we are greatly inclined to adopt the opinion of the learned Munfoz. In a word, we should believe, (that is, if we
are to regard his letters as genuine,) we should
even believe that he really did share in both these,
though only as a subaltern, and on that supposition
our astonishment ceases at his having acted towards
Portugal, and in respect to the voyages of 1501 and
1503, as he had already done in regard to the narratives of Hojeda.l
In order to have an opinion more decided on this
question, we should have been much pleased had we
1 It is proved that Vespucius, having got possession of the narratives of Hojeda, brought them out as his own. Koch, in his List of
Revolutions in Europe, (vol. i. page 298,) says: "A Florentine
merchant, by name Americus Vespucius, followed closely on the footsteps of the Genoese navigator, under the guidance of a Spanish captain, called Alonso de Hojeda. He made a number of voyages to
the New World, visited several coasts of the South American continent, and in the maps of discoveries which he drew up, he arrogated
to himself a glory which was not his due, by giving his own name to
a new continent, whence it happened that this name, the name of
America, has been constantly applied to that country ever since."
Wid-Tozen, cited by Koch in the fourth note of the same volume,
and the page before mentioned.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 23
been able to consult a work in German, published in
1823, and entitled, Allgemeine Geschichte Neuerer
Zeiten, etc., " A general History of Modern Times,"
by M. Rotteck. We have met with only some
extracts from this publication, but we remark that
the author, in his inquiry whether America had ever
been known or visited before the time of Christopher
Columbus, speaks a great deal of Vespucius, and of
the important part in this discovery he is made to
play by certain writers, and adds this observation:
" That which wars still more against the glory of
Columbus is the pretensions of Vespucius." From
which passage one infers that the author did not put
much faith in Vespucius's narrations.




CHAPTER II.
IN the previous Chapter we have stated certain
facts, and given our opinion respecting Americus
Vespucius; and we have produced a great many
contemporary or original proofs, which are, and which
ought to be, good authority in the matter. Now we
are going to group about our own opinion the opinions of several other writers, who have spoken of
Vespucius, and have discussed the title of this Florentine to stamp his name upon the New World, at the
expense of Columbus, of Cabral, of Goncalo Coelho,
and of others, and even to the prejudice of the important question, whether America had been known
to the ancients. But before reviewing these opinions, we will here still further develop what has been
asserted in a preceding page, that we have never
found Vespucius's name even mentioned in any of
the records of royal documents in the archives at
Lisbon. And it is very remarkable, be it observed,
that not only are the documents of the collections,
exceeding one hundred thousand in number, which
we have consulted and cited, perfectly silent in respect to him, but also that the registers of maps
belonging to king Emmanuel are equally so. For
Vespucius in his first letter to Piero Soderini says




RESEARCHES, ETC.               25
that, " Being at Seville, intending never to return
into Portugal again, a messenger express, with letters patent 1 from the aforesaid seignior (the king Emmanuel) reached me," &c. &c. Letters patent
from our kings were enregistered at the chancellery
of the kingdom; and these registers, and the books
containing them, are all in the royal archives of
the Torre do Tombo forming a collection of more than
two thousand volumes. Now, not a single one of
these volumes is missing, so that the chancellery of
the king Emmanuel is complete. How then could
Vespucius have received letters patent, as he pretends, without their having been enregistered at the
chancellery, according to the codes and laws? Is
it to be presumed that the authorities were willing
to violate these codes and laws in favor of Vespucius?
We will add to what has been said in another
page, even at the expense of repetition, that Vespucius himself, in his letters to Soderini, establishes in
the clearest manner that he was not at the head of
the commission of discovery. For in another passage of his second letter he says: "But our chief
captain, a presumptuous andfantastic man, wished
to go and reconnoitre,   c.," -" and to show him1 See the collection entitled: Concerning Africa, by Leo Africanus. and the Navigation of Ancient Portuguese Captains to the Indies.
Translation of Jean Temporal, vol. ii. p. 477.




26            RESEARCHES RESPECTING
self in the capacity of captain, he who was, nevertheless, in spite of all our other captains,  c." 1
This passage, and this formal avowal of Vespucius himself, do they not prove that if perchance he
belonged to the expedition, it was only as a subaltern; that the other five captains had as much right
to give their names to the continent they visited as
he; and that the commander-in-chief, in imposing
his own upon it, possessed a much higher title than
any of them?
In our preceding chapter we have not cited the
authority of the historian John de Barros,2 neither
that of the classic Osorio,3 both of whom were contemporaries of Vespucius, and authors worthy of
high commendation, according to the universal
esteem of savans in Europe. We will here produce
whatever we have been able to draw from the two
authentic sources touching the matter in hand.
Barros, in his treatise upon the discovery of Brazil, wherein he gives with most scrupulous accuracy
the names of the captains who commanded vessels in
Cabral's expedition, says not a word of Vespucius,4
nor of his voyage in 1497, which is cited by several
I See the work before cited, page 492.
2 Barros, born at the end of the fifteenth century, and lived in the
time of Vespucius.
3 Osorio, born at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and several years before the death of Vespucius.
4 Barros, chap. 2, book 5.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 27
geographers. And speaking of Columbus, this celebrated historian preserves a common silence with
others, in regard to the pretended rencounter at
Cape Vert with the ships, in one of which Vespucius is said to have been. He mentions only the
meeting with Pedro Dias.1
As to the hypothetical voyage of Vespucius in
1501, this contemporary historian recounts no other
departure from Lisbon but that of Joao da Nova,
who set sail with four vessels in the month of March,
1501. And though he in no way conceals that
this commander was not a Portuguese, no allusion
whatever is made to Vespucius. When, therefore,
he recorded the name of one foreigner, what motive
could have influenced him to suppress that of another,
if indeed that other, distinguished as was Vespucius
in certain respects, had really taken part in the
voyage of discovery, which was made at that epoch
by order of the king? If this voyage of Vespucius
had ever had an existence, would not Barros have
mentioned his name, just as he has mentioned that
of another Florentine, Ferdinand Vinet, among the
captains who were in the command of vessels? What
interest could he have had to conceal the name of
Vespucius, and to say that Ferdinand Vinet, a Florentine, commanded the ship, which was owned by
Bartholomew Marchioni, likewise a'Florentine? 2
1 Ib. Decad. i. Book 5, chap. 9.
2 Barros says that this Florentine resided in Lisbon.




28          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
This historian, so minute in historical details, has not
confined himself to saying that one of the vessels
was commanded by a Florentine and belonged to a
Florentine, but he adds that the proprietor of it,
Marchioni, resided at Lisbon. Is it then to be presumed that Barros, who was so well informed about
all the fellow-countrymen of Vespucius residing at
Lisbon, and engaged in navigation, could have been
ignorant even of the existence of such a man?that he should have known nothing of his having
been called upon by the king, as his own story runs,
a story repeated by so many geographers?
Nor is Vespucius less unfortunate in the testimony which this contemporary historian offers as to
his pretensions respecting a second voyage in 1503.
Barros barely mentions a single expedition which
was sent to India that year by the king Emmanuel.
It consisted of three divisions, severally commanded
by Alfonso de Albuquerque, Francis de Albuquerque, and Antonio Saldanha; but not a word is said
by him of any enterprise of Vespucius, nor even of
the place where he happened to be at that time.
Osorio,1 a celebrated historian, of whom Lenglet
du Fresnoy, in his work called, The Method of
studying History, remarks, that his book is not
only extremely well written, and held in high esti1 Hieronymo Osorio. - Concerning affairs which were conducted
under the power and auspices of Emmanuel, King of Lusitania, (Portugal,) Libri xii. Olyssipone, Antonius Gondisalvus, 1571.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.   29
mation, but that it is one of the choicest specimens
of historical composition for centuries past, Osorio,
in that part of his volume which treats of the discovery of Brazil, and of the voyages to that part of
the world at the same period, describes only the
expedition of Cabral and Gaspar de Lemos, without
referring in any way to Vespucius. Can it be
imagined, then, that this contemporary historian,
who travelled in France, and much more in Italy,
(for the purpose of acquiring the Eastern languages,) at an epoch when voyages and discoveries
were the principal occupations of men's lives; that,
if they had ever taken place, he could have been
ignorant of the two voyages of Vespucius in 1501
and 1503, undertaken, as is pretended by the Florentine, in obedience to the king Emmanuel, whose
history Osorio himself wrote? Or can it be believed
that this author, so highly accomplished, never became acquainted, during his residence in France
and Italy, and after his return to Portugal, with the
numerous works already published respecting Vespucius in the two former of these countries as well
as in Germany?  Without question, they were all
known to him, but as a faithful and conscientious
writer he did not choose that any thing save truth
should enter his history.
If, however, on the one hand, error and confusion
were propagated by the letters of Vespucius and
numerous productions akin to them; on the other,




30          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
there appeared documents in many contemporary
collections, which support, not only the Portuguese
writers of that epoch, Barros, Goes, Osorio, and
others, but also the opinion which we ourselves have
formed. These are such as are found in a little
book printed at Paris in 1516, in Gothic characters,
and entitled, " The New World and Voyages made
by Americus VTespucius."
This small volume is nothing but a compilation of
different voyages. It begins by a notice of those
made by order of the Infant Don Henry, of Portugal, and of those of Columbus. Then follows a
letter from Vespucius to Lorenzo de' Medici. But
when it gets as far as the discovery of Brazil, in the
sixth voyage, according to its calculation, it speaks
of the discovery of Cabral, and we then have " a
copy of a Chapter of the Letters of -Domenico
Cretico, envoy of the Venetian Lordship in Portugal." In one of these letters, dated June 27,
1501, - the year in which Vespucius says he made
a voyage by order of the king Emmanuel, —the Venetian commences by referring to Cabral's expedition, saying, that his government must have been
already informed through its ambassador of that
which the king had sent to India, and yet he relates
that the said expedition, by quitting its prescribed
course, had discovered a terra firma, inasmuch as
that by following the coast for more than five hundred leagues there was no endfound to it, &c., &c."




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 31
This Venetian agent was with the king Emmanuel
at the moment of the squadron's return to port, and
took part in the fetes. He says, " Being in company with the king when it arrived, I was sent
for by him." And he adds, that his Majesty
advised him to communicate the facts to his government. He then speaks of the return of a vessel,
which was owned by one Bartholomew, a Florentine,
but not a hint does he let drop either as to Vespucius or his expedition.
The Bartholomew spoken of, was, without doubt,
the Florentine Bartholomew Marchioni, referred to
by the historian Barros, as we have above seen.
How then could have this Venetian diplomatist, who
was an eye witness of all these transactions, who
made an official report of them to his own court, and
who had been admitted to the intimacy of the king
Emmanuel, how could he have known nothing of the
name of Vespucius, and of his pretended voyage
at that epoch, when he does not omit to speak of
another Florentine who played only a very inconsiderable part in these expeditions.
But, at the period we are now speaking of, the
numerous copies and translations of Vespucius's
letters, published in Europe, and particularly a
work already quoted by many writers, — " Introduction to Cosmography, respecting the four Maritime -Expeditions of Americus Vespucius," printed
in Lorraine, 1507, were the cause of this universal




32          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
confusion of opinions concerning the voyages of the
Florentine.
Most of the geographers living at the termination
of the sixteenth century, as well as those of the
seventeenth, spread still more widely this confusion,
without ever giving themselves the trouble to investigate facts. This appears not only from many
works and collections of voyages referred to by
Bandini, Washington Irving 1 and M. de Navarrete,2
and especially from those of Apian, of Vadianus
and of Camers, quoted by M. de Humboldt,3 but
also from others, some of which we intend to enumerate.
Ruscelli, a celebrated Italian who was born at the
commencement of the 16th century at Viterbo and
died in 1566, added thirty-six new maps, both of
the world known to the ancients and of the New
World, to the geography of Ptolemy (Venice,
1561,) when he translated it. And although he
gives the name of Terra-Nova to South America in
his chart of that country, we find in an annexed
article that he ascribes the discovery of it to Vespucius. But Cellarius did not wholly and exclusively adopt the pretensions of Vespucius and his
panegyrists at the expense of Columbus's reputaI A History of the Life of Christopher Columbus. Paris, 1828.
2 Navarrete, Collection of Voyages, vol. iii.
3 Humboldt, A Chronology of the most ancient Maps of America.
Bulletin of the Geographical Society, vol. iv. p. 411.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.   33
tion; for in his Geographia Nova, &c. (page 663)
he says: -" America, or Western India, was discovered by Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, in
1492."
Certain geographers, however, of the 17th century, and among others, Baudrand,1 had already begun to question the accuracy of the stories about
Vespucius's discoveries, which were currently reported. Baudrand, in the article of his Geographical Dictionary entitled America, when speaking of
Brazil, mentions the discovery of Cabral alone, although this he fixes at 1501 instead of 1500; but
not a word does he utter regarding Vespucius, nor
of his voyages in 1501 and 1503, said to have been
undertaken by order of the King Emmanuel. Nevertheless he describes the New Continent as having
been discovered by Columbus in the years 1492 and
1493, and afterwards by Americus Vespucius, who
gave to it his own name.
Barlheus, in his work upon Brazil, written in Latin
and published at Amsterdam in 1647, after having
declared Columbus to have been the first discoverer
of the New World, was deluded into the same error,
with respect to Vespucius, as were the writers of the
preceding century, and asserts that this Florentine
discovered another portion of the New Continent
under the orders of the king of Portugal.
I Dictionnaire Geographique, Amsterdam, 1701. Baudrand, born
at Paris, 1633, died 1700.
3




34            RESEARCHES RESPECTING
The Historical and Cosmographical Dictionary of
Juign6-Brossiniere must have contributed still more
to this confusion. And the author of it commits
another and yet graver error in the following words:' Americus Vespucius, a Florentine by birth, having
received the appointment of pilot, and enjoying the
patronage of Emmanuel, King of Portugal, in 1407 1
discovered the southern and western Indies, for
which cause the New World was called America."
Yet in the face of this enormous blunder, under the
article Brazil, it is stated that this part of the New
Continent was discovered by Cabral.
If in the eighteenth century the same errors have
been continually adopted and propagated by certain
authors and geographers, such as Bruzen de la Martiniere,2 the Benedictine Don Joseph Vaissette,3 in his
Historical and Ecclesiastical Geography, the authors
of a Geographical and Iistorical Dictionary of Italy,4
and Robinet, in his Dictionnaire Universel, it must be
1 1407. This date corresponds neither with the reign of King Emmanuel, nor with the epoch of a single discovery made in the New
World. (Edition of 1644.)
2 Dictionnaire Geographique, Historique et Critique.
3 Geographie Historique, Ecclesiastique et Civile, printed at Paris,
1755. This author, however, says it was Columbus who first discovered America.
4 This dictionary was published at Paris in 1775. The authors, or
rather the compilers, have pursued a much more convenient course,
by stating in the article Vespucius, that it is a matter of uncertainty
whether Columbus or Vespucius was the first discoverer of America,
&c. &c.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 35
added that there are other writers, more conscientious as well as more learned, who have not fallen
into them.
Of these we will mention several: Pluche,' after
having spoken of Columbus, says, " Americus Vespucius, a Florentine navigator, who visited the same
coasts of southern America, imposed upon the public
to such an extent by his narratives, that the name
of this adventurer was given to thlat whole country,
when it would have been more just and natural that
it should have borne that of Columbus, who was the
first to discover the Isles and Terra Firma, or the
Continent."
Charlevoix, eminent as he was, not only on account of his vast literary acquirements and erudition,
but for his extensive travels, after having visited
Italy, remarks, in his Histoire Generale de la Nouvelle ETrance, that " Americus Vespucius had the
honor of imposing his name upon the New World only
by the aid of trickery." This industrious writer, in
his Tastes Chronologiques, makes mention of no other
expedition in 1500 save that of Cabral, and does not
in the slightest manner allude to the two hypothetical voyages of Vespucius in 1501 and 1503. Referring to that of Hojeda in 1499, he says: " Americus
Vespucius, who was nothing but a common personage
in the squadron which Hojeda commanded, published
a narrative of this discovery, assuming to himself the
1 Concordance de la Geographie de diff6rens Ages, p. 106.




36          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
honor of it; and in order to convince the public that
he was the first European who ever touched the continent of the New World, he pretended that his
voyage was of the duration of twenty-five months.
To all of which, Hojeda, when judicially interrogated,
gave the lie direct. (-But the bare word of Vespucius
having been at first trusted to, it became the custom
to apply his name to the New World, and hence
error at length prevailed over truth.") Charlevoix
has added to his work a list, and a critical examination, of eighty-one authors whom he had consulted,
and therefore it seems to me that he ought to be
received as authority in this matter.
Lafitau, who for many years was engaged in
making researches upon America, ascribes the discovery of this part of the globe to Columbus, and
that of Brazil to Pedro Alvares Cabral.l This
writer, who recounts only the voyages of Joao da
Nova and Pedro Coelho, in 1501,- the year of
Vespucius's imaginary expedition under royal auspices, preserves the most complete silence as to the
latter person, nor does he so much as let slip a single
word about his voyage of 1503.
Such is the profound silence of Lafitau upon
Vespucius, that in the preface of his history, where
he takes into consideration all the authors and manuscripts upon the voyages of the Portuguese, to be
I Histoire des D6couvertes et des Conquetes des Portugais dans le
Nouveau-Monde. Paris, 1733. Vol. i. pp. 122, 123.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  37
found in his time, and all of which were consulted by
him, when speaking of the narratives and collections
of Ramusio, he takes no notice either of Vespucius
or of his letters, although some of these are to be
found in the collections which he quotes.
The Abbe Raynal,1 in narrating the discovery of
Brazil, attributes it to Pedro Alvares Cabral alone,
in 1501, without referring in any manner whatsoever
to Vespucius or to his two expeditions of 1501 and
1503.
The learned historian Robertson observes: "It
is remarkable that neither Gomara nor Oviedo, the
most ancient Spanish historians of America, nor Herrera, consider Hojeda, or his companion Vespucius,
as the first discoverers of the continent of America.
They uniformly ascribe this honor to Columbus.
Some have supposed that national resentment against
Vespucius, for deserting the service of Spain, and
entering into that of Portugal, may have prompted
these writers to conceal the actions which he performed. But Martyr and Benzoni, both Italians,
could not be warped by the same prejudice. Martyr was a contemporary author; he resided in the
court of Spain, and had the best opportunity to be
exactly informed with respect to all public transactions; and yet, neither in his Decades, the first gen1 Histoire Philosophique et Politique des,ftablissemens et du Commerce des Europ6ens dans les deux Indies Edition of 1786, Avignon.
Vol. iv. p. 349.




38          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
eral history published of the New World, nor in his
Epistles, which contain an account of all the remarkable events of his time, does he ascribe to Vespucius
the honor of having first discovered the continent.
Benzoni went as an adventurer to America in the
year 1541, and resided there a considerable time.
He appears to have been animated with a warm zeal
for the honor of Italy, his native country, and yet
does not mention the exploits and discoveries of Vespucius. Herrera, who compiled his general history
of America from the most authentic records, not only
follows those early writers, but accuses Vespucius of
falsifying the dates of both the voyages which he
made to the New World, and of confounding the one
with the other, in order that he might arrogate to himself the glory of having discovered the continent."
Such are the opinions of one of the first among
modern historians. And can it be supposed that a
writer, as well informed as Robertson, could have
been ignorant of the many works already written
about Vespucius? No, they were all known to him;
but able, learned, and impartial critic as he was,
nothing except the truth found favor in his eyes.
This accomplished Scotchman, remarkable for his
great attainments, his love of method and indefatigable spirit of investigation, which was his most
striking characteristic as an historian, refused to
adopt the prevailing errors respecting Vespucius.1
1 Robertson's History of America, Note xxii.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  39
Castro (J. B.) a very learned Portuguese writer,1
relying on the authority of Barros, Faria e Sousa,2
Rocha Pitta,3 and Brito Freire,4 recounts the discovery of Brazil in 1500, without one word said of
Vespucius.
Barbosa, the author of an excellent work called
Bibliotheca Lusitana in his article upon Cabral,
says, " this was the man who discovered America in
1500, and wrote an account of his voyage, which was
published in the Novus Orbis Regionum, etc., of
Gryneus, and in 1563 was printed in Italian at
Venice."
Lacroix, in his Ge'ographie Moderne, states that
Brazil was discovered by Cabral in 1500, without
mentioning Vespucius.
Camus, too, in his Memoir upon the voyages of
Bry and Thevenot, published by order of the Institute of France in 1802, after having examined the
different works upon the voyages of Vespucius, remarks upon the many absurdities which the narratives of this Florentine contain.
It was reserved for the writers of the 19th century to furnish us with a still more enlightened critique on this subject, and to some of them we now
propose to refer.
The erudite professor Heeren, far from ascribing
1 Mappa de Portugal.
2 Asia, by Faria e Sousa. Vol. i. chap. 5, p. 1.
3 America Portugueza.       4 Nova Lusitania.




40          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
the discovery of Brazil to Vespucius, makes use of
this expression: " And the coast of Brazil discovered and occupied (since 1500,) by Cabral." 
Pinkerton, although he says that a caprice of fortune gave the name of Vespucius to America, makes
no allusion to his two voyages, of 1501 and 1503, to
Brazil.
Mentelle,2 instead of giving him the credit of having discovered this country, and citing his expeditions of 1501 and 1503, asserts: "that Cabral,
without a doubt, was the first European that ever
saw the east coast of Brazil. "
M. de Las Cases, in his Atlas of Le,Sage, assigns
to Columbus, when giving his chronological nomenclature of navigators, the first rank; and complains
of the good fortune of Vespucius, who by a piece of
injustice imposed his name on America.
" Thus, as says a certain historian," adds the author of the Atlas, " the first moment of the revelation of America's existence to the rest of the world,
was stamped with iniquity, - fatal augury of what
that unhappy country was about to become the
scene."
In the Dictionnaire  Geographique of Vosgien
[Ladvocat], revised and enlarged by Malte-Brun, and
in the edition of 1829, we find the following: " Chris-' Historical Manual of the Political System of Europe, (English
Transl., Oxford, 1834,) Vol. i. p. 43.
2 Mentelle, G6ographie Universdelle, vol. xv. page 369.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 41
topher Columbus discovered America in 1492, and
gave it the name of West Indies: that of America
which has since prevailed is an injustice towards
Columbus."
The authors of a Geographical Dictionary, published at Paris in 1823, and dedicated to M. de Humboldt, in their article on America, remark: "For
the discovery of America we are indebted to Christopher Columbus, and even that of the Continent, in
1498, is attributed to him." But of Vespucius they
say: "' A Florentine, Americus Vespucius, accompanied Hojeda in this expedition, and on his return
to Spain, he boasted of having been the first to discover the Continent of the New World."  But they
do not speak of the two voyages, said to have
taken place in 1501 and 1503 by order of the
king Emmanuel of Portugal. And in their article
on Brazil is the following observation: "It was
agreed to recognize Gongalo Coelho as commander
of the three vessels which left Lisbon in May, 1501,
by the order of Emmanuel. A second squadron of
six vessels, sent to sea a little time afterwards by
the same sovereign, reconnoitered the Southern coast
as far as the Cape das Virgenes, and left a colony
at Porto-Seguro."
The narratives of Vespucius have gained no
credit with scarcely any English author in modern
times, and especially since the commencement of the
present century. The Encyclopedia Britannica be



42           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
gins its article on America in these words: " America
(from Americus Vespucius, falsely said to be the
first discoverer of the Continent), &c. &c." and
page 37, it thus continues: " Columbus was the
first European who set foot in the lYew World which
he had discovered." Its authors, speaking of Brazil,
relate the discovery of it made by Pedro Alvares
Cabral, and refer to the annual expeditions sent by
the Court of Portugal subsequently to that discovery; but not a solitary word escapes them relative
to the pretended voyages of Vespucius in 1501 and
1503. Nor can any such be found in the Edinburgh Gazetteer or Geographical -Dictionary, wherein Cabral alone is pronounced to have been the discoverer of Brazil.
Vespucius and his voyages of 1501 and 1503 are
never once alluded to in the History of Portugal, a
work originally written in English by a society of
literary men, the materials for which were drawn
from the most authentic sources, and in the illustrative notes to which, (amounting to 1553,) are cited
a great number of authors, both foreign and Portuguese.l The only expeditions spoken of are those
of Pedro Alvares Cabral, in 1500.
M. Bouvet de Cresse, in his Maritime History of
all Nations,2 says: "They with one accord have
I See the work cited, third Lisbon edit., (translation,) 1828. Vol.
ii. pp. 231 - 235.
2 Histoire de la Marine de tous les Peuples, etc. vol. i. Paris, 1824.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 43
given to this new portion of the globe the name of
America.  The impudent pretension of a lucky impostor has pilferedfrom the author of this discovery
the glory that was his date.  The name of America
has supplanted that of Columbus.")
These same sentiments in favor of Columbus are
shared, at least in part, by Malte-Brun. The words
of this learned geographer are: 1 ", He (that is, Columbus) perceived that he had discovered a new
Continent, which ingratitude still calls America."
And yet againl,  without mentioning  Vespucius:
" Columbus and Vasco da Gama, by bursting through
the imaginary confines which enchained the genius
of the ancients, destroyed at one stroke the systems
of Ptolemy and Strabo, and of the other geographers of antiquity."
We will not here analyze the opinion of this geographer, (elsewhere expressed,) respecting the fictitious first voyage of the Florentine to America, a
year in advance of Columbus. It was grounded,
without doubt, upon the narratives of Ramusio and
especially of Canovai, the panegyrist of Yespucius;
but the author of the continuation of his work seems
not to have adopted it, seeing that in note 3d to
page 518 of volume first, speaking of Vespucius, his
words are: " Excited, besides, by the success of Co1 Hist. de la G6ographie, vol. i. page 617.
2 Malte-Brun, vol. i. page 648. Paris, 1831.




44           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
lumbus, he undertook his first voyage of discovery,"
&c., &c., &c., and in the first page of his second
volume, he expresses himself yet more explicitly, as
follows:'f We have again accompanied the immortal Columbus to this Continent, which ought by good
rights to have been called after him." 1')
The learned Chevalier de Bossi, in hi history of
Christopher Columbus,2 observes, " That the arrival
of Columbus at Lisbon may be considered as the termination of his first voyage, the most important voyage of all, since it opened the New World to every
age and to every nation. The very words of the
illustrious Genoese himself furnish the best support
to these facts.  Happily there exists a letter written
by his own hand, relative to the earliest American
discoveries that had as yet been made, which was
addressed to Raphail Sanchez, the king of Spain's
treasurer, and published at Lisbon in 1493. At
Rome it was translated into Latin from the Spanish,
and was twice printed in the same year, as the Chevalier Morelli supposes. Several biographers of Columbus mention this letter, and have even inserted
it in their works.  His own son, for example, among
the rest has done this, and also a Genoese, by name
Antonio Gallo, from whose pen there is a short treaI Pr6cis de G6ographie, vol. ii. Description of America.
2 Histoire de Christophe Colomb, suivie de sa Correspondance, d'
tclaircissemens et de Pieces Curieuses et Inedites, traduite de
lItalien par C. M. Urano. Paris, 1824. See pages 155 and 156.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 45
tise, entitled, De navigatione CYolumbi per inaccessum antea Oceanum, which is to be found in Muratori's collection. But this invaluable document,
which for a long time has been regarded as the
only thing written by Columbus and published during his life, the original of which, in Spanish, was
printed, according to De Murr in the 15th century,
has been several times given to the public, but
so badly translated and so completely distorted,
that one can with difficulty fancy he holds in his
hands the authentic letter of Columbus. Fortunately, however, there still exists in the Brera
library one copy of it, printed in 1493,1 which has
never elsewhere been met with either by myself or
others, for the bibliographers themselves have never
spoken of it. Fossi mentions another edition also of
this letter, which dates from the 15th century, and
which certainly must have fallen under the observation of very few persons; but, unless it be incomplete, it has nothing in common with that which is
the subject of our consideration," &c.
What the Chevalier Bossi says in the passage just
quoted adds weight to the authorities already cited
by us, all of which prove that Columbus preceded
Vespucius in the career of discovery. That too
which follows (pages 170 and 179 inclusive,) respect1 M. Ternaux, (Henri,) has a copy in his most valuable collection
of Voyages, which he had the goodness to lend us.




46          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
ing the opinion of those who deny that Columbus
was the first who ever saw the American Continent,
is also so worthy of repetition that we think it ought
to be transcribed in support of the sentiments contained in the previous chapters of this book. These
are the words alluded to: 1 "' Animated by a generous zeal, the author of the eulogy upon Columbus
attempts to prove that it was that great man who
first discovered the terra firma of America. He
relies particularly upon Tiraboschi, and, besides the
histories of Ferdinand, he cites Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, and a narrative printed in 1508 at Milan.
He might have appealed to many other works, but
his special object is to assure to Columbus the glory
of that discovery which was claimed for Americus
Vespucius.  He appears to be contradicted by the
Spanish authors, who date the voyage of the Tuscan
navigator to the West Indies, not in 1497, which
would place it a year in advance of Columbus's third
voyage, but in 1499. It is possible that, either
through error, or for the sake of assuming to himself
the honor of the discovery, Vespucius may have
antedated his letters upon this epoch by two years,
for no other testimony has presented itself in his
favor; and the rather that in 1496 Columbus directed his steps towards Spain, and never left that
country till 1498; which proves that he was at the
I Ibid. p. 170.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 47
Spanish court in 1497. At that epoch, already had
been issued, without scruple and to his detriment,
many licenses to go in quest of new discoveries. Of
these Columbus with great reason complained, and
the court, which still had an interest in handling him
tenderly, consequently revoked them. It must be
supposed, then, that in this interval Vespucius set
sail with Hojeda, the bitter enemy of Columbus, who
at the moment was in the full enjoyment of court
favor.
"Hojeda took his departure with Vespucius a
year subsequently to the third voyage of Columbus,
and when the latter was beginning to fall into disgrace at court......  In fact, Hojeda did not
reach Saint Doiningo till 1499, a long time after the
arrival of Columbus, who had already coasted the
New Continent. What could they have been about
these two years, Hojeda and Vespucius, who, according to the latter's story, did not even land upon those
shores, which they pretend, besides, were first seen
by them? How can we account for the silence of
Columbus himself in the matter, — of him who noted
every thing in his letters, and who was incapable of
stifling his complaints when he thought there was
cause for them? How, too, is it to be explained that
contemporary historians say no more on this point
than he? " (And notwithstanding all this, cries the
author of the eulogy of Columbus, in his anguish,
Americus Vespucius enjoyed the unmerited glory of




48          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
giving his name to this part of the world, and an indifferent posterity has sanctioned a decision, which
injustice pronounced against Christopher, and which
the lapse of ages has henceforth forever rendered
irreparable.
"But," ~ntinues the Chevalier Bossi, "neither
Tiraboschi nor the author of the eulogy employed
themselves in refuting those writers who, for the
purpose of assuring the Florentine navigator's glory,
pretend that Christopher never left the neighborhood
of Saint Domingo, Jamaica, Cuba, and the other
islands of the Mexican archipelago. However, without stopping now to examine the accounts, contained
in several histories, of this voyage of Columbus along
the coasts of the main land, it seems to us that the
letter of the Genoese navigator by itself, the same
which Morelli first published, establishes the fact
beyond a doubt."
The author then analyzes the letter in question,
and indicates an important passage, contrasting it
with what Hornius says in his Origines Americanse,
and afterwards adds the following observations upon
Vespucius: -" A  number of writers relate that
Americus, before undertaking his voyage to the New
World, visited England and Ireland, and that, on
quitting these countries, he penetrated so far into the
North Sea that he was compelled by the ice to effect
a hasty retreat.' But all these stories have no other
I Perhaps he was confounded with Cortereal.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 49
foundation than the narrative of Girolamo Bartolonlmei, who composed a poem in the sixteenth century,
called America, in which, by a poetic fiction, he conducts Vespucius to the court of the King of Ethiopia,
and there makes him give an account of his imaginary voyages in the northern seas!
"The partisans of Vespucius," the chevalier adds,
"even deny that Columbus ever left the islands he
discovered in order to approach the main land; but
they offer no proof in support of their denial, except
the testimony of Francesco Giuntini, who flourished
about one hundred years later; while i  favr r of
Columbus is invoked the evidence of authors contemporary with Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, (by whom
the country of Paria was pointed out as the American Continent,) and of others that lived at the same
time with him who wrote the Narrative of Voyages,
which was printed at the commencement of the sixteenth century at Venice and at Milan.
" Was Vespucius the chief of the expedition sent
to America, or did he embark as a simple passenger? " asks Bossi. "Here is another subject of
doubt which still requires investigation. All the
Spanish writers who describe the voyage in which
Vespucius figured, assert that it did not take place
till 1499, and that the Archbishop of Badajoz, the
enemy of Columbus, sent orders, signed by himself
alone, to Alonso de Hojeda, directing him to proceed to the New World, and there to attempt new
4




50          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
discoveries, which he hoped might obscure the glory
of Columbus, who happened to be at Saint Domingo
at the moment, and who must have been ignorant of
the treachery practised against him in Spain.
" Hojeda had for his pilot Juan de la Cosa, a native of Biscay, and, according to the same writers,
Americus Vespucius went as a simple passenger,'
and, in quality of merchant, had nothing but a pecuniary interest in the armament. Indeed, the latter, whenever he speaks, always makes use of the
plural number, expressing himself thus, for example:
We went, we debarked, &c. &c.,2 and he does not
profess to have formed part of the royal Spanish
commission except in one solitary letter, addressed
to Lorenzo de' Medici. Here, then, we probably
have the motives which prevented Peter Martyr
d'Anghiera from ever classing Vespucius among the
discoverers of the New World, while at the same
time he gave him due praise for his knowledge of
geography and astronomy.3
" In the account of his second voyage," concludes
the author we have been quoting, " if perchance he
ever made one before it, Vespucius suffers to appear
a certain feeling of jealousy against the individual
who had first visited the new hemisphere. The
voyages made by this Florentine at a later period,
I See our opinion in Chap. i. Letter to M. de Navarrete, p. 229 of
the Bulletin de la Soci&t6 Geographique.
2 Ibid.            3 Ibid.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 51
were undertaken by order of the court of Portugal,
and it was then that he attributed to himself the
honor of having discovered Brazil, an honor which
the Spaniards denied him, and which the Portuguese
ascribed to one of their own countrymen, Pedro
Alvares Cabral, in 1500."




CHAPTER III.
SINCE the appearance of the works of the writers
and geographers above cited, M. de Navarrete has
published the third volume of his Coleccion de los
TViages y Descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los.Espafioles &c., &c., in which he treats of Vespucius more in detail, examines more accurately the
several accounts of his voyages, critically contrasts
the different editions of those productions which
speak of this Florentine, and in this manner puts us
in possession of researches full of interest, and meriting the utmost attention from every critic.1 We
refer the reader to this Spanish author's own words,
but as his third volume has not yet been translated,2
we think it should be remarked that M. de Navarrete clearly demonstrates that Bandini and Canovai,
the panegyrists of Vespucius, were not sufficiently
acquainted with the Lorraine edition of the Cosmographice Introductio, &c., &c., which contains the
voyages of this Florentine, and he shows that
Ve pucius hims lf, in certain portions of the narrarative of his expedition in 1497, copied the Memoir
of Columbus.
Among others, see those in the note, pp. 242, 243.
2 The two first volumes were translated by Messrs. de la Roquette
and de Verneuil.




RESEARCHES, ETC.             53
M. de Navarrete assures us, at page 243, that
according to Vespucius's history of his second voyage, the distance of the territory indicated by him,
corresponds to 666 maritime leagues and two thirds
of a league, in a south-west course, which would
have placed him and his vessels upon the American
Continent, 165 leagues from  the sea, and in the
northern part of Brazil! and moreover, that the
same route in latitude five degrees south would have
brought him nearly fifty-eight leagues into the interior. Hence we see, he exclaims, how many errors
and false statements are to be found in these narratives.
In the 2d note to page 265 it is proved that the
south-west course described by Vespucius in his
account, and the distance he gives of 700 leagues,
(933 maritime leagues and a third,) would have put
the travellers upon the South American Continent,
in south latitude nineteen degrees and fifteen minutes, 390 leagues in the interior of the country, and
consequently equally distant from the coast where
they should have been at anchor.
On the subject of Vespucius's self-contradictions,
our author asks: "' How is it possible to conceive
that the territory in question was taken possession of
in the name of the king of Castile, if the voyage had
been made by order of the king of Portugal? And
in the second note to page 274, he remarks upon
the astronomical observations of Vespucius, what is




54          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
not less important, " that it is impossible to understand what is meant by his diameters and semi-diameters, which he talks of for the second time, and for
this reason, that the prodigious distance, according
to Lalande, which the stars are from us, must prevent the slightest sensation of wonder at the extreme
smallness of their apparent diameter, and that we
are unable to compute their absolute size and true
diameter. And if so distinguished an astronomer as
Lalande," 1 continues M. de Navarrete, "has established this fact in our day, how is it possible that, at
the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries, astral diameters and semi-diameters could have
been measured with such rude instruments as were
used by our navigators of that epoch? And then,
too, the vessel Vespucius speaks of in the text of his
letter he says was only a small bark, with a crew of
four or five persons,2 in which it is hardly possible
to believe that he could have made the preceding
passage of 300 leagues to Bahia, or the later one of
260, to the port where he pretends a chateau was
constructed, and where his vessel remained. Added
to which, his vessel remaining there, how could he
have returned to Lisbon?"
There are yet other critical remarks, of great
interest, to be found in M. de Navarrete's Noticias
exactas de Americo Tespucrio, from the 315th to the
1 Astronomie, Liv. xvi. No. 2784.
2 See page 287, note 2, vol. iii.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 55
334th page; and in the course of his examination
our author has adopted the hypothesis first published by us, in July, 1826, respecting the two expeditions of 1501 and 1503, in saying, " that Vespucius
might have made the voyages, as a personage entirely unknown, in the ships to Brazil; just as he did
in the first enterprize of Hojeda;" and, with us, he
observes, that, even in accordance with the statements of Vespucius himself, it is probable that that
navigator did sail along the coast of Brazil, and saw
how Cape Saint Augustine was situated, yet only as
a subaltern on board of some Portuguese vessel,
which left the port of Lisbon between 1501 and
1504, but that, Brazil having been reconnoitred in
January of 1500, by Pedro Alvares Cabral, Pinzon,
Lepe and others, and Vasco da Gama having
already finished his voyage the 10th of July, 1499,
and returned to Portugal, after his grand discoveries in the East, it consequently follows that the
Florentine was not the discoverer of those seas and
countries.
The learned Spanish academician afterwards contests, with an enlightened criticism, the pretensions
of Bandini and Canovai, the two panegyrists of YVespucius, in such a manner that it would be useless for
us here to point out their errors and evident contradictions. Nevertheless we will make a few observations which we have not found either in the investigations of M. de Navarrete or of other writers and
geographers.




56           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Besides the confusion and incoherence found in
the narratives of Vespucius's voyages, as already indicated by the authors above cited, facts of the like
nature, and not less important in our opinion, occur
in his Dedication to Rend, Duke of Lorraine, (who
styled himself king of Sicily and Jerusalem,) which
is contained in the Cosmographice Introductio, insuper quatuor Americi  Vespucii Navigationes,
printed at Saint Diey, in Lorraine, in 1507, wherein the name of America for the first time appears.
Now this Rene of Anjou, who called himself king,
died at Aix in 1480,1 and consequently Vespucius
could not have written, or addressed his narrations
to him four and twenty years after his decease.
Neither could any relations have existed between
the Duke and the Florentine respecting the voyages
of the latter, nor could one have been the patron of
the other, before a single expedition was undertaken.
And it so happens that Duke Rene the 1st, the
great protector of Huber, Van-Eyck, Botinelli, Perugino, Philelphus, Maggio, Marcel, Martial d'Auvergne, and of other celebrated men, died ten years
before the arrival of Vespucius in Spain; and it was
not till 1499, or nineteen years after the decease of
that prince, that the first voyage of this navigator,
mentioned by several authors and geographers, took
place.
1 Bodin, Recherches Historiques sur l'Anjou, vol. i. page 508;
Koch, vol. iii. tabl. 133; Biographie Universelle, vol. xxxvii.




AMERICUS VESPTJCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  57
It is impossible, too, that Vespucius could have
been brought up with the prince, as he asserts he
was in the same dedication of the work quoted,1 for
an examination of dates and facts shows most conclusively that the Duke of Lorraine spoken of was
not Rene the 1st.
Vespucius was born at Florence, the 9th of March,
1451, and Duke Rene the 1st, king of Sicily and
Jerusalem, at the Chateau of Angers, the 16th of
January, 1409.2   So that the latter was forty-two
years of age at the birth of the former, and of course
there could have been between them no youthful
intimacy, nor could they have studied together the
rudiments of grammar at Florence. The prince
received his early education under the eyes of his
mother at Angers, and at the court of France, while
Vespucius was brought up in Italy.
The first connection that this duke of Lorraine
ever had with Italy dates only from the year 1434,
when he sent there, with the title of lieutenant, the
queen Isabella, his wife, that she might retain the
1...... Ubi recordabitur quod olim mutuam habuerimus amicitiam, tempore juventutis zostre, cumn grammaticac rudimenta imbibentes sub probata vita et doctrina venerabilis fratris de S. Marco,
Frat. Georgii Antonii Vespucii, avunculi mei, pariter militaremus,
etc.
2 Date from the Biographie Universelle.  Bodin, Recherches Historiques sur l'Anjou, vol. i. page 502, in which it is said that this
prince was born in 1408. The same date, too, is found in the History
of Ren6, by Villeneuve, vol. i., while other writers carry back the date
of his birth to 1407 - a year earlier, thus ascribing to him forty-four
years of age when Vespucius was born.




58           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Pope and the duke of Milan in his interests, reanimate there the zeal of the Angers party, and foil the
intrigues of the king of Aragon. He did not visit
Genoa and Naples till 1438, and returned to France
by way of Marseilles at the end of 1442, and before
Vespucius was born.1  When he went to Italy a
second time, where he did not stay long, he was
forty-six years of age and Vespucius only two.
If the same difficulties do not present themselves,
on the supposition that the Duke Rene of Lorraine,
spoken of in Vespucius's dedication, and entitled
king of Sicily and Jerusalem, was Rene the Second,
still we remark that there are yet others which we
will indicate.
Although this second duke of Lorraine, who, according to some modern authorities,2 also assumed
the title of king of Sicily and Jerusalem, was contemporary with Vespucius, the history of his life alone
suffices to show that he had no youthful relations
with the Florentine. Not one of the many writers of
Lorraine says that he ever was in Italy previously to
his journey to Venice in 1480, where he negotiated
a treaty with that republic, nor does any one of them
assert that he was educated at Florence. And,
moreover, as he was twenty-nine years of age on
I See the Histories of Lorraine.
2 We have met with no contemporary document which proves that
this duke took this title, nor is one to be found among the authorities
cited by the learned D. Calmet, in his Histoire Ecclksiastique et Civile
de la Lorraine.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  59
going to Italy for the first time, it is not likely that
he then took to the study of grammar! - he who was
employed in negotiating treaties, and received the
appointment of lieutenant-general to the armies of the
republic. These are facts likewise anterior to that
epoch (1480), which render still more obvious the
improbability of whatVespucius's dedication contains.
We find that Rene II. resided at Joinville till
1473, that is, till his twenty-first year, at which
time one of the Lorraine historians tells us,1 that
scarcely was duke Nicolas dead, when a German
captain arrived at Joinville, under the pretext of
felicitating the young Count of Vaudemont, but in
reality for the purpose of getting Rene out of the
hands of his mother, in which he succeeded; and
that it was in consequence of this high-handed offence
that the Duke of Burgundy began to put in execution
the plan he had formed for invading the territory
of Lorraine, which Louis II. regarded with such
horror, that he caused the nephew of the emperor to
be arrested at Paris by way of reprisal, and obliged
the duke to restore Rene to Yolande.
Besides, in addition to the fact that not an individual historian utters a word about Rene II. having
been educated at Florence, in company with Vespucius and under the direction of the navigator's
uncle, there is another yet more important, which is,
that Bandini himself, the principal panegyrist of
1 Bexon, p. 156.




60         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Americus, quotes at page 25th of his second chapter,
a passage from Giuliano Ricci, the celebrated antiquary, in which the scholars of Antonio Vespucius
are mentioned by name, as follows: " Antonio
Vespucius gave lessons in grammar to young persons of the nobility, and among his disciples were
Piero di Messer Tomaso Soderini and Americus
Vespucius."
Now if Ren' II., a prince, had been of this number, and too the companion of Americus, would the
antiquarian Ricci and the panegyrist Bandini been
likely to have forgotten so interesting a circumstance, especially the latter, who had made such
minute inquiries, and enters into such particular details respecting the education and genealogy of his
hero? But even he seems not to have been insensible to the incongruity of this dedication, as he evidently shunned an examination which might have
resulted disastrously for the memory of his idol, and
for the pretended authenticity of documents published
by him, or by the theoretical speculators upon that
epoch, or by his friends, at the commencement of the
sixteenth century, a century so rife with literary
forgers of every description.
Next we propose to enter upon some other questions, suggested by the dates of these letters of Vespucius, which are addressed now to Lorenzo de'
Medici, now to Lorenzo Piero de' Medici, and then
again to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici of




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 61
Florence.1 They are dated the 18th of July, 1500,
May 1501, and, according to others, 1504.
If this Lorenzo Piero de' Medici was, as would
appear from the earliest editions, that Lorenzo called
the Magnificent, who had assumed the name of his
father, Piero I., this prince, it is to be remarked,
died in 1442.2  How  then could have Vespucius
addressed to him letters upon his pretended voyages
when he was no longer in existence? And if this
critically well-founded observation be not sufficient
to prove beyond dispute what confusion, whether
accidental or designed, whether caused by himself
or others, is found in the accounts of Vespucius's
voyages at this epoch, the silence of Valori, Fabronio,3 and Roscoe, three such conscientious historians
of the two Lorenzos de' Medici, would furnish us
with a serious motive for being upon our guard.
They, indeed, say not a word of any connection whatever having existed between these princes and Vespucius, nor do they speak of any letter from this
Florentine upon a subject so all-important as the discovery of a New World! The same silence likewise
prevails in the Diario de successi importanti seguite,
etc., from 1498 to 1512, a contemporary work,
published at Florence in 1568, by P.agio Buonacorsi, which comprehends the period when the
1 See the most ancient editions.  2 See the biographers.
3 This writer speaks of a certain Guido Antonio Vespucius, but says
nothing of Americus.




62          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
voyages of Vespucius were made and his letters
were written.  And the silence of this author is
the more significant, not merely because he wrote
about the remarkable things that happened in Italy
and at Florence, addressing himself to natives of that
city, celebrated at the epoch when Vespucius and
his partisans propagated their first accounts of the
fabulous discoveries, contained in his letters to Soderini and the Medici, which treated of an event of
such vast importance that all Europe knew, or ought
to have known of it, but also because the king Emmanuel communicated every new discovery to the
court of Rome, through the embassy of Tristam da
Cunha, at the end of the fifteenth century, as likewise to the Venetian government; and a contemporary Florentine author, therefore, could not but have
been certain as to these said letters, whether or not
they were addressed to Soderini and Lorenzo de'
Medici.
But those who support the pretensions of Vespucius will perhaps say that his letters were written,
not to Lorenzo de' Medici, called the Magnificent,
but to Lorenzo II. We have already shown that in
the first editions it is the name of Lorenzo Piero
which is found, and that consequently it was Lorenzo, surnamed the Magnificent, to whom these epistles were addressed. But, supposing that it was not
he, if it be said that it was Lorenzo II. the answer
then is, that the latter prince, having been born the




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  63
13th of September, 1492, could not have attained
his eighth year when Vespucius's first letter was
written, and we would ask, if it is probable that a
report of voyages and discoveries would have been
made to a child?
Bandini saw very plainly what a stretch of credulity was here required, and how much the reputation
of his hero would suffer from an analysis like ours;
he sought therefore to give to this letter an air of
genuineness, by saying that perhaps this Lorenzo de'
Medici was a certain Lorenzo di Pier lFrancesco.
But it will be evident that this conjecture not only
shakes the authenticity of the document itself, but
that it is in direct opposition to a part of his own text,
where he says: " It cannot be denied that it [the
letter] is addressed to a Lorenzo, whilst in the body
of the same he gives him the title of Magnificent."
Besides that this conjecture of Bandini's' is contra
producentem, it is not supported, nor do we believe
it can be supported by the rules of correct criticism.
We have just seen, by the preceding simple
analysis merely of the personages to whom Vespucius's letters were addressed, how much difficulty,
I The opinion of Robertson on Bandini is in these words: "In
1745, the Abb6 Bandini published at Florence a life of Vespucius in
4to." " This work, which has no merit, is written with as little judgment as truth. The author supports the pretensions of his countryman
to the discovery of the New World, with all the zeal which a national
prejudice inspires, but he brings no proof to sustain them."
See History of America, by Robertson, published at Paris in 1827,
with notes drawn from the works of M. de Humboldt.




64          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
inconsistency, and confusion exist respecting the authenticity of these documents. To this we will add,
that it is impossible for us to understand how, at the
epoch spoken of, - the time of king Emmanuel, -
Vespucius, who at one moment was in the service of
Spain, the next in that of Portugal, and then again
in that of Spain, (that is, if his story and that of certain authors and geographers be true,) how he dared
to sustain a correspondence with any of the Medici,
and nearly at the same time with Soderini, when the
former were declared rebels to the republic of Florence, their native country, and the latter was detested and prosecuted by the court of Rome and
Pope Julius II., who protected the Medici, and exercised a powerful influence both in Portugal and
Spain. Nor can we conceive how he could allow
himself, amid the ideas prevailing at his time and
under such influences as then existed, to write to
parties so opposed in character to each other as were
the Medici and Soderini. For, in addressing himself to one of the Medicean family, he compromised
himself with the government of his own country, and
in corresponding with Soderini he could not fail to
expose himself to the anger of the court of Rome,
and to excite the suspicions of those of Spain and
Portugal. And equally astonishing is it, that, when
the works of three celebrated travellers, foreigners by
birth, were printed in Portuguese at Lisbon in 1502,
those containing the discoveries of Vespucius, which




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  65
he pretended to have made before that date, and by
the orders of the king himself, were not at the same
time published at Lisbon, but were given to the public in Lorraine, whither their author went for that
express purpose.1 The names of the three travellers
alluded to were, Marco Polo, Nicolo, a Venetian,
whom Ortelius calls Nicolo di Conti, and a certain
Girolamo da Santo Stefano, a Genoese, who in 1499
had written from Tripoli to one of his friends in
Germany an account of his voyages.
Some persons would fain insist, according to what
we have set forth, that a document cannot be condemned' as false by negative arguments, or by the
silence of one or several authors; but the savans
who composed the Nouveau Traite de Diplomatique,
and who are an authority in the matter, remark with
justice: unless it was impossible that they (the authors) should not have spoken of it, if it had been true.
And, in our opinion, it is precisely in this light in the
case before us, that we should regard the silence of
Barros, Goes, Osorio, Buonacorsi, and Valori, authors living at the time of the event in question, and
when Vespucius set up his pretensions. In the same
sense also ought to be taken the silence of the contemporary documents of the general archives of Portugal, that of more than two hundred Portuguese
manuscripts in the royal library at Paris, and above
all that of No. 10,023, entitled, Journal of the
1 The letter of Columbus was also published at Lisbon, in 1493.
5




66             RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Voyages of the Portuguese, from 1497 to 1682.
Equally conclusive, too, is the silence of 703 volumes
of a collection  of Italian manuscripts in the  same
library, of which M. Marsand has lately published a
catalogue, and in which the name of Vespucius is
not so much as mentioned. Nor is it to be found in
the catalogues of several thousands of manuscripts
contained in 432 libraries, catalogues of which by
M. Haenel, have been published.1
Critics, severe and conscientious, would, without
doubt, characterize as forgeries the documents published about Vespucius at the commencement of the
sixteenth century, after having followed us in our
I Nicolao d'Oliveira, a Portuguese author at the end of the sixteenth
century, who wrote a history of Brazil, which, according to Barbosa,
in his Portuguese Library, remained unpublished, preserved the same
silence as to Vespucius.
In a work, published in Latin at Leyden, in 1641, by the Elzevirs,
and entitled, Portugalia, sive De Regis Portugaliae Regnis et Opibus
Commentarius, we find, at page 191, a passage by the Portuguese
author, which is in opposition to the pretension of Vespucius.
And here is the observation of the commentator upon the authority
of the Portuguese author: "It was, according to Nicolao d'Oliveira,
in Southern America that the king of Portugal possessed the territory
of Brazil, which was formerly called the province of Santa Cruz by
the Portuguese, who first discovered and explored it," &c.
Morisot, in his Orbis Maritimus, cites the same Portuguese author
and pronounces Columbus to have been the first discoverer of
America.
" Since these islands, a later age discovered a fourth part of the
world, called America from  Americus Vespucius, who, however, was
not the first navigator there, but Columbus, in whose steps he followed," &c.
Nevertheless, Morisot does not mention the two fictitious voyages
of 1501 and 1503.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIIS VOYAGES. 67
examination of them; for they bear upon their very
face every sign of being such, according to the established usages of diplomatic criticism. And this appears so, because it is the peculiar quality of a forgery to run counter to the supposed necessary
accordance which should exist between a document
and the age in which it was written; because counterfeit documents involve in contradiction both the
subjects and the authors of them; 1 because one solitary, but important mistake, which, morally speaking, could never have found its way into a genuine
document, destroys the authenticity of the piece of
which it forms a part; 2 because capital errors in
history and chronology, such as we have brought to
light in this work, produce the firmest conviction of
the crime of falsification; 3 and lastly, because, according to another rule of diplomatic criticism, one
single fact which cannot be made to correspond with
such and such personages and circumstances, forming the subject matter of a document, is quite sufficient to condemn that document as aforgery.4  Now,
in the letters of Vespucius, under our present consideration, it is not one isolated fact, but many facts,
which, beyond a doubt, cannot be made to correspond
with the persons and circumstances he writes about.
The ancient partisans of these errors might have
1 Nouveau Trait6 de Diplomatique, vol. vi. p. 289.
2 Ibid.               3 Work already cited.
4 Ibid. p. 311.




68          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
argued, that at the time of Vespucius they were
spread abroad with the impress of truth upon them;
but, to say nothing of the impress of truth in the
opinion of one century becoming the impress of falsehood in that of another,1 we meet with an infinite
quantity of printed documents, once bearing the
character of authenticity, which are now admitted to
be spurious. It will be sufficient to advert, as examples, to the seventeen books published at the end of,
the fifteenth century, (the epoch when Vespucius
flourished,) by Annius of Viterbo, and to those of
Bivar, published under the name of Flavius Dexter,
documentary impostures fabricated by La Higuera.
Nevertheless, these impostures were regarded for a
time as genuine, and later historians have been
duped by them.
The history of forgers of all sorts of memorials
would form by itself an immense collection of volumes, and especially the history of those belonging
-to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in which
would appear a number of savans that became their
victims.
A very learned German (Schlegel)2'remarks,
" that the book of the fables of Reinecke Fuchs can
be mentioned as an instance of what the world was
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.3 This
1 Nouveau Trait6 de Diplomatique, vol. vi.
2 History of Literature, vol. i. p. 401.
3 The epoch of the birth of Vespucius.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND MIS VOYAGES.   69
work," says he, " shows how among chevaliers and
citizens, kings and people, those who were the most
honest were often the most cheated.".
Have there not been, too, at no great distance from
our own times, certain facts which support what we
say?   Everybody  has heard of the Prince of
Orange's medal, on which was inscribed: Portus
gratice exustus et eversus bombardis Anglo-Batavii,
MD CXCIII. (The port of Havre burnt and destroyed by the Anglo-Dutch bombardment in 1693.)
And yet if the bombardment of Havre be a true fact,
the ruin of Havre is a false one. So if the discovery
of the New World is a true fact, the priority of this
discovery by Vespucius, at the expense of Columbus,
Cabral, and Coelho, is likewise a false one. But,
admitting that the injustice committed against these
three be irremediable, (for errors allowed and consecrated by the lapse of ages often triumph over science,) still against Truth there is no prescription,
and however we may have strayed from it, there is
always time to return, since by the aid of time faults,
errors, and forgeries may be detected, which at first
had eluded discovery.1
And this injustice is the more offensive, according
to the opinion of an illustrious savant, M. de Humboldt, because, as he says,'; It was an obscure man
who invented the name of America, and who proposed
it in his work (above cited) called: Cosmographice
4 Nouveau Trait6 de Diplomatique, by the Benedictines.




70                RESEARCHES, ETC.
Iltrodructio, insuper quatuor Americi Tespucii  Navigationes,' which name Apian, Vadianus, and
Camers have since widely spread through Strasburg, Friburg, and Vienna, while the prodigious
celebrity of the little book of Apian has propagated
the evil by innumerable editions in Holland and elsewhere."
We have above shown not only in what way should
be characterized this first work of 1507, published
in Lorraine, in which for the first time the name of
America is found under the title Cosmographioe
Introductio, &c. a work that has been the origin of so
much injustice, mistake, and disorder, but also what
name ought to be bestowed on Vespucius's letters to
Lorenzo de' Medici and Soderini, published at Paris
in 1516, and at Milan in 1519, which were a prolific source of error and confusion before Apian's
production made its appearance. And in our opinion, a critical examination, whose object is to repair
injustice and establish facts, must always not only be
worthy of science, but likewise an additional homage
to truth itself.
I Chronology of the most ancient Maps of America. Note published in the Bulletin of the Geographical Society, December, 1841.
M. de Humboldt observes, that the map of Apian (1520) " in imposing the name of America on the Southern Continent, says that it was
discovered in 1497 by Columbus, (this is the year precisely of Vespucius's pretended discovery, joined to the name of Columbus,) whilst
that in the cosmographical work of Peter Apian, carefully corrected
by Gemma Frisio, (Antwerp, 1529,) we read as follows:' The.fourth portion of the world derived its name from Americus Vespucius, the discoverer of the same. It was discovered in the year 1497."




CHAPTER  IV.
WHENEVER an interval of several ages separates
us from an event which was doubtful at the time it
happened, the greatest difficulty is encountered in
attempting to establish and elucidate it.  Such is
our position relative to the problematical expeditions
of Americus Vespucius.  And the difficulty is increased in our day by the immense study required
in the examination of a host of books and documents,
which have been published since the beginning of the
sixteenth century, an epoch when error and disorder
brought forth so many false judgments upon the
question we have in hand. The manifest contradictions, too, of a great number of writers, both as to
dates and facts, adds still more to our embarrassment.
In this labyrinth, it struck us that our purpose
would not be answered by simply confining ourselves
to an analysis of the narrations imputed to Vespucius, and contrasting them with accounts either of
those navigators who preceded him, or who were
prosecuting discoveries at the moment when his letters were given to the world.  We therefore felt
ourselves compelled to subject this point in geographical history to a clear and accurate examination,




72          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
either by resting for support on a great amount of
testimony which has been neglected by critics that
have gone before us, or by submitting to a fresh
scrutiny the works which have been already quoted.
It was in consequence of these considerations that we
have entered upon this question in a manner altogether peculiar, and, if we may be permitted to say
so, equally new. The nature of our public duties
has obliged us since 1826 to interrupt these investigations; and then, too, a number of literary undertakings, besides the scarceness of certain books and
the time required to find and study them, have forced
us to make our investigation piecemeal, as it were,
and thus to present the result of our researches somewhat in detached portions, and, it may be, without
method. So that the notes hitherto published by us
in the Bulletin of the Geographical Society, and this
continuation to them, are to be considered only as
mere essays preparatory to a future work of more
methodical construction.
Painful as it may be to us to fatigue the reader
with a long series of extracts and increased quotations, we will take the liberty of remarking, that,
in this important inquiry, these are so many pieces,
hitherto discussed in a sense entirely opposed to
our own, but indispensably necessary for the enlightenment of those on whose judgments rests a
final decision.
We have shown that the famous Introduction to




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  73
Cosmography, printed at Saint Diey, in Lorraine,
in 1507, was the principal source of error, together
with the numerous collections of letters of Vespucius
published at the commencement of the sixteenth
century.' / To these we will add yet another production of the same year, the mendacious title of which
served to increase still further the existing confusion.
It is the collection of Montalboddo Francanzano, a
very rare book, printed at Vicenza in 1507, and
fraudulently entitled, Paesi novamente retrovati et.Novo Mlondo da Alberico Vesputio, EFiorentino, intitulato.  It was translated into French, and printed
in that language, at Paris, in 1513,2 by Philippe Le
Noir, with the following title, far surpassing the original in extravagance, Le Nouveau Moonde et Nauigations faictes par Emeric de Vespuce, Florentin,
des pays et isles nouuellement trouvez, auparautit
icongneuz, tant en i'Etiope q' Arrabie, Caliechut et
aultres plusieurs regions estranges. Translate de
ytalien en langue franpoyse, par Mathurin de Redouer. Two other editions of this translation were
printed at Paris, without any indication of date, by
I This publication was preceded by that of the Mundus Novus,
magister Johannes Otmar Vindelice impressit Auguste, anno 1504;
by that entitled, De ora Antarctica, per regem Portugallice pridern inventa. Impressum Argentine per Mathiam Hupjfiff, 1505; and by
that entitled, Von den nuwen insulen und landen so ietzt kiirtzlichen
if unden synt durch den kiinig von Portugal, Strasburg, 1506.
2 The "Art de verifier les Dates," fixes this to be the date. See
vol. xii. third part, p. 110.




74           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Jehan Janot, and by Jean Trepperel. Of these, we
have seen the latter at the Royal Library, and have
already quoted it. Judging from the date of the privileye, it seems to have been printed in 1516. We
have found, too, another edition in the splendid collection of Mr. Henry Ternaux.1
The indication, according to the original edition,
of subjects contained in this work, is as follows -
1. A Book of the first Voyage by Sea to the Land
of the Negroes, in Lower Ethiopia, by command of tihe
most illustrious Seignior, the Infant -Don Henry,
brother of Don -Edward, King of Portugal.
2. The second Book of the Navigation from Lisbon
to Calicut, in Italian, from the Portuguese Language. We will observe, that in this book is found
the account of the voyage of Pedro Alvares Cabral,
and of the discovery which he made of the land of
Santa Cruz (Brazil.)
3. The third Book of the Navigation from Lisbon
to Calicut, in the Italian, from the Portuguese Language. At the end of it we read, And now commences the navigation of the islands and countries
of the King of Castile, lately discovered.  This book
begins by a narrative of the expedition of Columbus.
1 The edition in M. Ternaux's possession was published at Paris,
by Gaillot-du-Pr6. The copy in the Royal Library comes from that of
Falconet. Respecting these collections, see Brunet, catalogue de la
Vallisre; Meusel, Biblioth. Hist. vol. iii. p. 265; Memoir of Sebastian
Cabot, 1831, p. 241.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 75
"Christopher Columbus," it says, " a Genoese, was
a man of' lofty and noble stature, of a reddish complexion, broad face, and great genius.":
It is not till these voyages and narratives are all
finished, that we find these words, in the fifth book
of this collection: " The New  World, translated
from the Spanish Language into the Roman Idiom,
(book fifth.)  Erom Alberic Vespucius to Lorenzo
Piero de' Medici, greeting."  This is the letter to
Lorenzo Piero de' Medici.  But in the same book
is found the letter of the envoy of the Venetian
Republic, who resided at Lisbon,' that of the ambassador of the same republic, Pascoaligo,2 and other
letters and narratives, which, so far from favoring
the pretensions of Vespucius, add still further to the
doubt and uncertainty that exist as to the reality of
his voyages. One of these letters, dated 1502, and
posterior to the month of March, appears to have
been written by some of those Italian merchants who
were settled in Portugal, to their correspondents at
Florence or Venice. In it they give a long and
detailed account of the expeditions of Cabral to Calicut, and of the productions of India and Western
Africa; they speak of particular concessions granted
by the king, at the rate of thirty-seven per cent.;
they make a display of their erudition, and talk of
1 Before cited.          2 Cited before.




76          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Solomon and of the Queen of Sheba, as touching
Sophala,l and cite Pliny when discoursing of Taprobane 2; they manifest the influence which biblical
instruction and a perusal of the old classics had had
upon the spirit of discovery; but not a word do they
say of Vespucius, or of his pretended voyage of the
preceding year. Another of these letters is dated
at Lisbon, the sixteenth of September of the same
year, (1502,) and is written by Francesco di Santa
Cremona to Pascoaligo, the Venetian Ambassador,
who happened at that moment to be in Spain. In
it we find details the most minute, respecting the
voyages then in course of execution, and even upon
the vessels which were being built in the ports of
Portugal for expeditions of the like nature; but,
notwithstanding the date of September, 1502, no
mention whatever is made of Vespucius.
The striking difference which exists, as has already
been proved, between the actual contents of the collection spoken of and the fraudulent announcement
on the titlepage, suffices to demonstrate what serious
errors were spread abroad by such publications, at
an epoch when enthusiasm for voyages and discoveries fascinated entire Europe almost, and
caused to be received with rabid credulity the
pompous enunciations of a mendacious title.
I Sofala, perhaps the Ophir of Solomon.
2 Ceylon.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 77
This collection was unknown to Camus; 1 for he
acknowledges that what he says of it was taken from
Tiraboschi; 2 and not having been able to examine it
himself, he thought that for the most part it contained only the narrative of Vespucius. Whereas,
quite the contrary is the fact, as we have just seen.
Camus cites a pamphlet of six sheets, (said by Maittaire and Panzer to be extremely rare,) which has
for its title, Albericus Vespucius Laurentio Petri
PFrancisci de Medicis salutem  plurimam  dicit;
beneath which is seen the name of Jehan Lambert,
a printer who exercised his art at Paris from 1493
to 1514. It contains an account of the voyage of
1501, in Latin; and he adds, that some persons
have decided the date of this edition to be of the
same year. Now, this pamphlet, which is in the
Royal Library, we have examined; and not only
must we withhold from it the date supposed, but we
are constrained to believe that neither Camus nor
those who admitted its genuineness ever reflected
on the impossibility of reconciling with it the date
of the pretended voyage. How, indeed, could it
have been possible to print at Paris in 1501, the
narrative of an enterprise, which Vespucius says was
undertaken by him on quitting Lisbon, the same
year, in the month of May, and which must have
I M6moires sur les grands Voyages.
2 Tiraboschi, vol. vii. part i. p. 213.




78          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
lasted, according to one of these letters, sixteen
months, and according to another, perhaps twenty? 1
Consequently, the said narrative could not have been
printed, nor even written, the fourth of September
of that year; and therefore the contradiction is selfevident.
But, however this may be, notwithstanding the publication of the celebrated Collection of Francanzano,
in 1507, the Cosmographice Introductio, printed the
same year in Lorraine, and other writings anterior
to Vespucius's letters above cited, the authors to
whom we are indebted for the beautiful edition of
Ptolemy, published at Rome in the year following,
1508, (Marco Beneventano and Cotta,2) not only say
nothing of Vespucius and his fictitious voyages, but,
on the contrary, declare that the New Continent
was discovered by Columbus and the Portuguese.
All that is found in their production, particularly
the dissertation of Beneventano, and also the chapters 3d and 14th, is in favor of the Portuguese navigators, as will be elsewhere explained. In the third
chapter we read as follows; " De Tellure quam turn
Columbus, turn Lusitani, observaverunt, quam terram Sanctce- Crucis appellant. (Concerning the land
which Columbus and the Portuguese discovered, to
which they give the name of Santa Cruz.)" &c. &c.
And we desire here pointedly to acknowledge the valu1 Collection of Francanzano and others.
2 We have examined this edition at the Royal Library.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 79
able ideas we have met with in this work, which, having been published during the lifetime of Vespucius,
and subsequently to the collections already quoted,
adds to the proofs that can be adduced in opposition
to the pretensions of this navigator, and the documents published in his interest. Hardly was our
examination of it finished when the learned result of
M. de Humboldt's 1 labors came under our notice;
and we lose no time in here producing the observations of this illustrious savant, whose authority in
the matter is, with so great reason, both powerful
and decisive. He says, " I have found in the splendid edition of the Geography of Ptolemy, published
at Rome in 1508, proofs of the Portuguese navigation along the east coasts of South America, which
was extended to the fiftieth degree of south latitude,
accompanied, however, at the same time, by the
reflection that the extremity of the continent had
not yet been attained. This edition, printed by
Evangelista Tossinus, and composed by Marco Beneventano and John Cotta of Verona, contains a mappemonde (world-map) by Ruysch,2 in which South America is represented as an island of immense extent,
under the name of Terra Sanetee Crucis, sive Mun1 Examen Critique de 1' Histoire de la Geographie du Nouveau
Continent. Paris. 1837. Vol. ii. pp. 5, 9.
2 Nova et Universalior Orbis cogniti Tabula, a Johanne Ruysch,
Germano, elaborata.




80           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
dus Novus.  (The Land of the Holy Cross,1 or New
World.) One sees there the Cape of the Holy
Cross; it occupies the position of St. Augustine;
and the coast is seen running to the South. A note
is attached, which may be translated as follows: -
Portuguese mariners discovered this part of this territory, and proceeded as high as the fiftieth degree
of south latitude, but without reaching its southern
extremity.
" The same edition presents a dissertation with this
title: Nova orbis descriptio, ac nova oceani navigatio, qua Lisbona ad Indicum pervenitur pelagus; a
MIarco Beneventano, monacho Ccelestino, edita.  (A
new description of the world and a new ocean navigation, by which the passage from Lisbon to the Indies is made known; published by Marco Beneventano, a Celestine Monk.)
" The 14th chapter reads; — Terra Sanctce Crucis decrescit usque ad latitudinem 370 aust.; quamque ad Archiploi usque ad 50~ austr. navigarint,
ut ferunt;  quam reliquam  portionem  descriptam
non reperi, etc."
The learned author adds that the discovery of
Brazil by Cabral, from the tenth to the sixteenth
and a half degree of southern latitude, had made
1 We beg the reader to pay particular attention to this denomination, employed after the famous Lorraine edition of the Cosmographice
Introductio.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  81
such an impression on the minds of men that the Court
of Lisbon, subsequently to that event, even extended
its views to the discovery of a western passage; and,
to use his own words, "'it consequently appears
quite probable, that there took place, between 1500
and 1508, a succession of Portuguese attempts to
the south of Porto Seguro, along the Terra Sanctoe
Crucis, and that vague notions of these attempts
have served as a foundation for a multitude of marine charts, which were fabricated in the most frequented seaports."
We will here give a chronology of the voyages
made by the Portuguese to the Terra Sanctee Crueis, (Brazil,) from, the time of its discovery by Cabral to the year 1506, in order to show that the
editors of the Ptolemy of 1508 were doubtless aware
of the truth, and that, having a most accurate knowledge of the principal events, to wit, the results of
these Portuguese expeditions, they preserved, designedly it is probable, a profound silence respecting
the pretended voyages and discoveries of TVespucius
in 1501 and 1503. These chronological notes will
serve likewise to establish the reality of a series of
attempts by the Portuguese, such as have been
sagaciously supposed by M. de Humboldt to have
taken place.
1501. -An expedition commanded by Gon.alo
Coelho, left Lisbon to explore the coast of the Terra
de Santa Cruz.  Galvao, a contemporary author,
6




82           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
says that this expedition, having recognized the Brazilian coast towards the fifth degree of latitude,
sailed along the shore as far as the thirty-second
degree south.l
1503. - After the return of the expedition just
described, another was sent from Portugal, composed
of six vessels, and commanded by Christovao Jaques,
who reconnoitred and explored the coast as far as
the Cap das TFirgens, at the entrance of Magellan's
Straits.2 This Christovao Jaques is the same who
discovered Bahia de todos os Sanctos. (San Salvador.) 3
1503, June 10th. - The time of Gonmalo Coelho's
second expedition.  Goes says that the king, Emmanuel, sent this captain to reconnoitre the land
of Santa Cruz, and that he sailed from Lisbon the
10th of June, with six vessels.4 Osorio, too, also a
contemporary, remarks, " He (the king) committed
the fleet to Gonpalo Coelho, for the purpose of making a survey of the country explored by Cabral, which
they call Brazil."
1503. - In this same year the celebrated captain,
Alfonso de Albuquerque, with a fleet bound from
Lisbon to the Indies, reconnoitred the coast of ZBrazil, and cast anchor there.5
1 See the Portuguese writers, and especially Corografia Brazilica.
2 See Corografia Brazilica.
3 See Goes, Chron, and the last named authority.
4 Ibid.
5 See Ramusio, and Corografia Brazilica.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  83
1505. -The fleet commanded by Don Francisco
de Almeida, who sailed from Lisbon for the Indies,
the 25th of March, with twenty vessels, ran along
and surveyed the coast of Santa Cruz. (Brazil.) 1
1506. —Tristam da Cunha, in command of a
fleet of eleven vessels bound to the Indies, left Lisbon the sixth of March, went to examine Brazil,
and sailed by a part of the coast of that country.2
The perfect accordance of the dates and objects
of these expeditions with the very words of Beneventano's dissertation in the edition of Ptolemy,
(1508,) and with the history of the time, shows, -
1st, that the editors of that work were intimately
acquainted with this series of voyages, which were
conducted entirely by the Portuguese; 2d, that the
friendly terms which were sustained between Portugal and the Holy See, facilitated the immediate and
regular communication of ideas the most precise upon discoveries in which the Court of Rome took a
great interest; and 3d, that the succession of expeditions of which we have given a list, should suffice
to demonstrate the falseness of the narrations of
Vespucius. For it is evident, that if indeed he had
discovered the Brazilian coast during his two pretended voyages of 1501 and 1503, it would have
been useless to send at the same time, and at a later
I See Corografia Brazilica, vol. i. p. 44, and contemporary authors.
2 Castanheda, Book ii. chap. 32, and Corografia Brazilica.




84          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
period, other expeditions exclusively Portuguese for
the purpose of making the same exploration, to discover what had already been found out, and to verify
that which was no longer doubtful.
The letter of Pedro Vaz Caminha, who sailed
with Cabral, addressed from  the New Continent,
the first of May, 1500, to the king, Emmanuel, is
of no little importance in the matter before us.
The original of this valuable document, the details
of which are very curious, is preserved in the royal
archives at Lisbon, and it has been published by M.
Ayres de Cazal, in his Brazilian Chorography.1
A critical comparison of this letter and of Galvao's
narrations, which we shall presently cite, with the
letters attributed to Vespucius, will be sufficient, in
our opinion, to determine the appellation that should
be applied to the latter. By means of this letter
we perceive how utterly void of foundation is the
conjecture of the Chevalier Napione 2; for in it are
found the names of all those who accompanied Cabral in this expedition, and that of Fespucius is not
there. This same letter, too, we have compared
with an account of Cabral's voyage written by a
Portuguese pilot, and inserted in the collection of
Ramusio, which follows that of Madrignano.
In a relation of the voyages of Lodovico di Barthema of Bologna, we observe that this navigator
1 Corografia Brazilica, vol. i. p. 12.
2 Esame Critico del Prirno Viaggio di Amerigo Vespucci.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  85
went to sea in the service of King Emmanuel, that
he returned from the Indies to Portugal on board
the vessel of a Florentine, Bartholomew Marchioni,
of whom Barros, Goes, and the Venetian Envoy
speak, and that he reached Lisbon in 1507; but we
nowhere find any allusion to either Vespucius or his
discoveries.
We would also call attention to the silence of Castanheda,' a contemporary author, who while discoursing of the discoveries made by Cabral, and
especially by the companions of that admiral, never
mentions Vespucius.2  The same silence is observed
by Barreiros, likewise a contemporary, who speaks
only of Columbus, in his treatise De Ophira Regione,
which was printed at Coimbra in 1560, and is found
in the XNovus Orbis, published at Rotterdam in 1616.
The same is true, too, of Galvao, author of a work
called Descobrimentos Antigos e ]Jiodernos, who
lived at the time, and was a witness of the expeditions we are examining; likewise of Pedro de
Magalhaes de Gandavo, the oldest historian of
Brazil.  The latter author in his.History of the
Province of Santa Cruz, first printed at Lisbon in
1576, declares Cabral to have been the discoverer
of Brazil, without referring in the slightest manner
either to Vespucius or to his imaginary voyages of
1501  and 1503.  Yet Magalhaes merited  and
1 Historia da Conquista da India pelos Portugueses.
2 See the curious reflections of Napione. Esame Critico, p. 84.




86          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
received the praises of the great poet, Camoens;
because he availed himself, in his work, of the most
authentic sources of information.  And could it,
then, have been possible that he knew nothing of
the books of voyages published in Lorraine, at
Vienna, Venice, Paris, and elsewhere? We are
not of that opinion.
The author of the Corografia Brazilica, while
complaining of the falseness of Vespucius's narratives, cleverly remarks, that their very identity with
those of Galvao stamps them as forgeries. And we
will further point out the silence of Father Joseph
Teixeira, who, although in his work entitled De
Portugallic  Ortu, Regni Initiis, etc., he gives a
summary of the remarkable events in the reign of
King Emmanuel, and at the epoch of Vespucius's
would-be discoveries, says not a word of the Florentine navigator. And we would ask if this author,
whose works are very numerous and nearly all
printed at Paris towards the end of the sixteenth
century, could have been ignorant of the pretensions
of Vespucius, and even have known nothing of his
letters, when the point in discussion was the Florentine's voyages, made by order of the king, Emmanuel?
Thus, it appears that in the Portuguese historians
of the sixteenth century, the name of Vespucius is
never found; and that no one at Rome should have
been acquainted with his letters seems incredible, as




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  87
is justly observed by Napione; 1 who owns, that if
no mention is made of them in the Itinerarium Portugallensium, published in 1508,2 nor by Albertino,3
nor Giraldini,4 and other contemporary authors,5
this silence ought to convince us that these writers
did not regard them  as genuine.  He admits, too,
that Guicciardini, Segni, and others, who have
spoken of the event, and many Italian authors
besides, have never attributed the discoveries in
question to Vespucius, and adds that he has not
met with any Tuscan savant or old Florentine historian, who maintained that the American continent
was discovered by their countryman in advance of
Columbus.
The opinion of Guicciardini, it must be remembered, is of vast importance in this discussion; for
he was a Florentine, and contemporary of Vespucius;
he had been Spanish ambassador at the court of Ferdinand the Catholic, and was, moreover, bound by
family ties to the Medici, one of whom, Leo the 10th,
called him  to Rome.  He made himself useful to
1 Esame Critico: page 38.
2 This is an error of Napione, as we have ascertained by an examina
tion of the compilation, which is not contained in the Royal Library,
but a copy of which was obligingly loaned to us by M. Jomard. An
other is to be found at the library of the Institute.
3 In 1510.
4 See his Itinerary of 1516, and Zeno, Diss. Vossiane.
5 See Napione, (Esame Critico,) upon the Portulan, (Description
of Seaports, etc.) printed at Venice in 1528, which, though speakinr
of Columbus, says not a word of Vespucius.




88          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Alessa-di.de' Medici, and, after the death of that
prince, powerfully contributed to the election of
Cosmo, of the same family. And amid a concurrence
of circumstances like these, is it credible that a historian so celebrated as he was could have remained in
ignorance of Vespucius's pretensions, and of the
existence of his letters to Lorenzo Pier de' Medici,
or that he would have proclaimed Columbus in the
manner he did, if in his opinion the accounts of his
own countryman had been worthy of belief? His
manner of speaking of Columbus, and the Portuguese and Spanish discoveries, betrays, we think,
his hesitation respecting the claims of the Florentine.
For he asserts that Columbus first discovered the
New Continent, and that Vespucius went to it also,1
but, adds he (dopo lui) after Columbus. And he
goes on immediately to say, that many others visited
it likewise, and that they discovered other islands,
and most extensive countries on terra firma. Now,
if the navigators who, before 1504 and after Vespucius, accomplished great discoveries on the main
land, took no part in the expeditions of that Florentine, it evidently follows that the historian meant it
to be understood that terra firma was not discovered
by him, - an opinion which seems to us yet more
clearly expressed in the very next words of the text:
" Praise be to those Portuguese and Spaniards, and
It is probable that he here means the voyage with Hojeda.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  89
above all to Columbus, the discoverer of this most
wondemful and dangerous navigation, etc. etc.
Bernardo Segni, an Italian historian, born at
Florence towards the end of the fifteenth century,
was, like Guicciardini, a countryman and contemporary of Vespucius and his fabulous discoveries.
He was at the head of a commercial house, and
must necessarily have been well acquainted with the
field of discovery which such vast regions as had
lately been made known, laid open to adventurous
expeditions. lIe made himself serviceable to the
Medicean family, and the Duke, Cosmo de' Medici,
confided to him a diplomatic mission to Ferdinand,
king of the Romans, who was on intimate terms with
the Court of Portugal.1  Segni was afterwards
appointed to be chief of the Academy, (de la Crusca,) and died at Florence in 1558.  How then is it
possible that this Florentine author, who lived and
wrote in the time of Vespucius, who had the principal direction of a commercial establishment, who
had visited Germany, where the letters of Vespucius were already known, - how is it possible
that he could have been ignorant of this person's
claims to priority in the discovery of the New Continent?
Ramusio himself, while inserting in his collection
the so-called voyages of Vespucius, says, in his pre1 See the Corps Diplomatique, section 24, by the author, M. de
Santarem.




90          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
face to the expedition of the Portuguese, Francisco
Alvares, in Ethiopia, that his narrative should not
be held in less esteem titan those which we have
already enjoyed by means of the discovery of Columbus.
Hakluyt, in his dedicatory epistle to Sir Robert
Cecil, calls Columbus the first navigator who, in
1492, discovered the New World; notwithstanding
what he relates of Madoc, and notwithstanding Vespucius's pretensions.
Besides, there is an ancient monument, still to be
seen at Saint Paul, in Brazil, which affords, respecting the subject now before us, an additional proof of
high importance. At the entrance of the bar of
Cananea, on the continental side, and upon a pile
of stones, is found a pedestal of European marble,
four hand-breadths in height, two in width, and one
hand-breadth square. Cut upon it, are the arms of
Portugal; but the towers are wanting; and, according to the author of the Brazilian Chorography,'
there is yet visible the date, 1503, which proves to
a certainty, in his opinion, that the fleet sent that
year, for the purpose of examining and exploring la
Terra de Santa Cruz, did not get as far as eighteen
degrees of south latitude, as Vespucius alleges; because, if it had it must necessarily have left landmarks resembling the arms of Portugal, and of the' Ayres de Cazal, Corografia Brazilica, published in 1817, vol. i.
p. 2:.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, A-ND HIIS VOYAGES.   91
same date, in order to ratify the act of taking possession, according to the cust)m of the times.1
The same author,2 analyzing with a judicious criticism the marine expeditions of Vespucius, observes
that his first letter, as well as the summary attributed to him, upon the pretended voyage of 1501,
present nothing but inconsistencies, contradictions,
and errors beyond endurance, at the same time that
they are perfectly mute on those essential points which
are never forgotten by a navigator, leading one to
saUJpose that Vespucius never went to Brazil at all.
And, moreover, that the account contained in his
second letter, upon the expedition of 1503, is diametrically opposed to contemporary history, and
nothing better than a tissue of barefaced falsehoods;
that it lacks accuracy in indicating the fleet's destination, disguises events, substitutes absurd fables for
facts, and, in a word, designedly suppresses the
truth. In the opinion, too, of the author we quote,
it seems highly improbable that a foreigner would
have been sent for by the king of Portugal to command his ships when already more than one expedition had been under the guidance of Portuguese
pilots; that to the land of Labrador, %or example,
that of Vasco di Gama, of Cabral, of Gaspar de
Lemos, and of others besides.
1 This custom is proved by a great number of writers of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries.
2 See note No. 1. p. 90.




92          RESEARCHES RESPECTING' The customs pertaining to pilotage," says M. de
Humboldt,1 " which prevailed in the grand expeditions of Columbus, Gama, and Magellan, and which
appear to us of so uncertain a character, would have
been the admiration, I will not say merely of the
mariners of Phoenicia, Carthage, and Greece, but
even of the able navigators of Catalonia, the Basque
Provinces, of IDieppe, and Venice, in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries."
Las Casas in 1502, (and this date is very iamportant,) had in his possession letters written by Columbus, upon the marks or proofs of western lands,
collected together by Portuguese pilots.2
These facts, and many others which we omit for
lack of space, show in what estimation should be
held the complaints of Vespucius against the ignorance of Portuguese pilots and mariners, when, in
the relation of his fabulous voyage of 1501, by way
of displaying his cosmographical acquirements, he
speaks as follows:-" It must here be remarked
that this place is still about seven hundred leagues
from Cape Vert, and that I calculate on having
sailed more than eight hundred, on account of what
we suffered from the tempestuous and changeable
state of the weather, which was invariably hostile to
us, as also from the ignorance of the pilot, - a sort
I Examen Critique sur l'Histoire de la Geographie du Nouveau
Continent, vol. i. page 9.
2 Ibid. vol. i. page 21.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 93
of peogple who are always the cause of long voyages.
So that we arrived in such a place, that if I had
not been acquainted with Cosmography there would
have been an end of us,. especially as we had not a
pilot who could tell within fifty leagues where
we were. There we were, wandering about, now
on this side and now on that, without knowing our
course, when I all at once provided for my own
safety and that of my companions by means of my
astrolabe, quadrant, and other astrological instruments; which caused me to be highly honored by
all hands, to such a degree, indeed, that from that
time I was held by them in that esteem with which
the learned are always regarded by good men, because I taught them the way of really navigating
well, and, in fact, did so much, that they all acknowledge that ordinary pilots, ignorant of cosmography in comparison with me, would never have
known how to make this passage."
Is it not evident, if this description of events be
true, that the fault lay with him who, in spite of his
cosmographical science and his influence in the expedition, allowed the ignorance of a pilot to prolong
the voyage," running now in one direction and now
in another "? And why did he make use of his
astrolabe and his knowledge only when death stared
them in the face? Can any one believe, after having read what has gone before, that the pilots " could
not tell within fifty leagues, where they were,"



94          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
that those who had been brought up in the excellent
school of Sagres, men who had traversed the ocean
so often, could have been so profoundly ignorant?
The valuable collection of Portulans, written in
Portuguese at the beginning of the sixteenth century, which is in the Royal Library at Paris, proves
the injustice of the Florentine navigator towards the
Portuguese pilots and mariners whose reputation he
desired to sacrifice that he might pedantically magnify his own nautical wisdom. This beautiful manuscript, now for the first time, perhaps, made known
to the world, contains a series of observations, some
of which go back as far as the year 1500.1 In it,
among other documeuts, we find, 1st, Tables for
astronomical observations; 2d, The division and
explanation of the tables, with the manner of using
them; 3d, The rule of calculation for reducing leagues to degrees; the manner of calculating the latitude and longitude, and of determining the variation
of the compass; 4th, A treatise upon the magnetic
needle; and 5th, the rule for finding the polar star
by means of the needle, and also the Cross in the
southern hemisphere, etc. etc.
The pilots, Andre Pires, Pero Martins, and Guanchimo, among others, were the authors of these Portulans, and they notice the acquaintance with the
globe possessed by the ancient geometricians. It is
1 Sees the notice given by the author in the Supplement, cod. 7,
168 - 33.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 95
probable that they referred to Posidonius of Rhodes,
followed by Ptolemy. and to Eratosthenes, followed
by Strabo, &c.; at all events, they established the
theory pursued by Bartholomew Dias, which they
recommend as the most accurate.1
These details are sufficient to show  how  unjustly
was the reproach of ignorance cast at the Portuguese pilots by Vespucius; for it is most obvious,
1st, that the pilots who were the contemporaries of
that Florentine had attained the most extensive cosmograhpical instruction peculiar to their epoch, and
that they made use of the astronomical ephemeris of
Regiomontanus; as any one can ascertain by inspecting carefully what is said by Barros and Amoretti
in the introduction to the treatise on navigation by
Pigafetta; and 2d, it is equally obvious that their
observations were based upon the most ancient authorities, not excepting the Portuguese, as, for example, upon those of Bartholomew Dias, in 1486,
when he discovered  the  Cabo  Tormentoso, since
called the Cape of Good Hope.2
1 In the Cosinographical works of the Portuguese pilots, there is no
respect for judicial astrology.  It will be seen that the Tractatus
SpiAerce, by Andalo Nigro, had not the slightest influence on these
authors, any more than the writings of the celebrated Thomas of Pisa.
Nor do we find in these productions the vagaries of the astronomers of
the middle age, in their astrological dreams. It rather seems that the
works of the famous Picus of Mirandola, against judicial astrology,
had already exerted a great influence upon the Portuguese cosmographers.
2 The manuscripts could furnish us with more ample details, but they
would divert us from our subject.




96          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Neither in this collection of Portulans, nor in the
remarks of two other Portuguese pilots,' Emmanuel
Alvares and Ayres Fernandez, (who were also of
the sixteenth century, between 1525 and 1550,) is
to be found the slightest notice of the observations of
Vespucius. Now, if Vespucius, by means of his
cosmographical knowledge had been able, as he
says, to save the expedition of 1501, and on that
account was regarded by Portuguese mariners as a
savant of the first order, is it to be presumed that
the authors of the Portulans, by whom the greater
part of this work was digested in the very lifetime
of Vespucius, would have forgotten the observations
made by so great a cosmographer? - observations
the more important since, according to him, they were
the salvation of a fleet! The study of geographers
and historians, both Greek and Roman, was then,
(in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,) cultivated
with an extraordinary enthusiasm by the Portuguese,
on account of the continual progress made in discovery and geographical knowledge among them,
consequent upon the Arabian rule, which had widely
spread the literary productions of the ancients and
a taste for geography.  M. Dacier, in a report made
in the name of the Institute, has vividly set forth
the immense utility there would be, in causing the
1 Manuscripts in the Royal Library, No. 8, 172- 3, Colbert Collection.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 97
earliest Portuguese and Italian maps of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuriesl to be engraved, so
as to show what influence upon European discoveries
in Africa the geographical knowledge of the Arabs
had had. As to ourselves, the comparative study of
Portuguese maps and narratives, and of works anterior to the fifteenth century, has furnished us with
the most positive proof of the influence which the
perusal of ancient geographers, and of navigators of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, had on the
marine expeditions of the Portuguese and upon their
distant discoveries.
The celebrated prince Don Pedro, duke of Coimbra, son of king John I., who had visited the East,
and received from the sultan of Babylon and from
Amurat II. marks of their esteem, who had profoundly studied the Greek and Latin classics, and
who maintained with Angelo Poliziano (Politian)
and other learned men, relations of an intimate nature, brought to Lisbon a copy of the voyages of
Marco Polo, which had been presented to him at
Venice. And, on the other hand, his illustrious
brother, the infant Don Henry, gave to voyages and
cosmographical studies the most astonishing impulse,
and that, too, long before the time of Vespucius.
The pilots, who doubtless studied at the school of
navigation at Sagres, attained a degree of knowledge
I Rapport au Nom d' 1' Institut, p. 190.
7




98          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
which even now  surprises us. And these facts
authorize us to allege that the recriminations of
Vespucius are void of justice, and the facts he
cites equally wanting in accuracy.
We will continue to fortify our own conclusions by
the opinions of a number of other writers whom we
have not yet quoted. The author of a work called,
Novas Orbis, seu India Occidentalis, (The New
World, or the Western India,) etc., which was published in 1621, declares Columbus to have been the
discoverer of the New Continent, without so much
as once alluding to Vespucius. He complains of the
wrong already committed against the former, and,
speaking of the newly-found land, says: "It was
first discovered by Christopher Columbus, a Genoese,
in the year, &c. &c...... as well as other islands
and countries of this New World, although some persons most unjustly and invidiously, but at the same
time vainly, deny Columbus this honor," &c. &c.
Father Seraphino de Freitas, a Portuguese writer
of the century just mentioned, in his book, De justo
Imperio Lusitanorumr  Asiatico (concerning the legit
imate Asiatic Empire of the Portuguese,) printed at
Valladolid in 1625, without mentioning Vespucius,
says of Columbus: Christopher Columbus discovered
the Indies.  And, moreover, if we examine the
opinions of many authors of the eighteenth century,
as yet unnoticed by us, we shall find them in like
manner hostile to the Florentine navigator. Stu



AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 99
venio, for example, in his De vero Novi Orbis Inventore Dissertatio Historico-critica, published at
Frankfort in 1714, is in no way favorable to the
pretensions of Vespucius.
Prevost did not insert in his collection the narratives of Vespucius, because he did not consider them
as sufficiently worthy of confidence.  And in the
Histoire Generale des Voyages,' we read as follows:
" The narrations given by Americus Vespucius contain an account of two voyages which he made on
the same coast (Brazil) in the name of Emmanuel,
King of Portugal; but the dates of them arefalse,
and therein consists the fraud. For it is proved by
all contemporary testimony that, at the time referred
to, he was employed in other expeditions."
The learned journalists of Tr4voux vigorously refuted, from the moment of its appearance, Bandini's
book, in which he attempts the defence of Vespucius.2 In our quotations from them we shall show
in what light this apology was regarded by the
critics, who thus express themselves: " Hojeda sailed
with Americus Vespucius in 1499, as was juridically
proved on oath by Hojeda himself and Andres de
Morales, one of his pilots, when Don Diego Columbus, son and successor of Christopher, commenced a
prosecution against Vespucius,3 who, for the sake of
Vol. xiv. book 6, chap. 9.
2 Memoires de Trevoux, Septembre 1746, article 93.
3 The editors (lid not well understand this affair about the suit insti



100            RESEARCHES RESPECTING
fixing his name on the New World, saw fit to proclaim that he had discovered the Continent in 1497,
antedating his first voyage by two years, or rather,
making two out of one, with attendant circumstances,
which Hojeda and Morales declared to be false.  A
final decree of the royal Council of the Indies followed, establishing the fraud of Vespucius, which
being the case, and the legitimate proofs of it being
yet preserved in the archives of the said Council,
what reliance can be placed on the accounts we have
received of the two first voyages of this navigator,
and how great suspicion should attach itself to his
other writings, according to the maxim of Phoedrus:
"Who by base fraud has once acquired a fame,
Not truth itself for him can credit gain."
" Antonio de Herrera, the great historian of the
Indies, who studiously analyzed the documents in the
Archives of the Council, informs us that Hojeda in
1502 made a second voyage to America, accompanied by Vespucius. Here, then, is an alibi distinctly pronounced against what is found in the last
portion of the Abbe Bandini's collection, where the
tuted by the Council against the heirs of Christopher Columbus. See
Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages, vol. iii. pp. 5, 539. This suit was
begun by the king's treasury against Don Diego Columbus, son of the
admiral. We have been acquainted with these documents only a
little while, and that through extracts of Munioz and Navarrete. Vol.
iii. pp. 559, 560, 595. So that there must have bee n an error on the
part of the compilers of the M6moires de Tf6voux. Nevertheless, we
have thought it advisable to transcribe this part of the article, as an
asdditional proof of what we have before said.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 101
author pretends that Vespucius left Lisbon 1 for Brazil in 1501, whence he did not return till the month
of September, 1504. Bandini says that the King
of Spain, delighted with the success of Vespucius,
caused him to equip three vessels for the purpose of
discovering the Trapobane in the Indian sea, but
that, the king of Portugal having induced him to
enter his service, he secretly betook himself to Lisbon,2 where the King Emmanuel provided him with
three vessels, and whence he sailed the 10th of May,
1501, steering for Africa, and that he made a second
voyage to the same course in 1503. But how does
this agree with the voyage to Brazil in 1501, which
lasted three years, and with the second voyage of
Hojeda's to the West Indies in 1501 and 1502?
Bandini himself seems not a little embarrassed in
arranging all these accounts, for, in his fourth chapter is found a digression, the object of which is to
ascertain to what personage were addressed the letters of Vespucius. But something surer than even
the thread of Ariadne was necessary to save him
from this labyrinth." 3
The same critics remark in another place that,
I The," Art de verifier les Dates," vol. xii. p. 115, fixes the departure of Vespucius and Hojeda the same year, 1501.
2 In this Bandini contradicts Vespucius's letters. See the affair of
the letters patent which he pretended he received from the king of
Portugal, etc. etc.
3 We have elsewhere examined this point. See the Bulletin de la
Socie't Ggographique, Septembre, 1836, pp. 138, 159, 160, 161.
t




102           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
" the list of writers, almost all Italians, and for the
most part Florentines, from whom proceed these
pompous eulogies of Vespucius, fills up the seventh
and last chapter of his life; but in it not a single
authority upon the historical point before us is to be
discovered, which can affect, however slightly, the
proofs that array themselves against the Florentine
navigator." 1
If the critique of the Journal de Trevoux is severe,
the expressions of Claret de Fleurieu, in his Observations sur la Division Hydrographique du Globe,2
are not less remarkable in our present discussion.
"' No part of the east coast of America," says he,
" bears the name of Columbus, who discovered it.
When one surveys the eastern shore of the New
World, bordered by the Atlantic and approaching
the equator, it is with a sort of indignation that he
can discover neither island, nor cape, nor a single
point of this immense territory which is called after
the hero navigator who discovered the continent, as
he had previously the islands. Columbus is unheard
1 This article of the Tl'Roires de Trevozux, although hardly cited by
Napione, has nevertheless received the praises of this distinguished
writer, who says, Esame Critico del primo Viaggio del Vespucci,
p. 18: -"Very differently from Father Richa judged his learned
brothers, the authors of the Journal de Trvoicx, who, as soon as the
life and letters of Vespucius appeared in print, strenuously opposed
the opinions of Bandini, and sustained the cause and incontestable
rights of Columbus."
2 In the fourth volume of the Voyages d' Etienne 2M~archand, Paris,
1799, p. 25.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 103
of and unseen, while an adventurer, Americus Vespucius, embarked in what capacity nobody can tell,
under the orders of Alonzo de Hojeda, and visiting
a part of the Continent subsequently to its discovery,
succeeded in attaching to it forever his own name!
He audaciously announced himself to all Europe as
the first discoverer of the Continent of the New
World, and deluded Europe, without examining, gave
credit to his assertion! Men soon accustomed themselves to call the fourth part of the earth — a part
far surpassing every other in extent -by the name
of an impostor, who said he had discoveredit and was
believed; and this name usurped the place which
the genius, courage, and perseverance of Columbus
had legitimately acquired for his own! But unhappily time has sanctioned this usurpation, and the injustice done can no longer be remedied. Yet the
revival of its memory is to render to the immortal
hero who suffered the wrong a reparation, which
springs from posterity in revenge of t4e ingratitude
he endured from his contemporaries." 1
We will now turn to the opinion of a very learned
man, who, by order of the Spanish government, devoted a portion of his life to the study of documents
which related to the history of the discovery of the
New  Continent; we mean the historian Mufloz.!'The author of this angry passage was not ignorant of the publication of the Abb6 Bandini in favor of Vespucius, for he cites it in a note.
2 Historia del'Nuevo Mundo, by J. Bant. Mulioz, Madrid.




104         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
He says, "that there are no other published accounts of those navigators who continued the discoveries of Columbus up to 1500, except the narratives of the famous Vespucius, from whom the New
Continent took its name; and that these narratives,
often printed, and finally brought together into one
collection by Bandini in 1745, have only served to
complete the proofs of the impostures of their author,
as in another place I will show." I
" Nevertheless," the same author remarks, " I
ought not to pass by in silence this instance of successful cheating.  Vespucius, regarded as a mariner, was vastly inferior to almost all the navigators
of his time; and yet he was better rewarded than
any of them; his memory, even to our day, having
been cherished with all but the same homage as that
which Columbus's has received. Even after a thousand learned writers have stripped this Florentine
impostor of his mask, he still finds apologists; and
who can tell if human frailty may not yet bring forth
imitators of Bandini and Felice, who in their desire
to sustain the mendacious glory of their hero by the
aid of fiction, promising all the while authentic documents, have come to us citing the authority of
JMoreri? "
Camus, whose peculiar study was collections of
voyages, although he had it not in his power to exI Mu~oz having published only his first volume, was unable to fulfil
his promise.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 105
amine that of Vicenza, thus expresses himself when
speaking of the relations of Vespucius: s" I declare
that there is here a great deal of uncertainty, and
but a slight stamp of authenticity; " and further
on,1 he adds, "Americus Vespucius has in this
respect usurped a glory which did not belong to
him."
Peuchet, in the introduction to his Dictionnaire
de la Geographie Commerfante, observes that in
forming an estimate of Vespucius's pretensions, he
will say, with Voltaire, that the glory of having discovered the New World incontestably belongs to
him who had the genius and courage to undertake
the first voyage. The honor, as Newton in his dispute with Leibnitz remarks, is due to the discoverer
alone. Those who follow are only disciples. Columbus had already made three voyages with the rank
of admiral, five years before Americus Vespucius,
under the command of Hojeda, made a single one
in the capacity of geographer.2
Pormaleone, in his Saggio sulla Nautica antica
de' Tleneziani, exclaims, " This insolent Florentine,
Americus Vespucius, robbed Columbus of the glory
of giving his name to the New World."
Cladera, in his Investigaciones Historicas sobre
I Memoires sur la Collection des grands and petits Voyages, etc. p.
164.
2 Contemporary documents do not show in what capacity he accompanied Hojeda.




106         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
los Principales -Descobrimientos, is of the same
opinion with the historian Herrera, and in direct
opposition to the pretensions of the panegyrists of
Vespucius.
And, finally, M. de Humboldt, in his Examen de
l'Histoire de la G#ographie du Nouveau Continent,
whenever he alludes to the expeditions attributed to
Vespucius, declares again and again how problematical he considers them. " If it be true," are the
words of this illustrious savant,1 "that Vespucius
saw, in that which he calls his third voyage, (between
May, 1501, and September, 1502,) what he says
he did, the constellation of the Great Bear at the
horizon, he must have got to about the twenty-sixth
degree of south latitude upon the eastern coast of
America, and not to the thirty-second as he himself
affirms."
This being the manner in which the learned author treats of the fabulous third voyage of Vespucius, respecting the second we find what follows: 2
" Vespucius, in his pretended second expedition of
1499, calls by the name of Antillia the island which
Columbus had discovered a few years before, that
is, Hayti." Somewhat further, he continues,3 " I
have not found in the letters of Vespucius the conjunction of the moon and Mars, which ought to have
been observed by that navigator in 1499." And
1 Vol. i. p. 57.     2 Vol. i. p. 251.
3 Ibid. p. 275.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 107
again,1 speaking of clandestine voyages,2 he says, " It
is to this sort of expeditions, perhaps, that those also
belong which Vespucius must have made for the king,
between 1501 and 1504, upon' the coast of Brazil,
although the pilot Vasco Garcia,8 who designed the
maps of western America, having received from Vespucius the true latitude of Cape Saint Augustine,
remarks, that if the Florentine voyager went there
clandestinely and maliciously in the service of the
Portuguese, he never would have ventured to boast
of it in Spain." 4
What the pilot Garcia suggests is truly sagacious;
for, in fact, Vespucius would not have dared to make
such a boast in Spain, where the laws of July 28th,
1500, and of June 8th, 1501, inflicted very serious
penalties on those who undertook similar enterprises.
If, then, his voyages, undertaken for a foreign sovereign, ever really took place, how did it happen that
he returned to Spain subsequently to the ordinances
of which we just spoke?  And how could he have
received the royal instructions of the 15th of September, 1506, which are copied by Mufioz? This is a
still stronger proof of the falseness of the relations
relative to the fictitious voyages of 1501 and 1503.
Expressions like the following are found in M. de
Humboldt's work: -" Whatever doubts may be
1 Ibid, pp. 355, 356.  2 See Navarrete, vol. iii.
3 It must be remembered that this pilot was a Spaniard.
4 See Navarrete, vol. iii. pp. 24, 32.




108        RESEARCHES RESPECTING
entertained respecting Vespucius and his very problematical series of expeditions," &c. &c.
" The contestable dates of Americus Vespucius's
first letters " &c. &c.l And in another place 2 he
observes, " The only occasion on which the name of
Columbus is found in the letters of Vespucius, is
when it is mentioned in connection with Antillia."
The author then, after citing the Latin text of the
Cosmografice Introductio, adds, " These words are
taken from the narrative of Vespucius's pretended
second voyage, which he says he finished on the
eighth of September, 1500.  The connection of
events proves that the name of Antillia was given
by Vespucius to the island of Hispaniola, and that
the account written is that of the voyage he made
with Hojeda; for in the first feigned voyage, the
commencement of which Vespucius says was the
twentieth of May, 1497, Hispaniola is simply called
Ity, a corruption without doubt of Aiti."
" Bartholomew di Las Casas," it is subsequently
remarked by M. de Humboldt, " informs us that it
was the Portuguese who applied by preference the
name of Antillia to Hispaniola; and then, if Vespucius did not, as he himself asserts, embark in
company with any Portuguese till 1501 and 1503,
how came he to designate as Portuguese the pilots
and mariners of his expedition in the narrative of
1 Vol. ii. p. 3.   2 Ibid. p. 176.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 109
his pretended voyage in 1497, that is, four years
before his arrival in Portugal? "
From all that we have brought to light and exposed, it appears to us the following facts may be
deduced, supported, as they are, by a vast number
of contemporary and other authorities, which have
been examined and discussed according to the rules
of true criticism: -
1. The discovery of the New Continent is due,
without a doubt, to Columbus; or, if he was not the
first to discover this part of the world, he was, at
least, the man who re-discovered it, and in a positive
and definite shape communicated the knowledge of
it. For, if he verified what the Egyptian priest
indicated to Solon the Athenian, as is related by
Plato in the Timaeus, respecting the island of Atlantis; if he realized the hypothesis of 2Etian; if
he accomplished the prophecy of Seneca in the Medea; if he demonstrated that the story of the mysterious Carthagenian vessel, related by Aristotle
and Theophrastus, was not a dream; if he established by deeds, that there was nothing visionary
in what St. Gregory pointed at in one of his letters
to St. Clement; if, in a word, Columbus proved by
his discovery, the existence of the land which Madoc had visited before him, as Hakluyt and Powell
pretended, and ascertained to a certainty that which
for the ancients had always been so uncertain, problematical, and mysterious, - his glory becomes only




110             RESEARCHES RESPECTING
the more splendid, and more an object to command
admiration.
2. Priority in discovery of the eastern part of
the New Southern Continient belongs to those Portuguese navigators who, by a series of expeditions,
were the first to explore those immense regions.1
3. Americus Vespucius never commanded a single expedition; for, even in the second voyage
of Hojeda, that of 1499  and  1500, he was only a
subaltern. And that expedition, the only one which
he seems to have had any share in, confined itself to
an examination of the coast of Venezuela, and was
I The author of the Corografia Brazilica, (vol. i. p. 34,) says, that
the Spanish writers pretend that their countryman, Vicente Yaniez
Pinzon, had recognized Cape St. Augustine, and given the name of
Cape Consolation to it, three months before Cabral discovered Porto
Seguro. And to prove that Cape St. Augustine and Cape Consolation are the same, they assert that Pinzon had viewed the land at a
great distance, that the water of the sea was very muddy, whitish, and
as sweet as river water, and that soundings were found at sixteen
fathoms. But all these signs and all these particulars prove quite the
contrary, and go to show that Cape Consolation was the North Cape,
which is in the second degree of south latitude. The land of Cape
St. Augustine, and the neighborhood of it, are flat, and can be seen
only a short distance at sea; the waters in that locality are remarkably clear and transparent; and the lead marks sixteen fathoms only
near shore. Nor can sweet water be found on this coast except in
those rivers where the sea does not ascend. The same a uthor acknowledges that Pinzon, having run forty leagues along this coast, ascertained that the sweet water issued from the river Maranpas, that is,
the Amazon; whose mouth is more than four hundred leagues from
St. Augustine. See also the remarks of Robertson, book ii., and better still, the deposition of Cabot, in 1518, before the council of pilots.
See likewise the observations by the author, M. de Santarem, upon the
celebrated map of Juan de la Cosa, drawn in 1500.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 111
under the direction of the celebrated Biscayan pilot,
Juan de la Cosa.
4. The voyages attributed to Vespucius being
problematical, and destitute of those proofs which
insure authenticity,' he has no claim to be classed
among the first discoverers of the New Continent;
for if among these are to take their places those who
visited that region subsequently to Columbus and
Cabral, then even Pinzon, (in 1499 and 1500,)
Lope, (in 150.0,) and De las Bastidas, (in 1501,)
might dispute this honor with the Florentine, and
with so much the more reason as they themselves
were in chief command of the expeditions to which
their names are attached.
A series of contemporary documents, taken from
the royal archives of Simancas and Seville, and only
very lately published, (1829,) establishes in the
clearest possible manner, that Vespucius had been
employed in catering for vessels, as had also Berardi;
that, on the death of Berardi, in 1495, he succeeded
him as purveyor; and that in this way he was occupied, without interruption, till 1499, when he embarked with Hojeda.2 It further shows that he
caused himself to be naturalized in Spain, in 1505; 3
and that he still continued commissioned to purchase
the necessaries for vessels leaving Seville for the
1 See the notes inserted by the author in the Bulletin of September,
1841.
2 See the documents collected by Mu~noz and Navarrete, vol. iii.
Col. Diplom.
3 Letters patent of April 24th. (Archives of Simancas.)




112        RESEARCHES RESPECTING
New World and the East Indies, in 1506 and 1507,
which was the very moment when the famous Cosmographice Introductio and the pretended discoveries
of the Florentine geographer were published in Lorraine under the pseudonym, Ilacomilus. The same
series of documents informs us that Vespucius had
been appointed boatswain's mate to a vessel called
the Medina, for a voyage which never took place,
and that too, several years after the discovery of the
New World by Columbus, and a long while subsequently to this great man's receiving the rank of
Admiral. Now, these documents, entirely unknown
to Bandini and Father Canovai, the two apologists
of the Florentine, confirm in the most positive manner the results which we have laid before our readers; and in them is not found the slightest mention
of any discoveries whatever made by that navigator;
and surely in his letters of naturalization, and in his
patent of pilot-major, dated March 22d, 1508, if any
discoveries had really been made by him, some allusion must have necessarily been made to them; but,
on the contrary, in these papers nothing is met with
except the formal terms peculiar to the chancellery.
The conclusion from all which is, that previously to
1499 Vespucius had made not a single voyage of
discovery, and that subsequently to that period his
services were held in so slight consideration as to
entitle him only to the simple rank of pilot-major,
sixteen years after the discovery of the New Continent by Admiral Columbus.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES 113
We learn further from these documents, that in
1515 the observations of Vespucius were regarded
as so little worthy of credit in Spain that, in a council of pilots which took place in that year for the'
purpose of determining the latitude of St. Augustine, Sebastian Cabot employed these words: -" If
any faith can be placed in the voyage which Ameri.
cus says he made, &c. ic."  And John Vespucius
himself, nephew of Americus, and member of the
council, while doing his utmost to give effect to the
authority of his uncle upon the true latitude of the
Cape, evidently indicates by his expressions, that
he had not too much confidence in his relative's
stories; for the termination of what he had to say
was as follows: -" If His Highness was desirous
of verifying what Americus had said respecting the
latitude of the Cape, he could determine its accuracy
by sending a caravel there."   The other pilots
were ignorant of the subject: and Vasco Garcia,
who was best disposed to Americus on this point,
proved, by what he said, still more strongly, in our
opinion, what faint confidence the narratives of Vespucius, relative to these voyages, merited.
We will finish this chapter by declaring, in the
most positive manner and with the greatest sincerity,
that in the present discussion it has not been our
object to obscure or diminish in the least degree
the immense renown which belongs to the country
of Vespucius; but that, on the contrary, being en8




114         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
thus-astic in our admiration of that cradle of the arts
and sciences, and birthplace of so many celebrated
men, we should have easily hastened to proclaim
Vespucius as one of that number, if such an honor
had been legitimately due to his deserts. But the
land of Dante and of the Medici stands in no need
of a fame that has been usurped, nor of a grandeur
which three centuries have disputed. We are certain, then, that no imputation will be cast upon us;
for, if with a thousand other writers, some of them
Italians, we have set ourselves in opposition to one
native of Italy, we have at the same time defended
the cause of another individual born in that country.
If there be any of our readers who yet entertain
doubts on a point in the history of discovery so full
of confusion and difficulty ass that under consideration, we beg them to accompany us, while we demonstrate more fully than we have yet done, the
errors and contradictions of Father Canovai, author
of the eulogy on Vespucius; as we have already
exposed those of Bandini, his other eulogist, therein
being supported by the learned authors of the lkiemoires de Trevoux, by the historian Robertson, the
Chevalier Napione, and others.
No one, let it be remarked, in conclusion, has a
right to alter and amend, as has been attempted, a
certain portion of Vespucius's letters, wherein facts
and dates are erroneously stated, for the sake of




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 115
making them coincide with the existence of individuals to whom they were addressed; nor can there
be, consistently with justice, a substitution of other
facts, dates, and names, in the extraordinary expectation of procuring for these documents an authenticity and a stamp of veracity, which originally they
never had. Such is the theme which we propose
more fully to develop, as we proceed in this examination.




CHAPTER V.
WE have demonstrated, in the preceding chapters, 1. That not the slightest trace of Vespucius,
nor a single document concerning him, or his problematical voyages of 1501 and 1503, is to be found
in the royal archives of Portugal, notwithstanding
all he says of himself, and of the invitation which
the king Emmanuel gave him, on sending his letters
patent; and, moreover, if he had spoken the truth,
that such traces and documents should have existed
in that national depository, at least while the historian Goes was living, in like manner as several
documents concerning him are still extant in the
archives of Timancas and Seville. 2. That all the
Portuguese historians and geographers of the sixteenth century have preserved a profound silence
respecting Vespucius, and his fabulous voyages of
1501 and 1503.  3. That Italian, and even Tuscan
writers, scrupulously honest, and contemporaries, too,
of the event, have universally declared that Columbus was the first who discovered the New Continent.
And 4. We have shown by a great many documents
and by -critical analyses, the inconsistencies of Vespucius's narratives, and of the letters attributed to
him. We have cited more than one hundred and




RESEARCHES, ETC.            117
fifty authorities, authors who wrote on voyages and
discoveries; some of whom  were contemporaries,
and others adepts in the science of geographical
history.  With Navarrete we have exposed the
absurdity of Vespucius's observations, the result of
which would have been to put his vessels one hundred and sixty-five leagues in the interior of the Continent! and have exhibited the inconsistency of his
taking possession of newly-found lands in the name
of the king of Spain, when, according to his own
account, the expedition was ordered by the king of
Portugal. We have made manifest the incoherence
of his story, by which it would appear that the number of his vessels dwindled down to a solitary bark,
with a crew of only four or five sailors; and that,
after having accomplished in it a voyage of three
hundred leagues to Bahia, and a subsequent one of
two hundred and sixty, he finished by leaving his
vessel in port and returning to Lisbon! We have
made evident the impossibility of his having written
and addressed letters to a'king who had been dead
twenty-four years; and of his having been educated,
as he pretends in his dedication to Rene of Lorraine, with a prince who was forty-two years old at
the time of his birth! We have proved that his
letters could not have been addressed to Rene II.;
and have stated how difficult it is to believe that
they were written either to Lorenzo Piero de' Medici, called the Magnificent, who was no longer alive




118         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
at the time of Vespucius's voyages, or to Lorenzo
II., who had not, when the first of these took place,
yet attained his eighth year! We have established, by the rules of true criticism, that a single
essential defect, which, morally speaking, could not
have slipped into an authentic document, evinces
the falseness of the writing where it is found; and
that, consequently, the important errors both in history and chronology, which we have pointed out
in the present case, conduce to a like conclusion.
Equally true, too, is it, as we have shown, that an
individual fact, which cannot be made to correspond
with such and such personages and circumstances to
which a document relates, is sufficient to condemn
the said document as a forgery. We have explained, by an examination of the oldest and most
rare collections of voyages, what weight was given
to the report of Vespucius's pretended discoveries,
by means of fraudulent title-pages; and, with contemporary works in hand, unedited manuscripts and
documents very lately drawn from public archives,
we have made known how many false judgments
have been pronounced on Vespucius and his fabulous voyages. And now, after having done thus
much, we will confine ourselves to certain observations, whose end will be to dissipate, if possible, the
doubts of those who still permit themselves to be
deluded by the mendacious pretensions of Vespucius's friends, by the panegyrists of his discoveries,




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 119
and by the perusal of works which are the fruit of
error and adulation.
Among more than two hundred productions which
have passed under our examination, there are but
two, — the two eulogies published by Bandini, and
especially by Father Canovai, - that are wholly favorable to the pretensions of Vespucius. Bandini's
work, as we have already said, so far from satisfying
those who doubted the truth of Vespucius's narratives, or rather the narratives attributed to him,
was, at the instant of its publication, refuted by the
erudite compilers of the Milmoires de Tre.voux, by
Robertson and Napione, and has been constantly
rejected by sound criticism. As to that of Canovai,
although less violently attacked than Bandini's, it
has never been regarded as an authority by conscientious geographers and writers who have consulted
it, and its only merit consists in the greater quantity
of materials it furnishes for refutation.  Indeed, we
cannot comprehend how any reliance can be placed
on either of these works, after so many men,
eminent for their historical investigations of voyages
and discoveries, have exposed the errors and absurdities they contain, and after the exposure of
these errors and absurdities (comprising points of
fundamental importance) has been fully confirmed
by documents recently brought to light.
It has been objected, in favor of Americus Vespucius, that Columbus kept silence respecting his




120         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
own discoveries, and that even some mystery was
made of them in Spain; while Vespucius, by publishing an account of his expeditions and discoveries,
acquired at once a great celebrity. But, in answer
to this, besides what has already been said, we will
remark, that the voyages and discoveries of Columbus never bore a clandestine character, and that
they were, immediately on their completion, known
to all Europe, and, above all, to the Romans and
Venetians.  His letters, too, were published, previously to those imputed to Vespucius; for, in 1493,
Leandro Cosco translated and published in Spanish
one of them, which passed through three editions in
the same year, - an unexampled instance, perhaps,
at that epoch, as M. Ternaux well observes,l and
one which testifies the general interest excited from
the commencement of discovery by Columbus.
In the following year, Carlo Verardo, in a work
entitled the (conquest of GOrenada, (De Expugnatione Granatse,) treated of the islands lately discovered in the Indian Ocean by Columbus. And in
1501, Angelo Trivigiaro, secretary to Domenico
Pizani, the ambassador of the Venetian Republic in
Spain, wrote to Domenico Malapiero, another nobleman of Venice, relative to Columbus's discoveries.
It was also in 1504 that Alberto Vercellese, of Lisona, at the dictation of Trivigiaro, printed a small
1 Bibliotheque Americaine.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  121
work, now become very rare, having for its title:
Libretto di tutte le Ncavigatione dei Be' de Spagna,
colle Isole e Terre nuovamente trovati.1
If these facts are not sufficient to prove, beyond
dispute, how universally published were the discoveries of Columbus, the moment he returned to
Europe; and that no mystery whatever, either on
his part or on that of the Spanish court, attached
itself to the voyages made by him, from the time
that the New Continent was discovered, the bull of
Alexander VI. [addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella,] ought certainly to suffice, for in it are found
the following expressions: -'" Dilectum filium Christophorum Columbum, virum utique dignum et plurimum commendandum, ac tanto negotio aptum, cum
navigiis et hominibus ad similia instructis, non sine
maximis laboribus et periculis ac expensis destinastis, ut terras firmas et insulas remotas, et incognitas,
hujusmodi, per mare ubi hactenus navigatum non
fuerat, diligenter inquireret.2 Qui tandem, divino
auxilio, facta extrema diligentia, in mari Oceano
navigantes, certas insulas remotissimas et etiam terras firmas, quce per alios hactenus repertte non fuerant invenerunt," etc.3
I See Bossy.
2 Cladera, Investigaciones Hist6ricas, p. 7.
3 Cladera has cited only the first part, of this important passage, and
has not quoted correctly. We have copied from the document as
given, entire, by Cancellieri, Dissertazioni sopra Cristoforo Colombo,
p. 184. [It is proper to observe, that the text given above is that




122           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Again, it was the custom of Columbus to address
to different personages among his protectors letters
whose contents were the same, almost to the very
forms of expression,l - a peculiarity which ought to
exclude all idea of any mysteriousness on his part
as to the subject of discoveries. There can be no
doubt, then, that the discoveries made by him were,
from the moment of their completion, known to the
European world, and that, consequently, he was the
first to present himself in the character of discoverer
of the New Continent. His silence, therefore, cannot be pleaded in justification of Vespucius, under
the pretext that the latter presented his claims first,
and that his letters were in universal circulation,
while the discoveries of Columbus were wrapped up
in a veil of mystery.
During the life of the great Genoese no one
dared to impose upon the New Continent the name
of America, notwithstanding the letters of Vespucius, written before the death of Columbus (1506);
and, according to the supposition of M. de Humboldt, it was not till the following year that the
thing was attempted, by the pseudonymous Ilacomilus. This particular claims the serious attention of
which appears in the Magnum Bullarium Romanum, (Lugduni,
1655,) tom. i. p. 466. Compare Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages,
tom. ii. p. 30, and Cancellieri, as already cited. M1. de Santarem
has copied Cancellieri very inaccurately.]
1 Humboldt, Examen Critique, p. 338, note 2, large edition.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 123
critics, because it is impossible to believe that such
an injustice, as confounding the two navigators
together, was committed by Ilacomilus through ignorance. That this anonymous writer, who was a
savant of Friburg, in correspondence with Ringmann of Basle, and whom M. de Humboldt believes
to have been the geographer Waldseemuller, (author
of a German marine chart,) that one who travelled
in Lorraine, occupying himself with geographical
studies, and was in the neighborhood of Genoa,
where the voyages and discoveries of Columbus had
been for a long time known, as they were also in
Italy and elsewhere, that such a one could have
been ignorant of the reality of the discovery of the
New Continent by Columbus, seems to us an absurdity to suppose, especially when we consider that the
event had happened fourteen years before. Equally
absurd is it to imagine that Ilacomilus knew nothing
of Columbus's letters, of which there had been
already three editions published, or that he had
never heard of the work of Verardi, printed at
Basle in 1494 by Bergmann de Olpe, particularly
as he was in correspondence with the learned men
of that place, and busied himself about geography
and recent discoveries, as is shown by the influential
part he took in the publication of the Cosmographice
Introductio.  And if we must admit that he had any
connections with Vespucius, who was in Spain, for a
still stronger reason we must affirm that he could not




124        RESEARCHES RESPECTING
but have been acquainted with the discoveries of
Columbus, and many others that were made in 1507,
the year in which the Introductio was published.
And as to Vespucius himself, if he had been as sincerely honest as it is pretended he was, why, when
he was in relation with Ilacomilus by way of Lorraine,
did he not object to the geographer's calling the New
Continent by his name, to the prejudice of the fame
of Columbus, his benefactor?
It cannot be alleged that Vespucius was ignorant
of what was passing in Lorraine in respect to himself
and his arrogation of another's glory, or that he was
unaware of what his friend was doing for him; for
this would be not only illogical, but the denial of the
existence of the Cosmographice Introductio, and also
of the relations subsisting between him and Ilacomilus. But if these relations did exist, then this pseudonymous writer could not have confounded him
with Columbus, except at the Florentine's own suggestion. If, however, it was done under the orders
of a superior, and without the cognizance of Vespucius; if, under these circumstances, it was proposed
to impose the name of the latter upon the New Continent, then it behooved him, the intended instrument
of such a wrong, to act the part of an honorable man,
by elucidating the facts of the case, and rejecting
such a design or even the entertainment of it. So
that, considering the intimacy of the two parties,
there is no doubt that the geographer was guided by
the navigator in what he did.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 125
Taking all these things into consideration, we are
led to the conclusion that the name given to the New
Continent, after the death of Columbus, was the
result of a preconceived plan against his memory,
either designedly and with malice aforethought, or
by the secret influence of an extensive patronage- of
foreign merchants residing at Seville and elsewhere,
dependent on Vespucius, and transacting business
with him in his capacity of naval contractor, an office
which he enjoyed a great many years, and which
must have procured him hosts of correspondents,
apologists, and flatterers.
It must here be remarked, that towards the end
of the fifteenth century, as Bossi says, the discoveries made by the Portuguese had exalted the imaginations of all men, so that savans, statesmen, merchants, as well as common sailors, all talked of discoveries, and all aspired to add to the number of
them; likewise that there was no lack of charlatans
in the cause of navigation, nor of impostors, who
spread abroad their fabulous accounts to gain credit
with the merchants by flattering their avarice, and
piqued the curiosity of the common people, always
so greedy of novelty. They even wormed their way
into courts, where they met with favor and protection. There could have been then no mystery
observed in regard to discoveries, nor any great
difficulty in maintaining a correspondence between
Spain, Portugal, and the rest of Europe. And the
great number of letters, and the many editions of




126           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
them' published everywhere since 1493, prove at
once the utmost facility of communication and an
extensive publicity.'
The defenders of Vespucius say, in his justification, that he never asserted in his letters that he was
the discoverer of the New Continent; but this excuse, it appears to us, falls of itself, on attentively
reading his narratives. If he does not in so many
words declare that it was not Columbus, but himself,
who discovered it, he tries to make his readers think
so by relating, in his letter of 1501, how " he reposed himself at Seville from his two voyages, which,
by order of the Spanish sovereign, he made to the
West Indies;" by describing the inhabitants of these
countries as being of the same color as those whom
he " discovered by orders of the king of Castile; "
and by saying, " we left the port of Cadiz (which he
calls Calis) the 10th of May, 1497, and in this
voyage, that continued eighteen months, we discovered a great extent of main land and an infinite
number of islands!" -  a passage by which Canovai,
the great panegyrist of Vespucius, would fain prove
that the Florentine navigator, by his own avowal, had
really discovered the continent before Columbus.2
1 In the Diplomatic History of Martin Behain, of Nuremburg, by
Murr, it can be seen, at pages 123, 124, that these communications
were more easy and frequent than we are now apt to imagine them;
that there were monthly deliveries of letters from Germany in Portugal, Madeira, and the Azores, and even semi-monthly by way of Antwerp and Genoa; and that too in the year 1494.
2 See Canovai, p. 288.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 127
We must consider that the question was the discovery of the vast continent of a New World; and
a careful perusal of Vespucius's relations shows that
he did all in his power to prove that the greatest
part of this was owing to him. Thus we find that,
when speaking of his pretended voyages made by
order of the king of Portugal in 1501 and 1503,1 he
not only attributes to himself two preceding expeditions to the New World in the Spanish service, keeping a guarded silence as to Cabral's discovery of
Brazil, (though this happened before his letter was
written, and he could not therefore have been ignorant of it,) but, what is more, he exaggerates his
discoveries, and in their false proportions proclaims
them to the world.
Now, if to these false pretensions we oppose authentic documents found in the Spanish archives, and
lately published, which establish the fact of Vespucius's residence at Seville till the years 1499 and
1500, whence he embarked for the first time with
Hojeda, (a circumstance which he says nothing about,
because, if he had, the expedition having been commanded by a Spaniard, and directed by Juan de la
Cosa, the fame he wished to monopolize would have
suffered,) if to these pretensions and concealments of
the Florentine we oppose the said documents, bearing
in mind what has previously been remarked by us,
1 See the Bulletin of February, 1837.




128         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
it seems impossible that any one can seriously maintain that Vespucius was altogether a stranger to
Ilacomilus's project, or to the designs entertained in
certain countries, as to his fabulous discoveries, at the
expense of Columbus, Cabral, and others. Besides,
if we examine the character of Vespucius, as disclosed in his letters, there will be found, in addition
to what has been already cited, expressions and entire passages which exhibit in how exaggerated a
manner he set forth his pretended discoveries; never
failing, as occasion offered, to exalt himself at the
cost of other navigators. Then let that portion of
the dedication of the Cosmographice Introductio be
called to mind, where he seizes the opportunity of
boasting that he was brought up with a prince, since
become king, going the length of vaunting the ties
of friendship that united them. And observe, in one
of his letters, when discoursing of the feigned invitation from the king of Portugal to him, with what
solicitude he proclaims that he was at Seville, reposing himself after the fatigues he had undergone in
his two preceding voyages,' when a messenger from
the Portuguese sovereign reached him with letters
patent.2 For the purpose of giving the world a high
idea of his attainments and personal importance, he
wrote, on arriving at Lisbon, that the king had expei The documents recently published and already cited prove the
contrary.
2 See preceding pages on this point.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 129
rienced great delight at seeing him, that the Icing had
prayed him, &c. &c., and that the prayers of kings
are commands, &c. &c.
On the other hand, he treats African discoveries
with a certain sort of contempt, for the sake of glorifying his own upon the New Continent, as we will
show by a passage taken from the Italian text.
Speaking of the expedition previously sent to the
coast of Guinea by the Portuguese king, he says:
1" Such a voyage as this I do not call a voyage of
discovery," &c. &c. And in the letter to Lorenzo
de' Medici, in the tone of one vastly preeminent in
knowledge, he asserts, "If my memory serves me,
you have some acquaintance with cosmography."
(He makes him a simple dilettante.)
After all which has been proved by us, after the
exposure we have made of the suppressions Vespucius was guilty of, and especially after the publication of his own words, wherein to a certain point are
revealed his pretensions, it seems to us that we commit no injustice towards him in believing that he
himself exercised a considerable influence, particularly when Columbus was dead, upon all which happened relative to imposing his name on the New
World, in the hope of producing the conviction that
he was the true discoverer, at Ieast of the main land.
The recommendation of Vespucius by Columbus to
his son, in a letter written at Seville the 5th of February, 1505, of which some would avail themselves
9




130         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
to justify the Florentine, proves, on the contrary, as
it appears to us, how problematical were his pretended discoveries, and how inferior he was in 1505,
that is, subsequently to his four imaginary expeditions, to other maritime discoverers. For it seems
evident that, if he had actually performed the four
said voyages previously to 1505, such discoveries as
he boasted being the author of, must have saved him
from having recourse to the admiral's protection, and
to a recommendation from the admiral to his son, and
moreover must have been alluded to in Columbus's
letter. But, so far from this being the case, Columbus confines himself to saying that " he had always
been desirous of obliging him, because he had been
uifortunate, not having gained much by his labors; "
which labors were, without doubt, none other than
those proved by documents in the royal Spanish
archives to have been his occupation for many years,
that is, the business of a ship-caterer, or of a designer
of charts during his residence at Seville. By comparing Columbus's letter with the letters of Vespucius, the mass of inconsistencies contained in the latter is palpably evident; for in them he says that,
" while recovering at Seville from the fatigues of his
two voyages to the West Indies, he was obliged to
repair to Lisbon, at the solicitation of the Portuguese
sovereign, in spite of the opposition of all that knew
him, who entreated him not to quit Spain, where.everybody so highly honored him, and the king held




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 131
him in such high esteem."  Now, how is it possible
to reconcile, supposing it to be true, what he says
about the favor he enjoyed in 1504 at the Spanish
court, with the compassion he excited the following
year in the breast of Columbus, who pitied him because he was unfortunate?  How can the vast consideration, in which he then delighted, be accounted
for, when it is seen that, after having left Spain, as
he pretends, rich, and powerful on the score of discoveries he had made, he was compelled, one year
later, to apply to Columbus for -a recommendatory
epistle to his son, because of the unhappy condition
to which he was reduced? How can all this be made
to correspond with the slight regard that was had for
his narratives in 1515 at the council of pilots? and,
in a word, how can it be made to coincide with those
documents which have been lately brought to light?
It is, perhaps, on account of his expressions, his
concealments and his contradictions that Vespucius
is accused of having usurped the discovery of the
New Continent, by so many writers and geographers,
who have read his narratives without having the:same means of judging them which we possess; for,
in the writings, attributed to him, that have reached
us, if he does not distinctly claim to be the first discoverer, he at least intimates as much with the hope
of being believed. And, indeed, what interest could
such a host of authors, from the time of Herrera to
the present day, have had in decrying the memory




132         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
of Vespucius, if they had not found in the facts related by himself, and in his own narratives, motives
more or less substantial for censuring him? How
can any one array himself against these authors, as
Canovai has done, since it was their sagacity and
research led them to discover the inconsistencies and
absurdities of Vespucius's stories, and to perceive
how perfectly destitute they were of the impress of
truth? It cannot be said of them that they were
all writers belonging to one single country who conspired against him, for a single glance at the preceding pages will suffice to show that the accounts
given by this navigator, and the claims made in his
behalf by panegyrists, were attacked, directly or indirectly, by authors and geographers of all countries,
not excepting even the most learned and distinguished scholars in Italy.
It is argued, in Vespucius's justification, that
Father Canovai, his panegyrist, successfully encountered every difficulty which presented itself in regard
to the personages whom the Florentine addressed in
his letters; but a simple perusal of the father's
work is sufficient to show how completely he failed
in his attempt. For, as has already been remarked,
no one has a right to remake literary productions, as
was done in the case of Vespucius's letters, for the
sake of getting rid of erroneous dates and expressions,
and in order to bring them into correspondence
with the existences of persons to whom they were




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 133
addressed, by substituting different names and dates,
as did Bandini and Canovai, in the presumptuous
hope of giving to such documents an authenticity and
a seal of truth which originally they never had.
And this is what we propose to demonstrate more in
detail as we proceed, exposing, by an analysis of his
work, how many offences and mistakes Canovai has
committed, some of which we will immediately
indicate.




CHAPTER VI.
WISHING to explain how Vespucius could have
addressed one of his letters to the duke of Lorraine,
who took the title of king of Jerusalem, Canovai
hazards the conjecture that probably the compilers
of Vespucius's voyages, meeting frequently with the
two letters V and M, read Vostra Maestct instead of
Vostra Magnificenza, -a suitable title of courtesy
in respect to Soderini! But such a conjecture happens to be in direct opposition to the original text,
where, written out at large, is found Tua 2Miestas
and Illustrissime Rex.' By similar subtilities he
strives to justify and extenuate the errors and contradictions found in the letters of Vespucius, but
such means are wholly inadequate to establish the
credit either of these letters or of their author.
Mr. Washington Irving2 has with good reason refused to admit Canovai's extraordinary conjecture,
for he says, this author did not reflect what inconsistency there was in treating Soderini as a sovereign
prince, and adds that, " the person (Canovai) mak1 See Cosmographice lntroductio, 1507. We have examined this
work, both M. Henry Ternaux's copy and another in the Mazarine
Library.
2 History of the Life and Voyages of Columbus, vol. iv. pp. 174, 175.




RESEARCHES, ETC.             135
ing this remark, can hardly have read the prologue
to the Latin edition in which tlhe title of'your majesty' is frequently repeated," &c.
From this observation alone it is easy to see how
pertinacious was Father Canovai in the defence of
Vespucius. So prepossessed in his favor was he,
that, having seen a Latin version of his letters, he
asserts, without any other proof, that it was in this
language they were originally written; and upon a
supposition so erroneous he pronounces him to have
been a Latinist and an eloquent writer.  But, unfortunately for him, Vespucius himself gives him the
most decided contradiction, by exposing his ignorance
of the first rudiments of Latin, when he cites in his
narrative what Pliny wrote to Mcecenas.  For that
minister, the favorite of Augustus, died eight years
before the Christian era, and Pliny, the naturalist,
lived under Vespasian. Titus was born thirty-one
years after the death of Msecenas, and Pliny the
younger flourished subsequently to the empire of
Trajan. Canovai, to justify Vespucius, would fain
persuade us that he meant to say Catullus or Cornelius Nepos!  Never, in our opinion, did any one
ever more abuse the system of interpretation than he
has done, or with more effrontery outrage both letter
and spirit of the original text.
The learned Tiraboschi,1 speaking of the literary
1 Tiraboschi, vol. vi. pp. 1, 215.




136         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
attainments of Vespucius, in connection with what
Bandini has said, thus expresses himself: " A letter,
in proof of these attainments, presented by him
(Bandini,) and written by Vespucius to his father,
the 18th of October, 1476, when he was twenty-six
years old, does not convey the most favorable impression as to the progress made by him in the
higher branches of education, nor as to his elegance
of style, and still less his grammatical knowledge;
for he himself says, that he dares not write his letters in Latin, without having his preceptor at his
side."
As to the documents produced by Canovai, we will
at present confine ourselves to the remark, that he
has imitated Bandini in publishing a second time the
would-be new letters, found in a certain book of the
Ricardian Library at Florence. But, for the better
appreciating the merits of this discovery, it must be
observed, that he says these letters were discovered,
among others, in a small volume containing sixteen
in all, without any indication either of the year or
place in which they were printed.  Yet he must have
been aware of the existence of these documents
through Bandini's work, who had already published
one edition of it, the first that ever appeared, according to his statement, and who contented himself, at
the same time, with declaring that the original of it,
as it seemed to him, (per quanto a2pare,) 1 was
1 Vita di Amerigo, p. 12.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 137
preserved in the valuable library of the Marquis
Ricardi.
We would here call attention to the jumble that
has been made of these letters. Bandini presents
them as never having been edited, and Canovai,
without knowing any thing about it, would fain persuade us that this letter of Vespucius, newly found
and unedited, as he pretends, bore no sign of when
or where it was printed.  Thus we see an already
printed document brought forward by Bandini as one
new and unedited, and then the same thing repeated
by Canovai.
It is to be remarked of the latter that whenever
he would prove the accuracy of certain texts, and.
their superiority over others since published, he, on
the contrary, betrays his own ignorance of analysis,
and his incapacity to judge of ancient documents
and the characters peculiar to different epochs.
What was his course as to the letters found in the
Ricardian Library? He himself avows that reasons
(which he refrains from mentioning) decided him to
reconstruct these letters, rather than to reprint them.
He collated them with the edition of Valori,l with
Ramusio and Giuntini; but it is impossible to understand how he could speak of the edition of Baccio
Valori, when that author had been dead twenty-four
1 This is Baccio Valori, who was born in 1354, and died in 1427,
and not the author of the Life of Lorenzo de' Medici, already
spoken of.




138         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
years at the birth of Vespucius. So we see that one
of the Florentine's panegyrists tried to foist on the
world, as a novelty, a work already published, and
that the other, instead of reprinting the said work,
altered and remoulded it. What faith or authority,
then, we ask, can be accorded to such productions,
which are not even a faithful copy of what is said to
have come from the Ricardian Library at Florence,
and to have been found written in ancient characters?
Canovai has the simplicity to acknowledge that,
"for the greater convenience of his readers, he divided the letter to Soderini among the four voyages
of Vespucius, beginning with that of 1497,1 and so
going on in order." But, not content with these
changes, he proceeds to the length of substituting the
months of April and June for those of July and September, and then, lost in the maze of contradictions
which Vespucius's two letters contain, he emerges
from it only by venting his wrath on Herrera and
on all those who opposed his schemes and opinions.
Navarrete has noticed the alteration in names
spoken of, both in regard to persons and countries;
how the same events were applied to different voyages and epochs; what various readings, by no
means unimportant, were found even in the published letters and narratives; and how many were
the absurdities in chronology, history, navigation,
1 At this epoch it has been shown in the preceding pages that Vespucius was occupied in furnishing vessels with provisions.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND 1HIS VOYAGES. 139
astronomy, &c,; all of which facts induce the suspicion that these accounts are mere fabrications, in
parts if not in the whole. So that, observes the
erudite author, " there is no wonder that all who
attempted to make themselves the historians and
eulogists of Vespucius, have been misled and bewildered by deviating from the path of truth," &c.
This occupation of Canovai, the alteration and
mutilation of original documents, which is admissible
on no account whatever, was attacked at Florence
the moment that the results of it appeared, as is
revealed to us by two little pamphlets which were
published, one entitled, Annotazioni sincere dell'
Autore dell' Elogio premiato di Amerigo FTespucci,
per una seconda edizione; and the other, Lettera
allo Stampatore Sig. Pietro Allegrini a nome dell'
Autore deli' ]Elogio premniato di Amerigo  7espucci,
the 25th of February, 1789.1 It is in the latter of
these, especially, that Canovai exhibits an unbridled
rage against his adversaries, and particularly against
those persons who idled away their time inhaling the
fresh air upon the piazza of Santa Croce, while he
was engaged in devouring the Cosmography of Sebastian Munster!
These two pamphlets are not the only productions
which shed much light upon the discussions that
1 The refutation of this pamphlet of Canovai's by Bartolozzi, who
powerfully contested its truth, is very curious. See Apologia delle
Ricercho ~storico-critiche, Florence, 1789.




140        RESEARCHES RESPECTING
arose, even in Florence, out of Canovai's panegyric:
there are others we will cite, as they are but little
known, and we think this will be of the greater service, because of their making part of the materials
which relate to the work of Canovai.
Seven years after the appearance of this work, so
slight progress had it made in converting the incredulous, that, besides the two pamphlets just spoken
of, an anonymous writer, assuming the name of
Diophantus, the Greek mathematician of Alexandria,
but whom we believe to have been Canovai himself,
published another under the title of Difesa di
Amerigo Vespucio. It is in duodecimo, contains
fifteen pages, and bears the date of February 29th,
1796. It is in the form of a letter addressed to the
author of Reflections upon the Panegyric of Machiavel, a work dedicated to Mufioz, and printed the preceding year (1795) at Cesena, in which Vespucius
is regarded as an impostor, notwithstanding Canovai's famous eulogy upon him. As the defence of
Vespucius is not touched upon in the first six pages
of this production, it can be found, if anywhere, only
in the nine remaining ones. But though there is
really nothing worthy of an analysis in the whole, it,
nevertheless, furnishes an additional proof of the literary war which broke out at Florence, in the years
1788 and 1789, on the subject of the eulogy upon
Vespucius. Yet, beyond this, it is remarkable on
no account, except for the confusion which pervades




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 141
it throughout, and for a complete absence of all
proofs that might put an end to the uncertainty resting upon the truth of Vespucius's narratives.
A clever and vigorous refutation of Canovai ap
peared at Florence in 1789, under the title of
Ricerche Istorico-critiche, &c., in which the author,
Bartolozzi, at page 7, says that Canovai added to
his eulogy on Americus Vespucius a justificatory
dissertation, wherein, for the purpose of defending
that celebrated navigator, he greatly disguised the
truth of history. Also that there was published
against this production, with the title of Annotazioni
Sincere, a pamphlet, to which a reply still more indecent was made, having for its title Lettera allo
Stampatore.  " I would gladly pass in silence,"
he continues, " these two contemptible pamphlets,
which are a disgrace to literature, and the second of
which finds no excuse in either the education or literary merit of its author, who did not blush to put his
name to it." In a word, Bartolozzi devotes his
fourteenth chapter to a refutation, of Canovai's work,
which we shall revert to again hereafter. At
present, we would in passing mention another circumstance, not less singular, touching what passed
at Florence respecting the prize, which the few partisans of Canovai, quitting the subject of Vespucius,
have made use of as an argument in favor of the
Florentine, without assigning any other reason but
that it was awarded to the said Eulogy of Canovai's.




142         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Those persons who believe that the prize founded
by the Count of Durfort was instituted in favor of
the best panegyric upon Vespucius, are completely
mistaken; for the letters addressed by that diplomatist to the Academy of Cortona, dated the 24th
and 28th of September, 1787, show that he attached
no importance whatever to such a subject. It was,
on the contrary, considerations of a later date, and
quite foreign to the original intentions of the founder,
which decided the Academy to add the eulogy upon
Vespucius to what had already been proposed as a
theme by M. Durfort. And in its programme the
Academy itself, in honor of Columbus, speaking of
Vespucius, says, — " whom after the glorious deeds
of the celebrated Columbus," etc.' So that this
learned Academy paid the highest compliment possible to Columbus, while Canovai was exerting himself in every way to persuade the world that Vespucius was the discoverer of the New Continent.
Oanovai's design is betrayed from the very commencement of his work upon the life of the Florentine navigator; he indicates passages in certain
authors who pretend that America was known before
the time of Columbus; he does not forget even
Cabot, saying. that he above all others could most
impair the glory of Columbus, not reflecting that by
so doing he equally tarnished the false fame of Ves1 Monumenti relativi al giudizio pronunziato dall' Accademia Etrusca
di Cortona di un Elogio di Amerigo Vespuccio. Arezzo, 1787.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 143
pucius, whom he wished to exalt at the expense of
that great man. In spite, however, of these citations, his show of profound erudition is by no means
great; for he forgot to quote Erasmus Schmid,' who
pretended that Homer had known America; also
Adam of Bremen and Cassel, in his historical observations, De Navigatione fortuita in Americam
saeculo XI. facta; 2 likewise, Gottlob Fritsch, in; a
work called, Disputatio Ifistorico-geographica in qua
quaeritur utrum  veteres Americam noverint nec-ne;
and, in a word, he has forgotten the productions of
Daniel Victor,a3 of Torfeus,4 of De Guines,5 and of
Scherer.6 But, let this be as it may, if Columbus
thought, in common with Aristotle, Marinus of Tyre
and other old authors, that the nearest points of
India were not very distant from Spain, we again
say that this fortunate error respecting the dimensions of the globe, which was the moving cause of
Columbus's enterprise, proves that he was wiser than
the enemies of his fame believed him to be.7
Canovai, who in spite of himself passes an enco1 Fabricius, Bibliotheca Graeca, vol. i. p. 345.
2 Magdeburg, 1741.
3 Jena, 1670. 8vo.
4 Hathie (Copenhagen,) 1705. 8vo. 1715.
5 Remarques Gtopraphiques et Critiques, etc. This author pretends
that the Chinese had established a flourishing commerce in South
America, in the 458th year of our Lord.
6 Recherches Historiques et Geographiques sur le Nouveau Monde.
Paris, 1777.
7 See Malte-Brun.




144         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
mium on Columbus in another place,1 manifests the
greatest reserve as to all which concerns the discovery of the main land, in order to bestow the glory of
that on Vespucius. Indeed, at page 182, throwing
off all disguise, he says: " Here, it is true, the daring Columbus ought to have arrived the first, if he
intended to take from everybody else the hope of excelling hint.  But every such attempt is vain, and
whoever regarded the discovery of the Continent as
only a poor appendix to that of the islands, was
guilty of making war upon truth itself, without
offending by such means the invulnerable glory of
Americus." And elsewhere the author exhibits yet
more plainly his hostile sentiments towards Columbus, when speaking of Vespucius: "Just as if,"
he remarks, " the humiliating repulses Columbus
encountered, his jealousy, mishaps, and mercantile
greediness had been concealed from the intelligent
navigator." 2
This panegyrist of Vespucius expresses his surprise at finding the enemies and adversaries of the
Florentine to be men of celebrity and importance;
and he appears to be especially astonished to see
ranking among them the learned Tiraboschi, in
whose work he says is found every thing ever written
against Vespucius,3 an assertion which speaks very
little for the erudition of Canovai. Nevertheless, he
1 Canovai, p. 170, posthumous edition of 1817.
2 Ibid. p. 264.         3 Canovai, pp. 170, 212.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 145
has seen fit to reply to Tiraboschi, notwithstanding
the extreme moderation of that author, who, so far
from attacking Americus, as it is pretended, rather
sought for motives in his justification, scarcely accusing him of want of sincerity in his narratives, wherein
the names of Hojeda and Juan de la Cosa are suppressed, and none of the ports of landing are designated.
The manner in which Canovai attempts to vindicate Vespucius from Tiraboschi's accusation, is exceedingly convenient, but, at the same time, very
unsafe.  He asserts that the Florentine navigator
never accompanied Hojeda! and gives as a proof of
his assertion an inference drawn from the difference
of character, interest, and morality in these two men,
- a difference which must have rendered impossible
a union between a savant (Vespucius) and an ignorant soldier (Hojeda.) In a word, he advisedly
calls Tiraboschi an eternal copyist of every lie!
But, unhappily for him, authentic documents prove
quite the contrary of what he advances. They establish, beyond a doubt, that it was with Hojeda and
Juan de la Cosa that Vespucius made the only
voyage which is rot problematical, the only one
which is not a matter of doubtful discussion.' And
in demonstrating the falseness of Canovai's hypothc.
sis, they overthrow all the arguments by which this
1 See the documents of Seville and of Simancas in Navarrete, vol.
iii., and preceding pages of this work.
10




146         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
author endeavors to support his erroneous assertion,
destroying at the same time the entire foundation of
his justificatory dissertation.
Bartolozzi himself, though unacquainted with the
documents lately published, remarks, in a part of his
work, upon Canovai's folly for having attacked Tiraboschi respecting another point, whereupon the latter made no mistake; but, in correcting which imaginary error, the former fell into a very serious one,
leading him, as it did, into a great number of others,
that would have been avoided, had he properly
studied the geographical question before casting censure upon the author of the History of Italian Literature.  Canovai makes use of a singular expedient in the fabrication of Vespucius's eulogium, and
at the expense of all those who preceded that navigator. He seems to reprimand them for the purpose
of exalting him; to accomplish which he spares
neither contumelious language of the grossest nature, nor assertions absurd to the last degree.
It will be well to give some few instances of the
latter. If the object be to make us believe that
Vespucius passed the equinoctial line, he says, the
selfsame VTespucius stood astonished at his own
magnanimous daring!  But he forgets the daring
of the Portuguese that went before the Florentine,
(who was at that time in Italy,) and in 1471 discovered Annaboa, and Congo in 1484. He forgets
Bartholomew Dias, the discoverer of the Cabo Tor



AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 147
mentoso in 1486, and would fain convince us that
Vespucius was the first to pass the equator. In
another place he tells us that Cabral, had not the
fame of the Florentine's discovery reached him,
would never have ventured, in his expedition, to rush
from east to west, as he did. In a word, he does
not even remember the documents of Ramusio.1
Then, after declaring that Pinzon and Lepe visited
the western continent, following the steps of the invincible navigator, he assures us in another place
that the discovery of Brazil was one altogether accidental!2 The celebrated Cook, according to him,
repeated nothing but what Vespucius had a long
time before observed and decided upon! 3  And the
name of America'was solely a brilliant recompense
awarded to the Florentine by Ferdinand the Catholic, who ordained by letters patent that the New
Continent should be called by his name, thereby honoring both him and the New World! To which account he adds, " the simplicity of the thought has
been so agreeable to Europe, that the royal grace
accorded became almost a law for that entire portion
of the world." But, although every one well read in
the history of discoveries, and in that of Spain, is
aware of the falseness of all this, that the appellation
of America is never found in the principal historians
1 The letter of Pedro Vaz Caminha alone, without the entire history,
suffices to overthrow the author's assertions.
2 Canovai, p. 133.       3 Ibid. p. 150, note 147.




148        RESEARCHES RESPECTING
of Spain, and that the Spaniards never gave to the
New Continent any name except that of the Western
Indies, yet Canovai, regardless of all this, braves
every thing for the sake of gaining credit for his own
story.
If the pretended letters patent had ever been promulgated, would Peter Martyr have named his history De Orbe Novo, (a work published at Alcala in
1516,) or, if the ordinance spoken of had ever existed, would Enciso have, in 1519, entitled his production Summa Geographia de las Indias? Would
the letters of Ferdinand Cortes, printed at Seville in
1522 and 1523, in the case supposed, have applied
any other name than that of America to these territories; or, would have Oviedo called his history,
Iistoria General y Natural de las Indias?  Such
an ordinance having been made, why is it not to be
found in the Collection of the Laws of the Indies,
published at Alcala in 1543, not under the title of
Laws upon America, but Leyes y OrdonnanSa para
la Governacion de las Indias?  Facts like these,
then, and documents lately published, completely
nullify the assertion of Canovai.
Is it not evident that, if letters patent from king
Ferdinand, like those described, had ever been
accorded to Vespucius, the Spaniards would have
called the New Continent after his name? And is
it not evident, too, that if such decision in council as
the one pretended, had ever taken place, Vespucius




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 149
would not have stood in need of Columbus's recommendation in 1505, on account of his being unfortunate.2 Then again, would not that great navigator
himself have opposed any concession of the sort to
the Florentine, instead of recommending to his own
son a man who had been capable of committing an
act of such usurpation and wrong against his own
person?
But if Canovai has taken for granted the said fictitious letters patent, which imposed the name of
America on the New Continent, he elsewhere, and
with an additional contradiction, betrays his ignorance of the ancient charts of this'portion of the
world. If these, he says, were well examined, and
likewise the old historians of the New Continent, it
would be found that the name of America was not at
first given to the entire continent, but only to Brazil,1
when, as we can affirm from personal inspection, the
ancient charts themselves prove quite the contrary.
Thus, in that of the New Continent designed by
Juan de la Cosa at Puerto de Santa Maria, in 1500,
the original of which is in the possession of our
learned fellow-laborer, M. Walckenaer, no designation whatever is given to the southern part. In an
outline traced by this savant are to be remarked two
islands, which, by their position, appear, both in his
opinion and our own, to be the isle of Ferdinand de
Noronha, and a number of small islets greatly exag1 Canovai, Elogio di Vespucci, p. 346.




150            RESEARCHES RESPECTING
gerated. Beside one of them is seen the flag of
Portugal, with this note:- Islas descubiertas por
el Rey de Portugal; and north of the position of
Cape  Saint Augustine, are these  words: —Este
Cabo se descubrio en  afio de 1499, por  Castilla,
siendo descubridor  7icentians.1
Another argument still does this contemporary
document present in opposition to the pretended discoveries of Vespucius, inasmuch as its author takes
not the slightest notice of them, and yet he was the
companion of Columbus in his second voyage, and of
Hojeda and Vespucius in their expedition of 14991500. Juan de la Cosa was so skilful that he esteemed himself superior in nautical knowledge even
to Columbus,2 and in all which concerned discoveries
he was such an adept that every thing new immediately found a place in his map.3  Is it probable then,
that he, who affixed  to one point of the coast the
I This precious geographical monument is drawn upon a parchment
more than fifteen feet square. It comprises not only America, but
also Europe, Asia, and Africa. M. de Humboldt's Examenz Critique
contains a part of it, which he caused to be engraved. M. de la
Sagra also has done the same with regard to another large portion of this
World-Map, comprising the New Continent, for the purpose of illustrating his important work, Histoire Physique, Politique et Naturelle
de'Ile de Cuba, printed at Paris in 1837.
2 This is that Juan de la Cosa, says M. de Humboldt, in his Examen
Critique, etc., of whom, according to the testimony of Bernardo de
Ibarra, in the suit of the Treasury against Don Diego Columbus, the
Admiral complains, because he, Cosa, a clever man, pretended to
know more than he.
3 See observation of M. de la Sagra, listoire de'Ile de Cuba, p. 5.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 151
name of its discoverer, would have failed to attach
the name of Vespucius, his fellow-voyager, to another,
if, indeed, any part of the New Continent had been
discovered by the Florentine? The note, too, inscribed beside the island of Ferdinand de Noronha,
upon the map we are speaking of, does it not show
that the Portuguese had already effected the other
discovery, without the intervention of Vespucius,
whom  Cosa, his companion, would certainly have
mentioned by name, if he had discovered a single
point of the New Continent for the king of Portugal,
and much more if he had been the first who found
out the whole Southern Continent.
But, however this may be, in continuing to demonstrate how Canovai deceived himself through ignorance of the ancient charts, we will add, that in the
map of the world by Ruysch, in the edition of
Ptolemy, published at Rome in 1508, the southern
part of the New Continent is represented under the
name of, The Land of the Holy Cross, or The New
World, (Terra Sanctce- Crucis, sive Mundus-Novus,)
and in the position of Cape Saint Augustine, we read:
"The Cape of the Holy Cross," (Caput SanetceCrucis); — that in a map of the world, contained
in the edition of Ptolemy, by Bernardus Sylvanus.Eboliensis, published at Venice in 1511,1 is seen the
southern part of the New Continent under the name
1 Copy in the Royal Library.




152          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
of Terra Sanctce- Crucis; -  that in a chart found in
the first edition of Peter Martyr (1511) no designation is met with on the same portion of the said continent but that of Caput Sanctce-C rucis, which is
applied to Saint Augustine;1 and lastly, that in a
beautiful edition of Ptolemy, published at Strasburg
in 1513, by Johannes Scottus, there is a map of the
New Continent, in the southern part of which only,
the same cape is marked with the same name. The
coast therein is laid down as far as the fortieth degree
of south latitude, and in another map, bearing the
title of Terrce Novoe, by the side of Paria is the following note, in Latin: — " This land, and the adjacent islands, were discovered by Columbus, a Genoese, acting under the orders of the kingq of Castile."
In a preface which precedes the new maps, it is
said that the marine chart, called the Admiral's,
had been first drawn according to the orders of Ferdinand the  Catholic, (erroneously termed king of
Portugal,) 2 and corrected and enlarged by means
of contributions from celebrated navigators, and
published as a testimony to the liberality of Rene
of Lorraine.
Now, let it be remarked here, that all these particulars are very curious, and of vast importance in
I Library of M. Ternaux.
2 Inl the text it is Serenissirni Portugallioa regis Ferdinandi, - an
evident error, for the King Ferdinand of Portugal died the 22d of October, 13S3, one hundrcd and ten years before the discovery of the
New Continent.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 153
a discussion like the present. The marine chart, we
see, was called the Chart of the Admiral, and it was
therefore originally designed either by Columbus or
Cabral, but never by Vespucius, for he attained to
no such rank as that of admiral. There is no doubt,
however, that, if it was not the immediate work of
Columbus, it was done either by his orders or subsequently to his discoveries. And it is a fact that he
sent to the Catholic sovereigns a marine chart of the
New Continent, together with a letter, in which he
makes mention of it.' A copy of this chart, which
doubtless already marked the main land, IIojeda
made use of in pursuing the same route as he had
done;2 as can easily be ascertained by inspecting
the depositions contained in the suit against Columbus, where Hojeda testifies that he saw the chart
sent by the Admiral to the King and Queen at Castile.3 In the same law process is to be observed the
answer of Bernardo de Ibarra, who confirms the fact
that the chart of the Admiral was sent to the Catholic sovereigns; and he adds, that he had heard of
others having been made after it, which Merino,
Hojeda, and other persons availed themselves of in
prosecuting their voyages to these latitudes.4
It appears, then, an indisputable matter: 1, that
1 See Navarrete, vol. i. pp. 253, 264, and La Sagra's Histoire de
l'Ile de Culda.
2 Ibid. vol. i. p. 5.    3 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 539.
4 Ibid. p. 587.




154          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
the earliest charts of the New Continent were designed by Columbus, or by his directions, and moreover that he preceded Vespucius in this work. Indeed, we see in a letter of Angelo Trivigiano to
Malapiero, already cited by us, that, referring to a
map of Columbus's voyage, which was required of
him, (probably by the Venetian government, as Bossi
thinks,) he replies: 1. There is none here (in Grenada) with the single exception of Columbus's own, nor
is there anybody capable of designing one:'   2. that
the marine chart called the Admiral's, which had
been drawn and corrected according to the commands of King Ferdinand, and engraved by the care
of Rene of Lorraine, which is treated of, too, in the
preface to this edition of Ptolemy, was probably one
of those copies spoken of by Ibarra; and 3. that
what is found in the said preface, to wit, how the
chart in question was made according to the orders
of Ferdinand the Catholic, and published with additions through the care of Rene of Lorraine, joined to
the testimony of documents which we have quoted,
demonstrates still more strongly, that the relations
subsisting between Rend and Spain respecting these
geographical questions, establish the fact of the
Admiral's discoveries, so that neither the duke nor
Ilacomilus could have been ignorant of them, or have
1 The Queen Isabella, in a letter to Columbus, dated September 5,
1493, speaks of the marine chart he had designed, and asks it of him.
See Navarrete, vol. ii. document 10.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 155
attributed them to Vespucius, without being guilty
of a flagrant injustice.
Again, one continues to find, as for example in
the map called Orbis Ty#pus Universalis, that the
southern part of the New Continent is not denomninated America, and even that the name of Sanctce
Crucis, originally given by Cabral, is invariably employed to designate it. And, besides this curious
fact, we will point out another, which is, that P/hilesius, that is, Professor Ringmann of Bale, the correspondent of Ilacomilus, took no small share in that
publication, wherein the Admiral Columbus is declared
to have been the first discoverer of the New Continent, and in which the southern portion of it bears
no other name but that it received from Cabral.
This is shown by the words of the text, as follows:
Philesii diligentiam  in hoc plurimurm  coiperatam
scias, cujus fideli doctaque manu totum quod vides
opvus transcriptumn, etc.1
We have already spoken of a map of the world
called Orbis Typus Universalis, wherein no name is
found upon the New Southern Continent, except
that of "' Cape of the Holy Cross,"- (Caput Sanetce
Crucis,) which is assigned to Cape Saint Augustine;
and we have alluded to another chart, bearing the
title of Tabula Terroe Novce, in which, by the side
of Paria is the following note (in Latin):'" This
1 The vindication of this edition of Ptolemy may be seen in Raidel's
Commentatio critico-literaria de Claudii Ptolemcei GeograpAia.




156         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
land and the adjacent islands were discovered by
Columbus, a Genoese, acting under the orders of the
king of Castile."  In the latter all the coasts are
laid down with their names, and on the Brazilian
coasts the names are in the Portughese language,
with one single exception, that of Caput Sanetce
Crucis, applied to Cape Saint Augustine. Thus,
then, according to an examination of those maps of
the New Continent, which can be termed ancient,
that is, from the publication of the earliest of them
till the appearance of a world-map of Apian in 1520,1
(in which the name of America is seen for the first
time,) just the reverse of Canovai's hypothesis is
found to be the fact, and the denomination originally
affized by Cabral was constantly preserved. The
note too attached to Paria confirms Columbus's discovery, without the slightest question being raised
as to Vespucius or the name of America in any of
the maps abovementioned. Nevertheless these maps
ought not to be regarded as the only ancient ones,
according to Canovai's expression, but all should
likewise be included in the category which preceded
the translation of the Cosmographia of Munster
(1550); for the said work is his point of departure
in the course of his reasoning. Consequently we
shall cite other maps which can be classed as ancient,
and which offer new proofs of what has already been
demonstrated.
I In the Solinus of Camers.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND IIIS VOYAGES. 157
In the Isolario of Bordone, printed at Venice in
1528, a chart of the southern part of the New Continent is found, with the following note (in Italian):
" Part of the territory of the New  WVorld, and the
text says, that these islands were discovered by
the Spaniards and Portuguese.  At page 10, the
southern portion being mentioned, it is called by the
name which Cabral gave it, The Land of the Holy
Cross, or The New World.' In a second edition of
the same work, printed also at Venice, in 1533,
there is a map of the world wherein the southern
part of the New Continent is designated as the New
World, and likewise another, but of the preceding
year (1532,) in which the name of The Land of the
Holy Cross, or, New  World, is given to it.2  In a
later edition too, that of 1547, we meet with the
same appellation applied to the same territory.3
And here it will be permitted us to make an observation, seriously affecting this discussion, which
is, that the authority of Bordoni's work is of the
greater importance, because the denominations contained in his text and charts give additional weight
to the testimony hitherto advanced by us in opposition to the pretensions of Vespucius's eulogists; for
Bordoni was the contemporary of Vespucius,4 was an
1 Copy in the Library of the Institute.
2 Edition in the Royal Library.
3 For this edition we are indebted to our learned fellow-laborer, M.
Jomard.
4 Bordoni was born in the fifteenth century, and died in 1531.




158         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Italian, was deeply read in geography, voyages, and
discoveries, and by the book in question acquired
greater renown than by his collection of Latin translations of Lucian's Dialogues, or by his Description
of Italy.
In the edition of Mola by Vadianus of Bale,'
there is a chart dated 1520, wherein, upon the
southern portion of the New Continent, is this note
(in Latin): This land and the neighboring islands
were discovered, in 1497, by Columbus, a Genoese,
acting by orders of the king of Castile.  In another
edition of 1540, the position of Saint Augustine is
marked by the words, Caput Sanctce Crucis; and
in yet another, of 1572, published at Paris, is found
a map of the New World, with Novus Orbis attached
to the southern quarter, and, besides the designation
of America, sive, Novi Orbis Pars, in the Portuguese part the word Brasilia is seen.
In a chart which was engraved about the year
1562, the south part of the New Continent is designated by Peruviana.2 In another, engraved towards the year 1565, by Paulo Forlani, a Veronese,
the New Continent appears without the name America; 3 and on a very badly translated map of the
world in an atlas dated 1567, the charts of which
are drawn and illuminated on vellum, it does not go
I Library of M. Jomard.
2 Department of Geographical Charts at the Royal Library.
3 Ibid.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 159
by that name, while the Portuguese portion is
termed  Brazil.1
It appears then, according to what we have
shown, how great are the errors, concerning the
ancient maps of the New Continent, into which
Canovai fell. Equally apparent, too, is it that he
never examined these maps. We will next, therefore, proceed to the exposure of another mistake of
the panegyrist of the Florentine, who affirms, that in
almost all of the editions of Ptolemy, published from
1511 to 1590, we find the map " delle Nuove Terre
col Brasile chiamato America." 2
Now, this assertion of father Canovai is just as
inexact as what he before says, which is proved by
no less than twenty-five editions of Ptolemy, that we
have consulted, from 1511 to 1584.3 Of these,
1 In the library of M. Ternaux.      2 Elogio, p. 347.
3 We will in this note briefly indicate the chronological series of
these editions, beginning with that of,
1511. Ptolemy of Bernardus Sylvanus.
1513. Strasburg edition, by Scottus.
1514. Nuremburg do., (without maps.)
1520. -     -, (without maps.)
1523. Ptolemy, in which, for the first time, the name of America
is found upon a map.
1624. Nuremburg edition.
1527. Paris       do.
1528. Venice      do.
1533. -, with a Greek text preceded by a preface of Erasmus, (without maps.)
1535. Edition of Bilibaldus Pirckeymerus.
1538. Bale edition, in folio.
1540. Cologne do., 12mo., (without maps.)




160           RESEARCHES  RESPECTING
some have a Greek text without geographical charts,
and others have simply maps of the world, such as it
was understood to be in the time of the great geographer, while others, and by far the greatest number, contain new maps. And it is these last, as we
have already said, which disprove the assertion of
Canovai. Such, for example, besides those cited by
us above, is the edition published at Venice, in 8vo.,
by Mattiolo, in 1548.  In one of its maps the New
Southern Continent is indicated by the title of Terra
Nova, and in the Portuguese part of it is found only
Brazil written.  In the two other maps where the
New World appears, the same designation of Terra
Nova is given to the southern portion.  And in the
Ptolemy of Ruscelli, of 1561, this portion of territory
is again called by the same name, as it is also in that
of Malombra, of 1575.  Thus, then, as we have
remarked, twenty-five editions of Ptolemy prove
directly the reverse of Canovai's words.
Now let us examine those editions, in the maps of
1541. Edition of Villanovanus [Servetus.]
1545.    "   (another.)
1546. Paris edition in 4to., Greek text, (without maps.)
1548. Italian translation by Mattiolo, in Svo., (with maps.)
1552. Bale edition, (with maps.)
1559. Ptolemy, (without maps.)
1561.    "  by Ruscelli, (Venice.)
1568. Another Venice edition.
1574. Another edition.
1575. Venice edition, (with maps.)
15S2. Bale  do.
1585. Edition of Mercator.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 161
which the name America is applied to the New Continent, that is, those of 1522, 1541, and 1552; and
we wish it to be observed at once, that even these
maps themselves are not entirely favorable to the
panegyrists of Vespucius. In the Ptolemy of 1541,
by Villanovanus, the New Continent is indicated in
the Tabula Terrce Novwe, and Columbus is there
pointed out as the first discoverer of Terra Firma.
There, too, is found alongside of Paria the note
already twice quoted': This land and the adjacent
islands, &c. &c., and in the centre is written, Terra
Nova. And the only note in which there is any
mention of Vespucius is as follows: " Those who
contend that this continent should be called America,
are altogether in the wrong, since Americus did not
visit it till long after Columbus."
In the edition of 1552, printed at Bale, the southern part of the continent is called America, but this
name is accompanied by several others; so that the
26th map shows us what confusion and uncertainty
existed respecting it. We there read, on the southern part, Insula Atlantica, quam vocant Brazilii et
Americam! There can be no doubt, then, after what
we have said, how perfectly inaccurate are the assertions of Canovai, who never studied, and was profoundly ignorant of the old maps.
The famous map of the world, in the Solinus of
Camers, (1520,) presents, it is true, upon its titlepage what follows: Typus Orbis universalis, juxta
11




162         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Ptolmecei Cosmographi traditionem, et Americi Vesputii, aliorumque, Lustrationes, a Petri Appiano
elaborata.  A. D. 1520; —  but then, the note to
the map of the southern part is altogether adverse
to Canovai's exclusive assertions, and to the pretensions of Vespucius's eulogists. " In the year 1497,"
it says, " this land and the adjacent islands were
discovered by Columbus," etc. etc.; and lower down
is found, America Provincia.
In the maps of the several editions of Munster's
Cosmography, nothing is met with of so favorable a
nature for the fictitious claims of Canovai as he
would fain make us suppose; for in them there is no
one denomination applied to the New Continent, decidedly fixed and uniform. In the map of the world
in the German edition of 1544, the southern part of
the said continent is called America, sive Insula
Brazilii; and in another we find, Insula Atlantica,
quamn vocant Brazilii et Americam; and the same
denomination presents itself in yet another, belonging to the edition of 1552, which has the title of A
List of New Islands.  In a map of the world which
is contained in the Cosmographia of Hieronymo Girava, of Tarragona, published at Milan, the 18th of
April, 1556,' the Continent is without the name of
America. On the northern portion, the words _Nueva Espana alone are found, and on the southern,
1 Library of M. Ternaux. [ There is a copy of this edition in the
Library of Harvard College.]




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIrS VOYAGES-. 163
Peru, Chile, and Brasil.  This map was drawn
after another by Gaspard Vopelio, of Magdeburg,
dated 1547, which, in the opinion of Girava, exceeded in correctness all that had preceded it. But,
however the case may be, the author of this Cosmography, who was better versed in ancient and modern
authorities than the pseudonymous Ilacomilus, (the
author of the celebrated Cosmographice Introductio
of 1507,) says nothing whatever of the fabulous discoveries of Vespucius, nor of his astronomical observations.  He remarks, that the appellation most
generally given to the new continent was Indies, or
New World; and, in fact, that division of his work
which is devoted to this portion of the globe bears
these two titles.  "All the land lately discovered,"
says he, " is called India, because Christopher Columbus, a famous navigator though an ordinary cosmographer, when he obtained permission, in 1492,
to search for unknown territories, named them the
Indies on their discovery; whence, since that time,
this Terra _Firma has been always denominated India." And, too, it should be noted, that the cosmographer now spoken of, in mentioning the names of
the earliest discoverers of the new continent, such
as Columbus, the Pinzons, etc. etc. as also the
Spanish writers and travellers who preceded the
discovery, Oviedo, for example, Gomara, Ceica,
Valboa, Orellana, Solis, and others, does not allude
in any manner to Vespucius, whose pretensions could




164        RESEARCHES RESPECTING
-not have been unknown to him, since his work was
composed at Milan; he had visited Germany, he
had made use of the productions of Henricus Glareanus, of the Cosmographia of Munster, and was
likewise intimately familiar with the publications of
the celebrated Dutch cosmographer Gemma _Frisio,
the editor of an edition of the Cosmographia of Ap
ian, (1529,) in which Vespucius is indicated as the
discoverer of the new continent in 1497!!
The arguments here adduced, negative as they
may appear to some, are nevertheless of immense importance, and especially when it is remembered that
Girava, whom a learned contemporary calls a man
of great genius and distinguished erudition, notwithstanding he was thoroughly acquainted with the letters of Vespucius, and every thing respecting them
published by his predecessors, carefully abstains
from repeating these errors, and withholds all belief
from the pretended discoveries of the Florentine.
In the Cosmography of Belleforest, (1575,) and in
the map of the New World which it contains, the
northern portion is called America, sive India Nova,
with this note attached,- Discovered in the year
1492, by Christopher Columbus, in the name of the
king of Castile, while in the southern portion the name
of America is not found, but only that of Brazil.
Again, in the map of the world published by the
learned Ortelius, (1570,) in his Theatrum Orbis
Terrarum, the northern part of the new continent is




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 165
called America, sive India Nova; but not so the
southern, where the Portuguese possessions bear the
name of Brazil. The map itself, however, of the
continent, belonging to this work, has no denomination whatever; and only upon the Portuguese possessions are seen these words, Brazilia, a Lusitanis
anno 1504 inventa: a date not exact, as it ought to
be 1500. Moreover, the opinion of the erudite
geographer is not favorable to the claims made by
the panegyrists of Vespucius on his behalf. But
we will confine ourselves to the citation of the following passage:- " It seems to surpass the bounds
of human admiration, that this entire hemisphere,
now called America, and on account of its immense
extent the New World, should have remained unknown to the ancients till 1492, when it was discovered by Christopher Columbus, a Genoese."
In the Cosmographie of Thevet, printed at Paris
in 1575, there is a map of the new continent without any designation applied to the Northern part
but that of Terre-Neuve; and in the maps of another edition of Ortelius, (1584,) the southern portion is not called America.  In the Milroir du
Monde, too, published at Antwerp in 1584, there is
a map of the said continent, engraved in 1574,
wherein the name of America does not appear, but,
on the contrary, a note which establishes the priority
of Columbus's discovery in 1492. In a work, also,
entitled Les Trois Mondes, by M. de la Popellinidre,




166        RESEARCHES RESPECTING
printed at Paris in 1582, a map of the world is found
in which the northern part is designated under the
name of America, and yet with this note accompanying it: —" America, or New India, discovered in
1492, by Christopher Columbus, in the name of the
king of Castile." 1
In a German [Dutch] book called, Conqueste van
Indien, etc. printed at Amsterdam in 1596,2 we
meet with a map in which Peruana, and not America, marks the southern part of the continent; and
in another German [Dutch] work, entitled iSpieghel,
etc. (a translation of the Mirror of Tyranny, by Las
Casas,) and likewise printed at Amsterdam in the
same year, (1596,)3 it is on the northern portion
alone that the name of America is found, with these
words, - America, an. 1492 a Christoph. C(olumbo
inventa; but on the southern we read, Caribana.
Brazil.  There is also in the German translation of
Leo Africanus,4 a map of the new south continent
bearing the sole designation of Peruana.
The following facts, then, it seems to us, may be
deduced from this long examination of a great number of ancient charts: -
1. The priority of discovery by Columbus of the
new continent, that is, the Terra Firma, is decided
without contradiction and without exception, by all
the geographical.maps up to the year 1520.
2. During the same period, the southern part of
I Library of M. Ternaux.   2 Ibid.    3 Ibid.   4 Ibid.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 167
the said continent, and especially Brazil, is by the
same documents called The Land of the Holy Cross,
(Terra Sanetce Crucis,) a name originally given by
the Portuguese Admiral Cabral; 1 which, together
with the preceding statement, is confirmed by the
maps of the sixteenth century, and more generally
accepted than other denominations, which a judicious
criticism refuses to acknowledge; for the discoveries
of Columbus and Cabral were incontestable, while
the Platonic title of Insula Atlantica, in the Munster charts, and  of Insula  Brasilica, were nothing
I In the third volume of Memoirs Relating to the History of Nations beyond the Sea, published by the Royal Academy of Sciences
at Lisbon, there is a long notice upon Brazil, more important, in our
opinion, than that of Magalhaes Gandavo, it having been written at
the time when the History of the Province of Santa Cruz was composed by Magalhaes. It was dedicated to Don Christovao de Moura,
Counsellor of State, in 1589, and its author had resided in Brazil seventeen years. Like Gandavo, he devotes his first chapter to the discovery of this part of the New World, which he says was made by
Cabral, the 25th of April, 1500, and that this vast country was for
several years called the province of Santa Cruz. Without one word
of Vespucius, he declares that, after Cabral, Gonvalo Coelho was sent
there with three caravels, to explore the coasts, that during several
months he was thus occupied, seeking for harbors and running lines
of demarcation, and that he encountered great hardships, incurring
many risks, on account of the little experience and knowledge then
possessed as to the direction of the coasts, and the prevailing winds.
Now, it is altogether incredible that the pretended discoveries of Vespucius, and his verifications were then unknown to the author, who
devoted a portion of his life to the study of this country and of its discovery, and who, living at the time of Coelho, must have seen the work
of this captain and the account of his voyage; for he, of all the historians of the sixteenth century, gives the most accurate ideas respecting this voyage.




168           RESEARCHES  RESPECTING
but a continuation of geographical errors proceeding from the earliest and middle ages, the name of
America being a pure usurpation.
3. After the map in the Solin of Camers, (1520,)
the name of America, which there for the first time
appears, as applied to the new continent, is never
encountered in any charts, in the character of a denomination indisputably fixed and generally admitted
in chartography. For, even where it is met with,
it is invariably seen in relation with some other,
such as Atlantic Island, or Brasilia, New Land,
Peruviana, -New India, etc.; and almost constantly
it is accompanied in all these same maps, even
without excepting that of Solin, by a note which
indicates Columbus as the first discoverer of the
new continent.
Such has been the prodigious contest between
truth and usurpation, and such has been the hesitation of those who, sometimes through partiality, but
more often through ignorance, have labored to rob
the great navigator of the immortal glory which belongs to his name.I
1 We find, too, a continuation of this contest in a great many charts
of the seventeenth century, a few examples of which we will give.
In a German work called West und ostindischer Lustgart, &c. (The
Garden of pleasure in the East and West Indies,) published at Stuttgart,
[Cologne?] in 1618, there is a map of the New World, in which the
northern part alone is indicated by the name of America. And the
same is true of another map, in the edition of Ortellius, of 1624, published at Antwerp; while in the southern part is this singular note:
Ophir, Montano, Postelo et Goropio!




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 169
In a Spanish translation of Pliny, by Huerta, printed in 1625, the
frontispiece contains a map of the new continent, in which the north
is called Nueva Espafa, and the south, simply Peruz. And in a map
of the world attached to the work, the same appellations are repeated,
only to the name of Peru is added that of Brasil.
In the narrative of Admiral Parker's voyage to Brazil, printed in 1629,
there is a chart entitled, Description of t}he West Indies, in which the
new continent is not called America. And in a map found in the edition of Mercator of 1632, the southern part is designated as Peruana.
The priority of Columbus's discovery is established, too, by a production entitled, Descriptio Insularum India Occidentalis.




,170
CHAPTER VI.
CANOVAI, unable to conceal the weakness of his
arguments, seeks at last to persuade us that Columbus was the navigator of Isabella, and Vespucius of
Ferdinand! that is, that the former, protected by
the queen, was hated by the king, while the latter
was the king's favorite mariner! - an hypothesis
quite sufficient to convince us of his own blindness.1
For if Vespucius was peculiarly the king's man, and
was by him employed in the prosecution of voyages,
on his own account and unknown to his consort, as
Canovai says, how did it happen that, one year after
the death of Isabella, which took place in 1504, the
Florentine navigator found himself reduced to the
necessity of asking the protection of the Genoese,
"because he was unfortunate "?  To sustain this
supposition, Canovai again loses himself in a mass of
contradictions.  He  pretends that the  Castilians
alone had the right of going to America; but he
does not note that Columbus and Vespucius were
I " The epitaph which Ferdinand caused to be composed for the
tomb of Columbus," says the author of a work called, Patria di Colombo, " is sufficient to justify the conduct of the king towards this great
man." See Cancellieri, Dissertazionli, p. 114.




RESEARCHES, ETC.             171
neither of them Castilians, and that Juan de la Cosa
was a Biscayan! If, too, Castilians only could be
rightfully employed, how was it that the queen patronized Columbus; and how could the king himself,
who was by law debarred from sending his own subjects, have taken Vespucius into his service?  In
order to get out of this difficulty, Canovai imagines
that to the last mentioned navigator secret instructions were given by Ferdinand, to the effect that all
noise and publicity were to be avoided, as well as
every exhibition of pomp in imposing names on the
lands he should discover. But he forgets that this
passage, or rather extraordinary supposition, is in
manifest contradiction to what is previously maintained by him in respect to the pretended letters
patent of the king to Vespucius, bestowing on the
continent the name of America in honor of him.
By a new contradiction, too, he here accuses Columbus of designating as he saw fit the lands discovered
by him.' But this and other contradictions cost Canovai nothing; for if in this place he draws a feeble
portrait of Ferdinand, representing him as employing Vespucius secretly, by and by, when it suits him,
he will tell us quite the contrary, affirming that his
will was absolute and despotic, and that he made no
scruple of prohibiting the intolerable Columbus.2
And then again, in a little while, he will forget also
this assertion, to fall into yet another contradiction,
1 Canovai, p. 256.     2 Ibid. p. 291.




172         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
to wit, that the remarkable privileges of Columbus
bore a prohibition most positive against all which
could prejudice discoveries already made.1 The
reasoning, then, contained in his justificatory dissertation, being founded on such a multitude of
erroneous hypotheses, which both history and authentic documents contradict, falls of itself before
the authorities we have cited and the critical observations we have made.
Having thus expressed ourselves in a general
manner, in regard to the work of Canovai, and in
accordance with suggestions growing out of it, we
will now quote certain passages from that of Bartolozzi, which confirm a fundamental remark made by
us when speaking of the former, to wit, that the
author, so far from succeeding in his attempt to
vindicate Vespucius, and prove the genuineness of
his narratives, has only furnished fresh arguments
against him and his letters, laying open at the same
time a wider field for a more substantial refutation
of his panegyrists.
Bartolozzi, without relaxing his efforts in defence
of Vespucius, does not deny to Columbus the glory
of having first discovered the New Continent. He
not only proves that Canovai trusted too implicitly
to the Cosmography of Sebastian Munster, but he
points out the mistakes of this cosmographer himself.
He demonstrates that a passage in the work of the
I Canovai, p. 324.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 173
latter was mutilated by Canovai, for the purpose of
bestowing an originality which did not belong to it,1
and for the sake of advancing a proposition truly
unique, - that Vespucius accompanied Columbus in
1492,- an assertion most palpably false.2  And he
further explains how Canovai's mutilating process was
extended even to the narration of Vespucius himself,3
in order to sustain Munster's error, whereby the
truth of history was so much the more violated, that
Vespucius is proved to have been in Florence the
year of Columbus's departure (1492,) by his own
documents deposited in the archives of that city, and
examined by Bartolozzi himself, who thus brings to
light the double mistake both of Munster and Canovai.4 He exposes, besides, the anachronism the latter author was guilty of respecting the voyage
attributed to Vespucius in 1497,5 proving at the
same time how completely ignorant he was of ancient
geographical maps. But although in this regard he
shows a better and more extensive knowledge than
the author of the Florentine's eulogium could boast,6
nevertheless, it is evident that he, in his turn, knew
nothing about the earliest maps of the sixteenth century. Bartolozzi, in a word, demonstrates the errors
which Canovai committed in his calculations of longiI Bartolozzi, p. 90.  2 Ibid.         3 Ibid.
4 Ibid. to p. 100.    5 Ibid. pp. 96, 97.
6 Ibid. p. 102, et seqq., in which he discusses this matter and exposes the errors of Vespucius, Munster, and Canovai.




174            RESEARCHES RESPECTING
tude, &c., and that he did not comprehend even
those of Vespucius. And it is not a matter of astonishment, therefore, after the exposure of facts we
have made, that his work in favor of the Florentine
made not the slightest impression on those authors
who, since 1788, have treated of that navigator, and
that it in no way modified the opinions of Camus,
Fleurieu, Peuchet, Mufioz, Malte-Brun, the learned
Cancellieri,l Bossi, Lanzi, Mariano Llorente,2 and a
host of other writers, from whose works we have
quoted, nor yet that it failed to affect the conclusions
arrived at by the laborious author of the Historical
Library, Meusel, who, speaking of the works relating
to Columbus, says: "Although the nautical expedition of Christopher Columbus, undertaken for, the
sake of searching for unknown lands, had a multitude of witnesses, and it is not to be doubted that he
was the first discoverer, not only of the islands, but
also of the main land of America; nevertheless, the
glory of this great exploit was all but taken from
him, and certainly rendered dubious, by the iniquity
and foolhardiness of Vfespucius, carried to an extent
almost unheard of. This glory, therefore, Tozius
has successfully vindicated for Columbus, following
1 This savant, noted for his erudition, calls Canovai's eulogy of Vespucius most ingenious, and ironically declares he will appropriate it to
Columbus. His irony is particularly seen at page 257.
2 Mariano Llorente, Saggio Apologetico degli Storici e Conquistatori Spagnuoli dell' America, a refutation published at Florence in
1796, and at Naples in the same year.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 175
others in so doing, who incidentally have attempted
the same work." And then, quoting the writings of
Vespucius, and referring to Bandini's production, the
same author remarks:    " Vespucius, when he says
that he saw the American Continent as early as
1497, is guilty of an impudent falsehood, for his
first voyage thither was in the year 1499, while Columbus had reached it in his third voyage, in 1498;
nay, had seen the continent (namely, the coast of
Paria,) though without landing, in 1495; as it is
proved by many writers, notwithstanding what is said
to the contrary by the partisans and defenders of
Vespucius."
And, indeed, how could any one be either persuaded or convinced by a work, in which there is
a constant recurrence of paradox, partiality, and
error? 2
It is fairly proved, then, that the documents produced by Canovai, so far from deserving to be conI Meusel, Bibliotheca Historica, vol. iii. pp. 263, 264. The author,
citing the work of Bandini in favor of Vespucius, after having said
that it is nothing but an apology, concludes with these words: " The
worthlessness of which work both Tozinzs and Tiraboschi have sufficiently demonstrated."
2 Canovai was already known for his paradoxes and disputatious
spirit, even previously to the publication of his panegyric on Vespucius,
as can be ascertained by his quarrel touching the theatre of the Greeks.
See the seventh volume of Saverio Mattei's work, Naples edition, page
216. He is reproached with exaggeration, with having confounded
actors and philosophers together, tragic with comic poets, and with
having had no acquaintance with Greek or Roman legislation upon
the subject of theatrical performers.




176         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
sidered as recent publications, did really make their
appearance forty-seven years before the time to
which he refers them, and that, moreover, they were
altered and mutilated by him, to serve as a support
to a work, of which the learned, and all such as engage, with such marked success, at the present day,
in geographical studies, are quite capable of appreciating at its exact value. Equally well has it been
shown, too, that the most authentic documents, the
most precious, and those which in importance surpass
all others known up to the present moment, are such
as have lately been published from the archives of
Seville and Simancas.1
Having thus demonstrated that the production of
Canovai cannot, and should not, be regarded as an
authority in the question under consideration, the
discussion obliges us to return once more to the
works of those authors who were contemporaries of
Vespucius.
The letters of this Florentine navigator concerning
his earliest pretended discoveries were not inserted
in the most ancient collection of voyages, called
Libretto di tutte le Navigazioni de' Re di Spcagna
colle Isole e Terre nuovamente trovati, (which was
published at Venice in 1504,) notwithstanding the
dates of his four fictitious voyages were anterior to
that of this publication. It seems then extraordinary
1 See Navarrete, vol. iii., and Bulletin of the Geographical Society,
February, 1837, pp. 98, 99.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 177
that, this collection having been printed in Venice,
where recent discoveries were universally known,
there should have appeared in it not one of Vespucius's letters, nor the slightest mention of any of his
fabulous discoveries, when, at the same time, the
letters of Columbus, and the voyages of Alonzo el
Negro and of Vicente Tafiez Pinzon, are duly presented. And this omission should surprise us the
more, because Angelo Trivigiano, secretary to the
Venetian embassy in Spain, who was indefatigable
in spreading the news of geographical discoveries in
Italy, exercised a great influence upon the publication of the said collection. Besides, if Trivigiano
had the like influence on yet another collection, published in 1507 at Vicenza, under the false title of,
Paesi novamente retrovati et Novo HMondo da Alberico Vesputio, Fiorentino, intitulato, our astonishment should increase at not only finding no letters
of Vespucius in the former one, nor any mention of
his voyages, but also at seeing in this second his
letter to the Medici, touching his expedition, placed
after the voyage of Gama, and the discoveries made
by order of the Infant Don Henry, after those of
Columbus, and even those of Cabral.
Thus the silence observed in regard to Vespucius
in the first of these collections, and the order of insertion which marks his Medicean letter in the
second, do they not, to a certain point, seem to demonstrate that the best instructed and most impartial
12




178         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
of Vespucius's contemporaries, did not admit the pretended priority of his discoveries?
Moreover, this last collection, attributed to Francanzano, was edited, not by Montalboddo, but by
Alessandro Lorzi, a skilful cosmographer and chartdesigner at Venice,l a particular which gives additional weight to our observation. And, indeed, who
could have been better informed as to the reality of
facts, than a Venetian envoy, resident in Spain at
the time of the supposed discoveries; and who could
have more easily arrived at the best sources of truth,
than an expert Venetian cosmographer such as
was Lorzi? And should not these observations render us desirous of knowing why the latter did not
insert the letter of Vespucius in advance of the discoveries of Columbus, G ama, and Cabral? Supposing, however, our inability to resolve this problem,
if we take for granted that a Venetian agent, residing in Spain at the time, had great influence over
the publication of these two collections, and that he
was seconded in the work by an expert cosmographer,
then it appears to us perfectly logical to conclude
that they did not admit the priority of Vespucius's
voyages and pretended discoveries; and this with so
much the more reason, because, according to what is
found in a copy of liondo Novo in the Magliabecchi
Library, it is proved that Bartholomew Columbus,
who was at Rome in 1505, (two years, that is, pre-' Observations of Baldelli, il Millone, vol. i. p. 32.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 179
viously to the publication of the second collection,)
presented a narrative of his brother's first voyage to
a prebendary of Saint John of Lateran, who afterwards gave it to this same Alessandro Lorzi at Venice,
he being his friend and the compiler of the collection.1
Besides, it is no less worthy of remark that Richaumer, in a German translation of the Vicenza collection, (published in 1508, and, in the opinion of the
illustrious Humboldt, more correct and better digested than the Itinerarium Portagallensium,) 2
does not say that the new regions were discovered
by Vespucius, though such is the announcement in
the title of the original. HIe then did not allow himself to be deceived by the title-page, nor did he
admit the claims of the Florentine.
To Peter Martyr, a contemporary historian who
lived in Spain, it may be objected that he was very
partially disposed towards Vespucius's discoveries,
and the passages in his writings touching this sub.
ject, which we will again refer to, do not appear to
us of sufficiently decisive a character to dissipate all
our doubts. For, on the one hand, he was not in
Spain when Vespucius pretends he was in the Portuguese king's service, having gone to Venice in 1501,
and left that city in October of the same year to proceed to Alexandria, where he did not arrive till three
months later, on account of continual disasters he
I See M. de Humboldt, Examen Critique, vol. iv. p. 8.
2 Ibid. vol. iv. p. 87.




180         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
encountered by sea. Then, too, he remained a long
time in Egypt, prosecuting the difficult negotiation
with which he had been charged.' And, on the
other hand, notwithstanding his merit, he is accused
of levity by an eminent contemporary authority, Las
Casas, from whom no one can justly withhold the
credit of the highest excellence, and still less of a
profound and extensive knowledge of facts and
events relating to the voyages and discoveries made
in his time.
Las Casas, when speaking of the earliest authors
who treated of the discoveries made upon the New
Continent, says, " that, of all of them, he who was
the most worthy of credit was Peter Martyr, by
whom the Decades were written in the Latin language, he being at the time in Castile; for whatever
he there relates respecting the discoveries, was recorded in accordance with the accounts given by the
Admiral himself, who made the first discovery, and
with whom he often conversed.  But as to all the
rest, which concerns the continuance and prosecution
of discoveries in the Indies, some false statements
are to be found in the Decades."
Now this passage is, in our opinion, of great importance, inasmuch as it shows the impartiality of
Las Casas, who can in no way be accused of ill will
1 See Peter Martyr d'Anghiera (or Angleria,) Legationis Babylonicee, lib. iii., appended to his work De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo
Orbe.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 181
towards Peter Martyr. He apprizes us that this
author is exact in all which relates to Columbus and
his discoveries, and even assures us that, in this part
of the history of the New Continent, he is more
trustworthy than any other writer, but at the same
time he warns us that these Decades are the reverse
of true when discoursing upon other navigators.
Let, then, this passage of Las Casas, just cited, be
compared to what he elsewhere says of Vespucius,
and it will be perceived that it also refers to that
which Peter Martyr had observed respecting the
Florentine navigator; for, if it were otherwise, and
if this writer had deserved, in the eyes of the learned
bishop of Chiapa, the same credence when speaking
of the said navigator as when he spoke of Columbus,
Las Casas would not have treated Vespucius as an
impostor, and tried to refute his narratives; nor
would he have undertaken the defence of the great
Genoese with such ardor as to declare that those
who pretended to give the glory of having discovered
the islands and the main land to any other than the
admiral, not only were guilty of injustice, but even
offended the Deity himself.'
Navarrete- also calls our attention " to the deplorable fact that so learned a man as Peter Martyr,
and one so fond of writing, should have been negligent to the extent of never rectifying his narrative
1 See Hist. de las Indias, by Las Casas, a manuscript belonging to
the Library of M. Ternaux.




182          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
or correcting what he had produced." And Munioz,
before him, had already expressed the same opinion,
counselling a prudent reserve in the perusal of his
works, in order to escape the errors and equivocations consequent upon the author's heedlessness.
As a proof of his irregularity, where facts are concerned, we will add that he does not mention the
death of Columbus till six or seven years subsequent
to that event; and that of his account of the conversation he had with the bishop of Burgos, in which
the latter showed him a Portuguese chart, said to
have been made by a very skilful Florentine, named
Americus Vespucius,' who, in his expeditions, had
passed the equinoctial line, &c.; if this be regarded
as an important consideration in favor of Vespucius,
then we remark, as a fact not less worthy of attention, that on a cautious examination, such as is recommended by Las Casas, Mufioz, and Navarrete, it
still leaves us in doubt. For if, in truth, Peter
Martyr had had no doubt as to the pretended discoveries of Vespucius, why did he say " a chart said to
have been made," &c.? From which it would appear, that neither he nor the bishop had attained that
degree of certainty which places a thing beyond
doubt. Moreover, if it is established that the Flor-..... " One of which was drawn by the Portuguese, wherein
had been employed the hand of Americus Vespucius, a Florentine,
skilled in this art, who had navigated the antarctic regions under the
auspices and in the pay of the Portuguese, penetrating several degrees
beyond the equinoctial line." Peter Martyr, Dec. II. lib. x. p. 199.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 183
entine navigator always signed the charts he drew,
ought we to admit that the one under consideration
was made by him, when his signature was not
attached to it? 1
Peter Martyr, too, resided in Spain, knew Vespucius, was member of the Tribunal of the Indies, and
ought by consequence to have been able to recognize
the handwriting of the Florentine, and his manner of
designing maps. Why, then, did he not perceive
that the one shown him by the bishop of Burgos was
his workmanship, instead of attributing it to him hypothetically? And may it not have been that, confiding in the ability of the supposed author, he gave
to him the credit of all the discoveries set down in
this Portuguese map, although they had been made'by other navigators? -In addition to this, does not
the narrative of Andr6 Corsal, in Ramusio, show
that geographical charts were already customarily
sent from Portugal to Rome before the year 1515?
And that Corsal told Giuliano de' Medici that the
position of Taprobane must have become known to
him by aid of the marine chart which Michaeil da
Sylva, the Portuguese ambassador, carried with him
to the Holy City? Which fact proves that marine
charts, confirmatory of discoveries, were officially
sent to ambassadors from Portugal, and that the
Court of Lisbon made no mystery of them; for Cor1 On this subject see the work of Tray Pedro Simon, N1oticias Historicas, chap. vi. and vii.




184           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
sal's expressions convince one that the examination
and knowledge of such documents were refused to
nobody that had any interest in consulting them.
Now, as this same system of communication was
observed by the court of Portugal towards that of
Spain, is it not possible that the Portuguese map in
question, shown by the bishop of Burgos to Peter
Martyr, and supposed to have been drawn by Vespucius, was rather the work of Portuguese navigators, just as were those which Corsal says were sent
into Italy? 1
Let this be as it may, however, Peter Martyr is
not considered as an infallible -authority, except when
writing of Columbus; and Las Casas, that celebrated
historian, who was not only his contemporary, but
also a witness of most of the events of the time, does
not regard him as worthy of credit when treating of
other navigators. He not merely passes upon him the
impartial judgment above recorded, but he lived long
enough to protest against the name of America,
given to the New Continent in the work of Ilacomilus,
published in Lorraine,2 and in other productions
I If Vespucius had been recognized as a learned cosmographer at
the time when the New Continent was first discovered, and if he had
become somewhat celebrated previously to the first voyages of Columbus, would Queen Isabella, in her letter of September 5, 1493, (see
Navarrete, vol. ii. Doec. 71,) to Columbus, recommending him to choose
a good cosmographer, have pointed out Antonio de Marchena?
2 See Hist. de las Indias, vol. i. chap. 140, MS. of the Library of
M. Ternaux.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 185
printed elsewhere than in Spain. In a word, he
critically examined the dates of discoveries and the
relations of navigators, in order to prove, that priority in the discovery of the New Continent belonged
to Columbus, and that the name of America fixed on
that part of the globe was a usurpation. "' Here,"
says he, " is the place to hold up to view the injury
and injustice done by this Americus Vespucius to the
Admiral, by arrogating to himself the discovery of
the main land, and by calling it after his own name
alone. Whence it arises that foreigners, who write
upon the Indies in the Latin or their vernacular
tongue, and who design and fabricate charts and
maps of the world, denominate them America, just
as if they had been sought out and found by the said
Americus."l And, again, the words of the same
author are,'" But this we affirm, that the Admiral
was the first who discovered the main land of Paria.
Hojeda was the first after the Admiral, and with
Hojeda was Americus. The Admiral left San Lucar
the 30th of lMay, 1498, and Hojeda and Americus
sailed only the following year, 1499.' 2 And to this
we will add, that though in certain details the learned
historian of the Indies may have committed some
faults, as Navarrete says he has, yet is he worthy of
I MS. of the Historia de las Indias, by Las Casas, chap. 148, (s, me
library.) " By that which] Americus wrote, to obtain a name, and to
appropriate, by tacit usurpatiozn, the discovery of Terra Firma."
2 See Las Casas, Hist. de las Indias, MS., chap. 164, (same library.)




186         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
belief in all which pertains to pretended priority in
the case of Vespucius's expeditions and discoveries.
Navarrete, who beyond a doubt is one of the most
weighty authorities in such matters, acknowledges
that Las Casas is always an erudite and truthful
writer, and meriting the greatest respect, except
when engaged on his favorite theme and ruling notion, the manner of establishing dominion over the
New Continent; and it follows, therefore, that, in
all matters relating to Vespucius, he is more deserving of confidence than Peter Martyr.
If Vespucius, and the claims made in his behalf
by panegyrists, are to be judged according to the
accounts of these two contemporary historians, Peter
Martyr and Las Casas, the testimony of the latter,
learned as he was, must be rejected before a favorable conclusion can be come to, even as it regards
the intentions alone of the Florentine navigator.
But ought such testimony to be entirely rejected?
We think not. And, indeed, it is impossible to refuse the evidence of an historian living at the time,
personally acquainted with the navigators, and having in his possession documents of the two brothers,
Christopher and Bartholomew Columbus, written
with their own hands. We will in another place
call attention to the silence which is observed as to
Vespucius's fabulous discoveries, by another historian, also contemporary, whose relations respecting
Columbus have furnished valuable materials for the




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 187
history of the New World's discovery, -the famous
Bernaldez, curate of Los Palacios.' To the said
discovery this author devotes a long chapter,2 which
is headed, How the Indies were discovered, and not
how America was,3 and the sole subject discussed in
it is Columbus, who is extolled for his vast acquirements in cosmography, for what he had read in
Ptolemy and other books, and especially for his profound knowledge of John de Mandeville's writings.
From the silence of Bernaldez as to Vespucius's
would-be discoveries, it may at least be concluded
that the Florentine's voyages were insignificant as
compared to those of Columbus and other navigators,
since they did not seem worthy of mention to an
author, who yet was so well informed as to Columbus, that he even cites by name the works which
powerfully influenced the mind of that great man.
And this silence is the more remarkable, because we
are assured by Bernaldez that he habitually set down
in his books the facts as fast as they happened.4
But, then, how did it happen that his work, which
was finished in 1513, contains no notice of the Florentine's feigned discoveries, notwithstanding the numerous publications in which they had already been
I Memorias de los Reyes Catolicos, a manuscript in M. Ternaux's
Library. It is in folio, and contains 246 chapters. Bernaldez, in
these memoirs, recounts a great number of events that happened in
his time, that is from 1450 to 1513.
2 Memorias, chap. 118, p. 372.
3 Bernaldez, MS.      4 Bernaldez, Memorias, chap. 158.




188          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
proclaimed? To this let it be added, that not a
single document can be found to prove that Vespucius was invited to Lisbon by the Portuguese sovereign, but that, on the contrary, it is an established
fact that Columbus was thus invited by John II. of
Portugal.1  And herein may there not have been
another mystification, either on the part of Vespucius himself, or of the editors of the letters attributed
to him, whereby what was true of the Admiral is put
down to his account?
We will indicate yet another singular coincidence
which exists between what Vespucius says and what
Las Casas recounts.2
The former, in one of his letters, asserts that he
had given to king Emmanuel, of Portugal, a book,
containing a narrative of his voyage, which book was
lost.3 And the latter tells us, that when Columbus
left Barcelona he deposited with the king, to be kept
in the royal archives, a little book, in which were
recorded his expeditions and discoveries, - another
instance, ve ry possibly, of the same juggle or confusion, by which what indubitably belonged to Columbus was appropriated by Vespucius. And have we
1 Letter, dated 20th March, 1488, in Navarrete, vol. ii. p. 5.
Vespucius says that when at Seville, he was sent for by the king of
Portugal. The letter also from John II. to Columbus, is also addressed
to the Admiral, who was then at Seville: - To Christopher Qolumbus,
our specialfriend, in Seville.
2 Historia de las Indias, chap. 83.
3 See preceding remarks in this work.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 189
not, at least, a right to surmise this, when, in the invaluable work of M. de Humboldt, we see it demonstrated, by comparing the text of the first voyage of
Vespucius with that of the first voyage of Hojeda,1
that, though the latter is attributed to the Florentine,
they are one and the same, but narrated by Vespucius, who added a description of the manners and
customs of the aborigines, according to the custom
of navigators of the sixteenth century? The second
voyage, too, of this Florentine, is it not almost identical in reality with that of Vicente Yafiez Pinzon? 2
We are willing to admit that the letters and narratives imputed to Vespucius were in fact written by
him; but, after this discussion, what ought to be said
as to the materials out of which they were made?
Should we not conclude that, though Vespucius was
the recorder, the discoveries, and the groundwork of
what he relates, belong to the voyages of Hojeda
and Pinzon, and that he did nothing but give an account of them  in his letters to the Medici3 and to
1 See Examen Critique, vol. iv. p. 95, et seqq.
2 Ibid. p. 200, et seqq.
3 We have already essayed the identification of this personage.
Now let it be supposed that it was Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de'
Medici, indicated by Bandini. He was born in 1463, and was very
celebrated for his learning. This author says he had been ambassador
in France in the time of Charles VIII. But, unfortunately for the hypothesis, he died at the beginning of 1503, and the narrative of the
third of Vespucius's pretended voyages, which is supposed to have been
addressed to him, was written subsequently to the fourth expedition of
1504. Now, Vespucius arrived at Lisbon, according to his own account, the 18th or 28th of June, 1504, that is, nearly a year and a half




190           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Soderini, insinuating, however, in certain passages,
that he took an important share in them, or rather
assuming the entire merit of them to himself? 1
His famous letter dated at Pape Vert, the 4th of
June, 1501, found  by the Count Baldelli Boni,2
which has been adduced in evidence of his good
faith, presents an additional argument to strengthen
what we have advanced, as well as what Las Casas
asserts. We have already shown that the documents pertaining to Vespucius which have reached
us, offer every characteristic of having been forged,
or, to say the least, of being doubtful as to their
genuineness; and a healthy criticism demands the
greatest circumspection and the most conscientiously
severe examination of manuscripts, before admitting
such in evidence.  It is requisite, therefore, palkeographically to scrutinize the epoch at which the original
of the production in question was digested, to ascertain whether the handwriting be authentic or that of
a mere copyist of later date, whether there be any
interpolations, and, in a word, what, if any, marks of
fraud are to be found.  These observations are not
after the death of the Medici, and it is not at all likely that, when such
a long time had elapsed after the decease of a personage as highly distinguished in politics as in literature, the Italian savants at Lisbon
should have known nothing of it.
1 It is the astronomer of the espedition who thus speaks, wholly
puffed up with the secret he.fancied he possessed of determininfg the
longitude, &c. &c. See Humboldt's Examen Critique, vol. iv. p. 182.
2 I1 Millone of Marco Polo, by Count Baldelli Boni.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  191
made with any idea of regarding the document we
are considering, in a spirit of narrow prejudice; for
the savant who discovered it in the manuscript of
Pietro Voglienti, would not have given publicity to it
if he had been of our opinion as to its character.
Nevertheless, supposing it to be genuine, we will
say in the words of M. de Humboldt,l that in every
thing which concerns the Florentine navigator there
is a sort of fatality mixed up with documents the
most authentic, for the express purpose, as it were,
of creating confusion. And as to this letter of Vespucius, which some would avail themselves of to decide in a positive manner respecting his third voyage,
and to prove that he had passed the fiftieth degree
of south latitude, we will remark, that it is by no
means exempt from the same anomalies and serious
difficulties which have been pointed out by critics
in his other epistles previously published in collections of voyages and in Bandini's work.
Here, for example, is a passage intricate to the
last degree, and not susceptible of any satisfactory
explanation: -" After twenty days of navigation,
from the time of quitting Cape Vert, having made
nearly seven hundred leagues, I landed where the
inhabitants were white. It was a part of the same
territory which I had discovered for the king of Castile,2 as in a previous letter I have already said, but
1 Examen Critique, vol. v. p. 166.
2 Note to the same, vol. v. p. 32. Brazil is mentioned in Pinzon's
and Vespucius's voyage of 1499 and 1500.




192         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
it is further to the east." Now, on the one hand, if
it be Brazil of which he here speaks, the aborigines
of that country were not white; 1 and, on the other,
how is it to be decided what this land is, east of that
which Pinzon had discovered? Here, again, Vespucius takes to himself the credit of the last mentioned navigator's discovery, saying, without the
least reserve, the same land which I discovered,
when he could have seen it only in the preceding
voyage, under the command of Pinzon; and yet he
declares the land was found by himself for the king
of Castile! What reliance, then, can be placed
either in his honesty of intention or in what he states,
when he does not so much as allude to Pinzon or the
expedition in which he beheld the said land, but, on
the contrary, assumes to himself the title of discoverer?
The letter in question, moreover, exhibits, like his
others, an immense number of errors upon the latitudes noted, as well as upon the distances run; and
the nomenclature of the principal factories (comptoirs) of India, which would have added a great
deal to its interest, he had from some one employed
in the Portuguese marine. This same nomenclature,
it should be observed, was preceded by another, likewise Portuguese, and yet antecedent to the letters
of Vespucius, which was found in the chart-book of
Vasco da Gama's voyage in 1497, the manuscript
of which has recently been met with in Portugal.
1 Examen Critique, vol. v. p. 38, note second.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 193
Another observation, important, though in a different sense, as it regards this letter, is that the
illustrious author of the Examen Critique, after having cited Navarrete's conclusions upon Vespucius's
third voyage, (the final words of which are these:'" Vespucius cannot be named as having discovered
the lands, - the southern part of the New World,
- and as having been the first to enter the seas beyond the tropic of Capricorn." 1) adds, -" I perfectly agree with M. de Navarrete in this opinion;
nay, I think it is in my power to fortify it with arguments," etc.
Now, if Vespucius did not go beyond the tropic,
that is, if it be admitted that he went no further than
the twenty-third degree of south latitude, it follows
that neither he nor his narratives supplied the geographical elements with which Beneventano and Cotta were furnished, which are found in the Ptolemy of
1508, and which we have above cited, being the
same which provided those editors with the following
note: - -" The Portuguese mariners examined this
portion of this land, as high up as the fiftieth degree
of south latitude; but yet they did not arrive at its
southern extremity." It follows, also, that the Florentine, not having got further than the tropic of
Capricorn, could not have encountered floating ice.
So that every conjecture founded on the suppo1 Examen Critique, vol. i. pp. 71 & 72; and Navarrete, vol. iii.
pp. 318, 320.
13




194         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
sition that he approached the pole, is deprived of
support.
This famous letter, too, proves more strongly than
any other, the presumptuous silliness of its author,
the contempt he entertained for other navigators, and
how, in extolling himself to his friends and countrymen living abroad he took their credulity by surprise, and led them to believe that he was the man
of discoveries, the most learned of cosmographers,
and the greatest savant of his time. In it, when
speaking of his rencounter with Cabral's vessels
which had arrived from India, he begins by expressing his regret that the mariners on,board of the two
vessels there anchored were able to give him so little instruction, because there was not a single cosmographer or mathematician in either of them, which
was a great mistake.  But;this mistake, our cosmographer proposes to remedy by introducing in the
narrative given to him by these marines, certain corrections in accordance with the cosmography of Ptolemy! And, not satisfied with this piece of pedantry,
he first enumerates the many countries which the
vessels he met with at Cape Vert had visited, to wit,
the Cape of Good Hope, Sofala, Mozambique, Quiloa, Mombaza, Melinda, Magadoxo, Dabul, Albarcorne near Cape Guardafui, the Red Sea, Moca,
Malacca, Ceylon, and Sumatra; and then he thus
speaks:- -" I have, besides, myself the hope of seeing and visiting in my turn, during the voyage in




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 195
which I am now engaged, most of the places which
I have just mentioned." After having suffered this
slight escape of jealousy against the navigators of
his day to take place, he more fully develops his
entire thought in the following passages: - " I will
even discover more, of which on my return I will
write a good and true account."... "It is,"
says he, speaking of longitudes, " an arduous task
in a widely different sense, and one which few persons understand, except those who can deny themselves sleep.".... "1 For the sake of these
resolves, I have often sacrificed my slumber, and my
life I have shortened by ten years; a sacrifice which,
IN  THE HOPE OF OBTAINING A RENOWN WHICH
SHALL LAST FOR AGES, I do not regret," etc.
The passages found in this letter of Vespucius,
when compared with what we have already analyzed
of his in this work, appear to justify the assertions
of Las Casas; and, in truth, the words of the Florentine unveil his inmost thought, which profoundly
manifests the desire of making himself the monopolist of discoveries. If other navigators had visited
lands never seen by him, little value had their-discoveries in his eyes; because, forsooth, they had
no cosmographer or mathematician to describe them,
or, in other words, because he himself had not been
of their party. Not only does he never praise any
contemporary navigator, but he even abstains from
mentioning one of them by name. Thus, in the let



196           RESEARCHES RESPECTING
ter so often referred to, he might have spoken of
Cabral; but no, he says nothing of him. He minutely relates, that the two vessels he encountered
at Cape Vert were on their return from the East
Indies, and that they had formed part of the fleet of
thirteen vessels sent to Calicut (Madras) fourteen
months before. He could not, consequently, have
been ignorant that they had belonged to the fleet
commanded by Cabral, who the preceding year discovered Brazil. And, therefore, nothing was more
natural for him, had he acted in good faith, than,
when transmitting all these details, to add, one of
the thirteen vessels sent to Calicut fourteen months
ago, and belonging'to the fleet commanded by Cabral, who had discovered the land, or at least
landed on it, etc. For it is to be presumed that,
having left Lisbon, as he says he did, the 13th of
May, 1501, when everybody in Portugal already
was informed of Cabral's discovery of Brazil, he
could not but have been aware of the same, and of
the Admiral's name who was the author of it.' Ac1 We must here remark, in spite of the coincidence of the departure
and return of Vespucius in this voyage (as set down in the Quatuor
Navigationea of Ilacomilus) with the departure and return of an expedition cited by Antonio Galvao, in a work called Tratado dos Descobrimentos, - that this author of the sixteenth century, when speaking
of an expedition composed of three vessels, from Lisbon in May, 1501,
says not a word of Vespucius. Consequently, although there is this
coincidence of dates, there is no confirmation, by this author, of Vespucius's voyage, while the discovery of Cabral is perfectly well established.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 197
counts of this discovery had been brought to. Lisbon,
by a Captain Gaspar de Lemos, whom Cabral sent
from Brazil in the early part of May, 1500; so that
Vespucius must necessarily have known of it on his
departure, which took place a year later. But he
invariably affects a complete ignorance of all that
other navigators had done before him.
Now, we wish to ask those who sustain this Florentine in his honesty of purpose, and pretend that
his intentions in regard to Columbus's discoveries
were pure, saying that he never designed the appropriation of these to himself, how it happens that the
name of Columbus is never found in all his letters
but once, and that only when he speaks of Antillia?
Is it probable, that in 1501 he knew nothing of that
admiral's three voyages already accomplished, nor
of his having discovered the main land? He assigns
him but a poor part in the work of discovery; and
in the single instance where he mentions his name,
it is not with the slightest reference to his grand
discovery of Terra Firma, although he must have
very well known that Paria had been found by him.
Why, then, did he speak of him only once, and that
in relation to an island?
It may be objected, that had the Florentine been
bent on despoiling the Genoese of his glory, he would
not have written with the looseness which is perceptible in his letters. And it is even pretended that
these were never intended for publication.  But




198         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
need any one be told that it is by secret means that
good faith is the most easily surprised, and that clandestine communications and notes never destined for
publicity, are the instruments where with vast intrigues are digested and prepared? And was not such
a thing the most to be apprehended at an epoch when
discussion did not prevail, and when, as Bossi'most
truly observes, charlatans and impostors abounded?
A like argument, then, can in no way whatever
justify Vespucius; and particularly as no one can
affirm that his letters were not intended for publication; but, on the contrary, it is adverse to him, seeing that they were given to the public during his
lifetime. For, in fact, the letter of his we have
been speaking of, first appeared in 1504, and then
again in 1505, with this title: —De  Ora Antarctica per Regem Portugallice pridemn inventa, impressurnm Argentine, per Miathiam Hupfuff. In 1506
it was printed in German, and in 1507 it was found
in the collection of Vicenza. During the same year
(1507) it was presented in the famous Cosmographice Introductio of Ilacomilus, together with an
account of the four pretended voyages of the Florentine.  In 1508, his letters came forth to the
world once more, in a collection called, Paesi novamente retrovati, etc., published at Vicenza, and also
in the Itinerarium Portugallensium, of Madrignano.
In 1509, too, they were inserted in the Cosmographice Introductio, published at Strasburg, by




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 199
Gruninger; and in 1510 there was a letter from the
press of Tritemio, entitled, The Globe laid out on a
plain surface, with islands and regions newly discovered by Americus Vestpucius, of Spain.
Now, Vespucius died the 22d of February, 1512,
and if he had not intended that his letters to his
friends should be published, he would without doubt
have disavowed such publicity, for he had plenty
of time in which to do it. But, instead of this, inasmuch as there existed relations between him and
the inventor of the name of America, that is, Ilacomilus, he indirectly consented to the injustice committed against Columbus, in the same way as he had
approved of the publication of his letters.'
It has been attempted, too, to construct an argument in favor of Vespucius, from the fact that at
the time of the Admiral's death, an account of the
pretended third voyage of the Florentine had been
printed, which treated of the two preceding ones.
But it is sufficient, in our opinion, to meet this, that
the name of America not having been imposed during the lifetime of Columbus, the Admiral could not
complain of the flagrant wrong done to his righteous
claims. And, indeed, what offence could he have
taken at the publication of Vespucius's first voyage,
that is, the one made under the command of Hojeda,
1 On the relations which existed between Vespucius and Ilacomilus
by Lorraine, see a note by M. de Humboldt, in the Bulletin of the
Geographical Society, vol. iv. p. 412, second series.




200         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
when this captain did not go to the new continent
till subsequently to himself? Did he not know that
such a publication could do no harm to his glory;
since it was impossible for him to foresee that facts
would be falsified after his death?
Another argument which may be adduced in support of Vespucius's having landed in Brazil, is a
certain passage in the relation of Empoli, in Ramusio; but should it not weigh seriously on every opinion formed at Florence and elsewhere in his favor,
the effect produced by the correspondence of his
compatriots established in Spain and Portugal, who,
through national partiality, would try to persuade
those to whom they wrote that Vespucius had played
an important part in discovery? And does not the
history of discoveries of all sorts, even in our days,
prove how disputatiously every nation claims priority
for those who belong to it?
It must be observed that Empoli was, like Vespucius, a Florentine, and that the vessel in which he
sailed, though forming part of the Portuguese fleet,
had been armed by the Marchionis, Florentine merchants established in Lisbon. It is to be presumed,
then, that such persons, whether doing business in
Lisbon or Seville, actuated by a sentiment far from
being unworthy if just, were well disposed to claim
for their countryman a great portion of fame, in
opposition to that acquired by the great Genoese.
And it should be recollected that, at the time of




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 201
which we speak, the rivalries of the Italian republics
were not yet at an end.
Be this as it may, however, if Empoli in his narrative, when speaking of Vespucius, says that the
expedition, in which he was himself, landed on the
same continent previously discovered by that navigator, this passage, supposing it not to be a later interpolation in the text of the copy published by Ramasio several years after it was written,1 cannot call in
doubt the priority in discovery of the southern part
of the New Continent by Pinzon, Lepe, and Cabral,
even admitting the genuineness of Ramusio's publication. In fact, it is incredible that Empoli, who
sailed from Lisbon the 6th of April, 1503, in the
expedition of Alphonso de Albuquerque, could have
been ignorant of the discovery of Brazil by Cabral
three years before. For how is it possible that,
being on board of a Portuguese fleet, he could remain
unaware that the land he was visiting had been found
out by a Portuguese Admiral at a time so little remote from that of his own landing? Does not the
very name of Vera Cruz which he gives to Brazil,
prove that he knew this land had been discovered by
Cabral, since it was Cabral who thus called it from
the moment he first saw it?
1 Has it not been seen that modern sites, of which the latitude and
longitude were supposed to be known, have been interpolated in the
tables of Ptolemy, and inscribed on charts drawn by this geographer
of Alexandria?




202        RESEARCHES RESPECTING
If this passage of Empoli's be compared with
others contained in the letters of Pascoaligo, Venetian ambassador at Lisbon, and with another of the
Venetian Domenico Cretico, neither of whom attributes to Vespucius the discovery in question, must
not what he says be regarded as very suspicious?
It is certainly much less worthy of credit than the
testimony of two official agents of the Venetian republic, both of them contemporaries, added to the
demonstrated fact that the said discovery was made
by Cabral.  So that we do not hesitate to believe
that an impartial criticism will admit the authenticity
of passages found in the Venetian agents' documents,
since they correspond with facts, rather than of a
faulty statement in the account of Empoli, who, to
secure the glory of an Italian, said nothing of
Pinzon, Lepe, or Cabral.
Yet a third argument, brought forward in vindication of Vespucius's intentions, is, that if he had
himself contributed to impose his name on the New
Continent, Ferdinand Columbus, so jealous of his
father's fame, would, without doubt, have complained
of it, and so much the more, as he finished his book
in 1533. And this, negative argument as it is, has
some importance, though it is far from furnishing any
satisfactory proof of Vespucius's honesty of purpose.
For, in the first place, Ferdinand Columbus's book
has not reached us in the original, but only in a
Spanish retranslation, by Barcia, from an Italian




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 203
version of it by Alonso de Ulloa. Then Las Casas,
who produced it anew, almost word for word, treats
Vespucius as an impostor, notwithstanding its author
makes no reproach against him. And, moreover, in
the year 1533, when this work of Ferdinand Columbus's was terminated, the name of Americus Vespucius had not generally been admitted into chartography, that is, priority in the discovery of the New
Continent was invariably assigned to the Admiral in
all geographical charts up to 1520; and it was only
in one found in the Solinus of Camers, published in
this year, that the great discoverer's son could have
possibly seen for the first time the name of America
applied to the western world. But, connected with
this name, he must also have found a note, attributing
to his father the earliest discovery of that vast continent, in these words: Acting under the orders of
the king of Castile, Columbus, a Genoese, discovered
this land and the acajaent islands in the year 1497.
It is very likely, too, that Ferdinand Columbus
knew nothing of this chart of the Solinus of Camers;
and besides it, no other one, that we are aware of,
with the name of America upon it, was published
between 1520 and 1533, — the year when his work
was finished. Consequently he could have been acquainted with but a single one bearing this denomination, -a denomination, moreover, very far from
being clear and definite, for to it is attached the
word Province, nor is it applied to the whole of the




204            RESEARCHES, ETC.
immense continent. Added to which, in juxtaposition, is the above remarkable note, establishing his
great father's prior right to discovery, a circumstance greatly calculated to palliate the painful impression which must have been produced upon his
mind by the chart in question, if in fact it ever fell
under his notice.
But, however this may be, we are inclined to believe that the silence of Ferdinand Columbus in
respect to Vespucius, of which some would avail
themselves for the latter's justification, is in no way
decisive and will profit nothing, especially as he likewise observed great circumspection and reserve on
other matters of vast importance, which must have
been known to him, such as, for example, his family
and the country which gave his father birth.  He
limits himself to telling what other people's opinions
were, but his own he says nothing about.




CHAPTER VII.
WE will now proceed to make some remarks upon
the nature of the arguments adduced by the partisans of Vespucius, which may be of service in
enlightening the mind of the reader. Robertson
disputes the truth of the Florentine navigator's narratives, on the ground of Oviedo the historian's never
making mention of him. But from this silence others have arrived at a directly opposite conclusion,
pretending that Oviedo, being hostile to the Admiral, was not unwilling thus tacitly to confirm the
claims of Vespucius. So much liberty, then, being
taken by others in the way of interpretation, for the
sake of drawing foregone conclusions, we too, in our
turn, propose to add a remark or two in the matter.
The probability is that Oviedo was indisposed to
mention Vespucius's pretended discoveries, because
he would not violate the truth of history, and because
he was well aware that nobody in Spain would have
believed any thing which could be said in favor of
that navigator in direct opposition to an universally
acknowledged fact, that is, the first discovery of the
New Continent by Columbus. Or, it may be, that
the historian's guarded reserve as to the Florentine
and his affairs, proves that in Spain no account what



206         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
ever was made of one or the other, and that even
when attention happened to be turned in the direction of foreign publications respecting them, it was
only for the purpose of refuting the claims of Vespucius and his panegyrists, as was done by that great
historian Las Casas.
Among these conjectures the reader will select
that which best pleases him. The first and the
second we have cited to show how difficult, if not
impossible, has become the task of justifying Vespucius for those who praise him. It has also been
attempted to draw a conclusion favorable to his rectitude of purpose, from a few commendatory words
found in Ramusio. But this author's eulogium is,
in our opinion, quite inadequate to the vindication of
the Florentine's motives, and much less is it capable
of giving to his narratives the impress of truth.
Ramusio was indeed the most learned compiler of
his age, but he never had submitted to his inspection
the documents we are acquainted with, nor did he
ever discuss the questions which the moderns have
raised respecting the Florentine navigator and his
fabulous expeditions. In addition to which, he was
an Italian, and we do not think that his panegyric
upon the extraordinary intellect and splendid genius
of the excellent seignior Americus, can reduce to a
nullity what is said against Vespucius by Las Casas,
Schoner,1 and Herrera.
1 The astronomer Schoner makes known his suspicions of the fraud




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 207
Moreover, the work of Las Casas, wherein there
is question  of Vespucius, the invaluable History of
the Indies, had not then, nor has it even yet, been
published. Ramusio, therefore, was unacquainted
with the objections which authorities like Las Casas,
and after him other learned Spaniards, have made
to the tenor of Vespucius's narrations, and even to
the honesty of his intentions.   So that an impartial
critic will allow more weight to the words of the
latter than to those of the former, whose laudatory
practised by Vespucius. See a little geographical work of Joannis
Schonerii, Carolostadi Opusculum  Geographicum, ex diversorum
Libris et Chartis Collectum. Nuremburg, 1533, ch. xx. and xxi., and
sect. xi. His testimony respecting Vespucius is very important, notwithstanding the errors of his systematic geography. Born in 1477, he
died in 1547. He filled a mathematical chair at Nuremburg. His
astronomical tables, which were published after those of Regiomontanus, and which were called Resolutcc, because of their perspicuity,
made for him a celebrated name. He wrote a mass of works, some
of which are in the Royal Library of Paris. His little geographical
treatise (Opusculum Geographicum) he composed according to the
books and charts of his time, at which epoch he could already appreciate the question pertaining to the name imposed upon the New Continent, and equally well could he foresee the great injustice thereby
done in defiance of the evidence of facts and the rights of Columbus.
It is not, however, these two contemporaries of Vespucius alone,
Schoner and Las Casas, and Herrera besides, (whose sources of information, too, were authentic,) that accuse that navigator; but to those
writers already cited by us, we must add others still who decide
against him and his claims, such as Mosquera de Varumbo, Numantina, ch. x. fol. 74; Malvenda, ch. xvi.; Charles Etienne, in his Dictionary, word America; Solorzana, De Indiarum Jure, etc. lib. i.
c. 4; L' Eveque, in his works, passim; Fr. Antonio de la Calanca,
Chronic. de Santo Agustinho nel Perv. Book i. ch. iv. fol. 28;
Father Manoel de la Vega, in his work, Historia del Descobrimiento
de la America por Cristobal Colon.




208         RESEARCHES RESPECTING
assertions in regard to the Florentine, we will maintain, are of less importance in the present discussion
even than the statements of Herrera.
We are perfectly aware of the attempt to undervalue the accusations contained in these statements,
so hostile to Vespucius, on the ground that Herrera's
De]cades, not having appeared till towards the beginning of the seventeenth century, are outside of that
limit within which the opinions of the learned are
worthy of consideration as materials for critical history. And it is indeed true that, according to the
rules of such history, the importance of an historian's
assertions, who was not contemporary of the facts he
reports, becomes proportionally less, while he himself
can never occupy the same place as another not
laboring under this disadvantage; but it is likewise
true, that this rule can at no time be admitted to the
fullest extent, without risking the rejection of very
many works, which constitute the authenticity of
history, although often both written and published
several centuries subsequently to the events they
describe. Should many passages, and facts in great
number detailed by Heroditus, Strabo, Pliny the
elder, and other authors of antiquity, he refused as
worthless, because these authors were not actual
witnesses of what they relate? Most assuredly not.
Herrera then ought to be ranked among the historians of the sixteenth century, although his work
was not published till the year 1601; since his in



AMERICUS'VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 209
formation was obtained from sources purely authentic
and antecedent to that epoch, for which reason his
opinion in the case of Vespucius is very conclusive.
And if it be necessary to reject him as an authority
on account of his having lived and written only
during the latter portion of the century of discoveries, how can the historians and critics of the nineteenth century, who have engaged in this debate, and
who have more than two hundred years of separation
between them  and Herrera, venture to constitute
themselves as authorities in a discussion so important? But we think that a careful examination of
this learned writer's works will suffice to convince
every one that, if his statements ought not to command the same confidence as those of Las Casas,
they should, at least, occupy the very next place
after them on the score of historic value. For the
truth is, that this laborious writer accomplished a
mass of works which demonstrate the vast extent of
his information respecting the affairs and events that
occurred in his time. And even to the present day'
he has always been regarded as one of the best, most
conscientious, and most impartial of Spanish histo1 It was only the paradoxical Canovai that attacked Herrera; but
this celebrated historian found at Florence a savant whose defence of
him was unanswerable. See Mariano Llorente, Saggio Apologetico
degli Storici e Conquistatori Spagnuoli dell' America, Florence, 1796,
passimn. Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, vol. iii. p. 56. London
1838.
14




210            RESEARCHES RESPECTING
rians.1 His history enjoyed the rare privilege of
being declared official by a decree of the Council of
State, and what he says, therefore, upon the subject
before us should be received as genuine.
Yet another argument brought to aid the cause of
Vespucius is, that, in the famous process of the exchequer against Columbus, to  which all contemporary navigators were cited to depose in opposition to
the Admiral, he himself was not called upon, nor
were those books which had been published in foreign
countries respecting him, made any use of in the
preparatory judicial informations. But to this it
may be replied, either that the exchequer did not
require him to make his deposition in the matter, because it regarded him as a party interested, and
therefore liable to suspicion, (which according to
every rule and law of jurisprudence must have nullified the whole procedure,) or, that, he never having made the discoveries treated of in the works
published abroad, and never having been the first to
find out Paria, the exchequer or attorney-general
1 M. de Humboldt, Examen Critique, vol i. p. 297, recognizes the
authority of Herrera in these words: " Two works, the authority of
which cannot be called in qu.estion, the Decades of Antonio de He7rrera,
and the Manuscript of Pigafelta." And if the authority of Herrera
cannot be called in question as to Martin de Behain, a navigator who
preceded Vespucius, how can it be when Vespucius himself is concerned? Indeed, if Herrera had, without doubt, the original notes of
the pilot of Magellan's expedition before his eyes, how can it be suspected that he was not exceedingly well informed as to the Florentine's discoveries?




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 211
saw fit, leaving him aside, to demand the presence,
as witnesses, only of such navigators as had visited
the countries in question, and were, therefore, better
able than Vespucius to ascertain the exact period
when the discovery of Terra Firma took place. To
which we will add that, whatever might have been
the exchequer's acquaintance with books upon Vespucius's discoveries, printed in Italy, Lorraine, and
other foreign countries, it was impossible to admit
them  as legal evidence, (they not being Spanish
publications,) in a process conducted within the
kingdom of Spain, and according to the national
code of procedure; consequently, it should in no
way surprise us that not the slightest attention was
paid to them.1 And the exclusion of Vespucius
from this process, during the whole of which his
name is only once mentioned, and that with the
modest title of pilot annexed to it, proves nothing
definitely, except it be that all eyes in Spain were
fixed upon the grand and noble figure of Columbus,
upon the man whose genius had brought to light a
New World!
To show how free from guile was the Florentine
navigator, it has been further argued that he always
had the notion of arriving in Asia, when on his voy1 In the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella jurisprudence in Spain
underwent a great reform. The laws were executed with severe
impartiality, and even the tribunals were newly organized and a new
code published.




212          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
age to the new continent, and that this fact alone
ought to convince us that the discovery of the said
continent did not enter into his views.1 But it must
be observed, that at the time of this famous discovery
it was the common belief of all navigators that the
newly-found continent made part of Asia, - an error
in systematic geography which for a long time afterward prevailed, but which, nevertheless, did not
prevent these same navigators from believing, and
publicly proclaiming in their works, that they had discovered countries never visited by any one before.
Then again, how could any one have expected
to find in the letters of Vespucius, written during
the lifetime of Columbus, that this land ought to
be called by his name? There are many things
a man suffers to be divined, which he dares not
put on paper; he delights to see them  adroitly
managed and published by others, but from touching them himself he carefully refrains. Yet, be
this as it may, there is not less truth in the assertion
that, even while Vespucius believed the new continent to be only a portion of Asia, he was equally
convinced that his expeditions to the New World
were real discoveries. The mere quotation of his
words is quite sufficient, in our eyes, to substantiate
what we have said; and we would only call to mind
1 Canovai, the great panegyrist of Vespucius, has drawn a conclusion
altogether contrary to the expressions of the navigator himself, when
he says that he had discovered a great deal of Terra Firma, and islands
without number.




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 213
the single passage in which, speaking of a Portuguese
expedition to Africa, he says,-  A  voyage like that
I do not call a discovery. 1 In his second expedition,
he pretends that he discovered a boundless territory;
1 The learned Portuguese geometrician, Pedro Nunes, demonstrated
in his book, Defensam da Carta de Mariar, that the discoveries of
islands and main lands by the Portuguese were made on a scientific
system, and that no navigator ever left Portugal without being well
instructed in astronomy and geometry, and well furnished with suitable instruments. (See a memoir, by the author, upon the scientific
acquirements of John de Castro, Bulletin of the Geographical Society,
vol. x. p. 220.)
The Portuguese expeditions, therefore, were profoundly calculated,
and scientifically directed, according to the principles of cosmography
and geography. (See Ribeiro, Memoirs of the Royal Academy of
Sciences at Lisbon, vol. viii. p. 169.)
The accusations of Vespucius against Portuguese navigators are
unjust, and show how, on every occasion, his jealousy of them leaked
out. According to many documents, and accounts of contemporary
authors, it is manifest that the Portuguese government determined
the fitting out of expeditions consonant to ideas and plans previously
arranged and known. And, in fact, if we go as far back in search of
scientific projects as to the establishment of the famous Nautical Academy of Sagres, long before the birth of Vespucius, it will be seen that,
even supposing him to have been in the Portuguese service, this Florentine did no more than execute, under a Portuguese commander,
designs purely Portuguese.
M. Ranke has lately found in the Archives of Venice, a letter which
proves that, even previously to Columbus's voyage to Honduras and
Veragua, in the month of October, 1501, it was already known in
Portugal, that territories to the north covered with snow and ice, were
contiguous to the Antilles, and to the land of the Perroquets, newly
discovered. This land is situated near Brazil. (See this passage in
the Examen Critique of M. de Humboldt, vol. iv. p. 262.)
Now, this curious document shows that, in Portugal, the information on so grave and important a point was excellent, and that the
communications and geographical data could not have been furnished
to the court of Lisbon by Vespucius, since he did not return till the




214             RESEARCHES RESPECTING
elsewhere, he  calls this territory a new  world, and
adds, Three ships are fitting out for me here, that I
may go on a new  voyage of discovery.
Thus, on bringing these, and a great number of
other passages, previously cited, into one view, and
on examining the whole discussion at once, it will be
perceived  that the  words  disco2rire  and  Mundo
Nuovo, which Vespucius employs, ought not to prove
beyond dispute the sincerity of his intentions. On
the contrary, his expressions seem intended to persuade those persons to whom his letters were adfollowing year. (1502.) And, too, the fact we are going to state proves
that the said court was under no necessity of inviting him in 1501,
(as he pretends,) for the sake of finding out new countries, after the
discovery made by Cabral. Scarcely had King John II. learned the
discovery of Columbus, when he commis-ioned the Count d'Abrantes.
in 1493, (the same year,) to examine the new countries thus found.
(See Barros, decade i. book iii. ch. 2, and Humboldt, Examen Critique,
vol. v. p. 96.) Examine, also. the letter addressed to the Cardinal, Archbishop of Porto, published by Pedro Aflbnso Malheiro. In the work
of Father Manoel de la Vega, (Historia del Descobrimiento de la America Septentrional,) published for the first time in Mexico, in 1826, by
Bustamente,-the author, speaking of Columbus's third voyage,
(1498,) says it was that navigator's intention to sail toward the south,
beyond the equinoctial line, and thence to go west, so as to ascertain
if King John of Portugal was mnistaken in a/irmi-ng that there was
terra firma at the south. Even before this sovereign's accession to
the throne, his father, Alphonso V. had consulted a famous Florentine
astronomer, Toscanelli, (1474,) as to a western passage to the land
where the spices grow. And in the letter of the latter we have a proof
that the Portuguese were occupied with a western passage to the Indies more than twenty years before the discovery of America. Already, too, previously to 1464, John Vaz Corlereal, accompanied by
Alonzo Martins Hornem, discovered the land of b'acalhaos. (See Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Lisbon, vol. viii. p. 309.)




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES.  215
dressed that he had really discovered new lands, or,
in one word, a new world.
Thus, we have gone through with the examination
and discussion of all the arguments brought forward
in vindication of Vespucius's honesty of purpose,
and to them we have opposed our own; from all
which we think it results, that the former are not
beyond the reach of attack, and, by consequence, are
a failure; and, moreover, that an irresistible fatality
seems to attend every attempt to sustain the honesty
of that navigator. The feebleness, too, of all that
has been adduced in his behalf, as shown in what
has gone before, serves but to augment the fame of
Columbus's genius, and to paint in still stronger
colors the flagrant injustice committed against that
great man.
Bat all that has been, or that may be, said about
the intentions of Vespucius, notwithstanding its importance, as relating to the knavery of having fixed
his name on a portion of the globe discovered by
Columbus, must be regarded as matter of a very
secondary nature; since the fundamental point in
dispute is, not what he meant or did not mean, but
whether he did or did not discover any part of the
new continent. Neither does the matter in hand
require demonstration of his having been engaged
in navigation, but it does of his having ever discovered any thing by himself, - of his having been




216            RESEARCHES  RESPECTING
the first to fall upon any one point of the new continent in an expedition under his direction and command, as was the case with Columbus, Pinzon, Lepe,
Cabral, Hojeda, and others.
Now, if it be admitted, in accordance with documents genuine beyond a question, that Columbus
before all others discovered the new continent,
(that is, the islands and Terra Firma,) as Pinzon did
also a portion of it, that Hojeda visited Venezuela,
that Lepe coasted along the shore south of the equator, that Cabral first saw  and landed in Brazil,1 and
that Coelho was the earliest discoverer of another
part of this vast country; if, too, it cannot be denied
that Vespucius's first voyage, the one he made under
Hojeda's command, together with his two following
fictitious expeditions, bear a most striking likeness
to those of Pinzon and Hojeda, while his fourth
resembles that of Coelho; 2 if all this be as we have
I Not only do none of the Portuguese historians of the sixteenth
century mention Vespucius, as we have said elsewhere, but the king,
Emmanuel, in his letter dated at Santarem, July 29th, 1501, to the
sovereigns of Spain, communicating to them Cabral's discovery, says
not a word of him.
2 We will here transcribe several very remarkable passages from the
Examen Critique of M. de Humboldt, (vol. v. pp. 211, 212.) After
having displayed a profound and vast erudition, and discussed the
narratives of Vespucius, comparing them with the accounts of
voyages by other navigators above mentioned, this savant concludes
in these terms;-"Considering the disjointed and extremely disorderly condition in which Vespucius's letters have reached us, it is
difficult to decide which were the several Spanish and Portuguese expeditions to which he was successively attached," etc. etc.  " It
appears to me probable, that his first voyage was made with Hojeda,




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 217
said, does there not arise from this mass of indisputable data, unanswerable evidence of abominable
wrong done not only to Columbus, but likewise to
other leading navigators of the time in which Vespucius lived? Indeed, if Brazil had been seen by
Pinzon, and then by Lepe in January of 1500, afterwards by Alonzo de Mendoza, and in April of the
same year by Cabral, whose discovery, at least, is a
historic truth, and if, on the other hand, Vespucius
never went to this country in command of an expedition, how can he possibly be ranked among the
discoverers of the new continent? To say that he
could be, would involve the most flagrant of contradictions.
It has been said that Vespucius in Pinzon's expedition saw a portion of the new Southern Continent
before ever Cabral beheld it. But granting this to
be true, he must have seen it only as others in the
same fleet saw it, and the meanest sailor of them all
had as much a right to claim the discovery as he.
No, the glory of the enterprise belonged, not to him,
but to his commander.  And this is so true that
Juan de la Cosa, his fellow voyager, did not say in
his famous chart, This cape was discovered by Vespucius, but, quite the contrary, for instead of even
so much as referring to him by name, he confirms
his second with Vicente Yanes Pinzon, and his fourth with Gonpalo
Coelho. But under what chief his third took place, we are as yet in
ignorance."




218          RESEARCHES RESPECTING
Pinzon's discovery in the note which we will transcribe anew, -  This cape was discovered in the year
1499, for Castile, Vicente Annes (Pinzon) being
the discoverer. He puts beyond doubt also the fact,
that the island of Ferdinand de Noronha was for the
first time seen by a Portuguese expedition of which
Vespucius did not form a part.
The Florentine's admirers presume to assert that
his memory ought to be held in reverence, because
he was so expert and clever; but we are not disposed to concede that, on such grounds, either justice or impartiality requires us, going upon conjecture
opposed to fact, to raise a monument to him for
achievements belonging to other persons.  And
when it is said that severity of judgment in respect
to him does not become us, and those who, like us,
class him among the lowest of navigators at the great
epoch of discoveries, because, forsooth, he was a
skilful cosmographer!  We reply,- granting he
was all that, so likewise was Strabo, so was Ptolemy,
and so were many others before him, skilful in a
very different sense from that in which he was, and
yet they never usurped the glory of another.
It is well worthy of remark, too, notwithstanding
the immense fame his partisans would claim for him,
that in 1512 (and this date is very important,) his
charts were of so little authority in Spain, that the
main map of Andre de Morales was the only one
recognized by the government as exact, and the only
one which was in great repute.




AMERICUS  VESPUCIUS, AND  HIS  VOYAGES. 219
But then, say some, Vespucius's descriptions of
savage manners and customs are well and amusingly
written; but so also, we answer, are certain narratives of the same sort, found in different coastaccounts given by pilots, whose names are hardly
known. Yet the question returns upon us, not
whether he was a good cosmographer or an agreeable narrator, but whether he was the discoverer it
is pretended he was. And before a learned and
impartial criticism his claims must fall to the ground.
In a single word, the brief and true statement
of the  case is this:  the  grand  discoveries  made
by Columbus, Hojeda, Pinzon, Lepe, Cabral, and
Coelho,' were real discoveries, confirmed and established by genuine proofs.   Their dates rest on docuI Claude Bartholomeo, in his Orbis.Maritimus, assures us that
Vespucius, in his voyage of 1501. discovered the Rio de la Plata, of
which there is not the least probability. And notwithstanding it has
been supposed that this navigator reached the fifty-second degree of
south latitude, a conjecture adopted by Mr. Southey, in his History of
Brazil, there is not the slightest likelihood of its being true. One
single remark is quite sufficient, in our eyes, to show how little confidence should be placed in a portion of Vespucius's narrative, touching
this pretended discovery, which is, the profound silence observed in
regard to it by all Spanish and Portuguese writers. For it is not credible that an expedition so adventurous and bold as the discovery of a
river, (which was made by Solis in the year 1515,) should have
remained unknown to Coelho in 1503, had it previously taken place.
Again, the return-of Gonlalo Coelho to Lisbon with two ships which
had escaped being wrecked, gives a direct contradiction to what Vespucius says in his second letter about the captain's death and his own
arrival at Lisbon in command of the two vessels.  Had it been so,
how was it that all his contemporaries knew nothing of the fact?




220             RESEARCHES RESPECTING
ments sure and certain, as M. de Humboldt truly
observes; while the dates in Vespucius's pretended
discoveries are deserving of no confidence whatever,
and are in contradiction with each other.' In all
material respects, as it has been remarked, the voyages of Vespucius and Hojeda correspond, but in the
account of the former the narrative is confused, the
succession of events is changed,2 and from the beginning to the end of it the reader is filled with perplexity,3  and  almost despair.4    His  astronomical
dates, too, which belong to the voyage he made
with Hojeda, are mixed up with his recital of that
in which he accompanied Pinzon.5 So that every
impartial person, who has followed us thus far, must
acknowledge how difficult, if not impossible, it is to
concede to Vespucius's relations the reputation of
authenticity, and will plainly perceive how all
1 See Examen Critique.                       2 See Ibid.
3 Ibid. vol. iv. p. 82. " I can in no way explain," says the author,
"Vespucius's dogmatical and confused description, except by the very
common phenomenon of a halo," &c.
4 See Ibid. vol. iv. p. 168. Where speaking of Vespucius's letter
dated at Lisbon, the author says: "Why did he confide to Benvenuto
a letter addressed to the king of Portugal?"  Which unaccountable
circumstance we point out for the sake of designating another strange
peculiarity in the Florentine's narrative.
5 "An astronomical date," remarks M. Humboldt, " the conjunction of the Moon and Mars, (August 23, 1499,) mixed tip with the
recital of Pinzon's voyage, when it doubtless belongs to that of Hojeda,
offers a very weighty, if not insurmountable, ditfculty. Could it have
got from one voyage to the other by accident?  Besides, it is not
referred to in the Quatuor XNavigatiownes, but is alone found in Vespucius's letter to Lorenzo de' Medici."




AMERICUS VESPUCIUS, AND HIS VOYAGES. 221
attempts made by his eulogists in his behalf have
hitherto failed.
Columbus, and other navigators above enumerated, have on their side facts, and authentic documents and records to support these facts; but as for
Vespucius, facts, documents, records, and even the
reasoning built upon these, all tell to his disadvantage, and only serve to set in a more frightful point
of view the gross iniquity committed against the
first great discoverer of the New World, and the farfamed mariners who were his immediate successors
in the glorious work.
END.