The Voyage of the Verrazzano | Page 8

Magliabechian manuscript was derived. The appearance of this last, which was prepared for some individual fond of collecting miscellaneous documents, if not by him, is a sufficient corroboration of our statement." [Footnote: Historical Studies: by George Washington Greene, New York, 1850; p. 323. Life and Voyages of Verrazzano (by the same), in the North American Review for October, 1837. (Vol. 45, p. 306).]
Adopting the Carli copy as the primitive form of the Verrazzano letter, and the Carli letter as the original means by which it has been communicated to the world, the inquiry is resolved into the authenticity of the Carli letter. There are sufficient reasons to denounce this letter as a pure invention; and in order to present those reasons more clearly, we here give a translation of it in full:
Letter of Fernando Carli to his Father. [Footnote: The letter of Carli was first published in 1844, with the discourse of Mr. Greene on Verrazzano, in the Saggiatore (I, 257), a Roman journal of history, the fine arts and philology. (M. Arcangeli, Discorso sopra Giovanni da Verrazzano, p. 35, in Archivio Storico Italiano. Appendice tom. IX.) It will be found in our appendix, according to the reprint in the latter work.]
In the name of God.
4 August, 1524.
Honorable Father:
Considering that when I was in the armada in Barbary at Garbich the news were advised you daily from the illustrious Sig. Don Hugo de Moncada, Captain General of the Caesarean Majesty in those barbarous parts, [of what] happened in contending with the Moors of that island; by which it appears you caused pleasure to many of our patrons and friends and congratulated yourselves on the victory achieved: so there being here news recently of the arrival of Captain Giovanni da Verrazzano, our Florentine, at the port of Dieppe, in Normandy, with his ship, the Dauphiny, with which he sailed from the Canary islands the end of last January, to go in search of new lands for this most serene crown of France, in which he displayed very noble and great courage in undertaking such an unknown voyage with only one ship, which was a caravel of hardly-- tons, with only fifty men, with the intention, if possible, of discovering Cathay, taking a course through other climates than those the Portuguese use in reaching it by the way of Calicut, but going towards the northwest and north, entirely believing that, although Ptolemy, Aristotle and other cosmographers affirm that no land is to be found towards such climates, he would find it there nevertheless. And so God has vouchsafed him as he distinctly describes in a letter of his to this S. M.; OF WHICH, IN THIS, THERE IS A COPY. And for want of provisions, after many months spent in navigating, he asserts he was forced to return from that hemisphere into this, and having been seven months on the voyage, to show a very great and rapid passage, and to have achieved a wonderful and most extraordinary feat according to those who understand the seamanship of the world. Of which at the commencement of his said voyage there was an unfavorable opinion formed, and many thought there would be no more news either of him or of his vessel, but that he might be lost on that side of Norway, in consequence of the great ice which is in that northern ocean; but the Great God, as the Moor said, in order to give us every day proofs of his infinite power and show us how admirable is this worldly machine, has disclosed to him a breadth of land, as you will perceive, of such extent that according to good reasons, and the degrees of latitude and longitude, he alleges and shows it greater than Europe, Africa and a part of Asia; ergo mundus novus: and this exclusive of what the Spaniards have discovered in several years in the west; as it is hardly a year since Fernando Magellan returned, who discovered a great country with one ship out of the five sent on the discovery. From whence be brought spices much more excellent than the usual; and of his other ships no news has transpired for five years. They are supposed to be lost. What this our captain has brought he does not state in this letter, except a very young man taken from those countries; but it is supposed he has brought a sample of gold which they do not value in those parts, and of drugs and other aromatic liquors for the purpose of conferring here with several merchants after he shall have been in the presence of the Most Serene Majesty. And at this hour he ought to be there, and from choice to come here shortly, as he is much desired in order to converse with