The Voyage of the Verrazzano | Page 6

not founded until 1627, its history cannot be traced before that year,
[Footnote: Der Italicum von D. Friedrich Blume. Baud II, 81. Halle,
1827.] Its chirography, however, in the opinion of some competent

persons who have examined it, indicates that it was written in the
middle of the sixteenth century. There is, therefore, nothing in the
history or character of the publication in Ramusio or the manuscript, to
show that the letter emanated from Verrazzano. Neither of them is
traceable to him; neither of them was printed at a time when its
publication, without contradiction, might be regarded as an admission
or acknowledgment by the world of a genuine original; and neither of
them is found to have existed early enough to authorize an inference in
favor of such an original by reason of their giving the earliest account
of the coasts and country claimed to have been discovered. On the
contrary, these two documents of themselves, when their nature and
origin are rightly understood, serve to prove that the Verrazzano letter
is not a genuine production. For this purpose it will be necessary to
state more fully their history and character.
The existence of the copy which, in consequence of its connection in
the same manuscript with that of the Carli letter, may be designated as
the Carli version, is first mentioned in an eulogy or life of Verrazzano
in the series of portraits of illustrious Tuscans, printed in Florence in
1767-8, as existing in the Strozzi library. [Footnote: Serie di Ritratti
d'Uomini Illustri Toscani con gli elogj istorici dei medesimi. Vol.
secondo Firenze, 1768.] The author calls attention to the fact, that it
contains a part of the letter which is omitted by Ramusio. In another
eulogy of the navigator, by a different hand, G. P. (Pelli), put forth by
the same printer in the following year, the writer, referring to the
publication of the letter of Ramusio, states that an addition to it,
describing the distances to the places where Verrazzano had been, was
inserted in writing in a copy of the work of Ramusio, in the possession
at that time of the Verrazzano family in Florence. These references
were intended to show the existence of the cosmography, which
Tiraboschi afterwards mentions, giving, however, the first named
eulogy as his authority. No portion of the Carli copy appeared in print
until 1841, when through the instrumentality of Mr. Greene, the
American consul at Rome, it was printed in the collections of the New
York Historical Society, accompanied by a translation into English by
the late Dr. Cogswell. It was subsequently printed in the Archivio
Storico Italiano at Florence, in 1853, with some immaterial corrections,
and a preliminary discourse on Verrazzano, by M. Arcangeli. From an

inspection of the codex in the library, where it then existed in Florence,
M. Arcangeli supposes the manuscript was written in the middle of the
sixteenth century. This identical copy was, therefore, probably in
existence when Ramusio published his work. Upon comparing the
letter as given by Ramusio with the manuscript, the former, besides
wanting the cosmography, is found to differ from the latter almost
entirely in language, and very materially in substance, though agreeing
with it in its elementary character and purpose. The two, therefore,
cannot be copies of the same original. Either they are different versions
from some other language, or one of them must be a recomposition of
the other in the language in which they now are found. In regard to
their being both translated from the French, the only other language in
which the letter can be supposed to have been written besides the native
tongue of Verrazzano, although it is indeed most reasonable to suppose
that such a letter, addressed to the king of France, on the results of an
expedition of the crown, by an officer in his service, would have been
written in that language, it is, nevertheless, highly improbable that any
letter could, in this instance, have been so addressed to the King, and
two different translations made from it into Italian, one by Carli in
Lyons in 1524, and the other by Ramusio in Venice twenty-nine years
afterwards, and yet no copy of it in French, or any memorial of its
existence in that language be known. This explanation must therefore
be abandoned. If on the other hand, one of these copies was so rendered
from the French, or from an original in either form in which it appears
in Italian, whether by Verrazzano or not, the other must have been
rewritten from it. It is evident, however, that the Carli version could not
have been derived from that contained in Ramusio, because it contains
an entire part consisting of several pages, embracing the
cosmographical explanations of the voyage, not found in the latter.