The Voyage of the Verrazzano | Page 8

his own words,
a copy of Verrazzano's letter to the king. Both his letter and his copy of
Verrazzano's were intended to be shown to his Florentine
acquaintances. Copies, as is usual in such cases, were taken of them;
and to us it seems evident that from some one of these the copy in the
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