X ** GIFT OF SEELEY W. MUDD and GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN BRANCH JOHN FISKE UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES LIBRARY LETTERS OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI M. F. FORCE BEAD BEFORE THE CONGRES INTERNATIONAL DES AMERICANISTES AT BRUSSELS 1879 CINCINNATI ROBERT CLARKE & CO 1885 128632 SOME OBSERVATIONS Letters of Amerigo Vespucci. Amerigo Vespucci appears in the Spanish records as a member of the mercantile house of Berardi, at Se- ville, until February, 1496. His name then wholly dis- appears until February, 1505, when he appears on his way to the Spanish Court, bearing a letter of introduc- tion from Columbus to his son Diego. From the letter it appears that Vespucci had been unfortunate in his affairs. He was soon taken into favor by Fonseca, the enemy of Columbus, and rose rapidly. He received letters of naturalization, was appointed with Pinzon to command in a fleet that was to sail for the Spice Islands, but which was abandoned. He was, in 1508, appointed principal pilot, or superintendent of charts, and so re- mained till his death in 1512. In the interval between his disappearance from the records as a merchant in February, 1496, and his re-ap- pearance on his way to court in February, 1505, he made his voyages. In the examination of witnesses in 1512-13, in the great suit of the heirs of Columbus against the crown (which suit was begun in 1508), Ojj'da, testifying about his voyage made in 1499, said that he (3) 4 was accompanied by " Juan de la Cosa, piloto, e Morigo Vespuche, e otros pilotos." There is no other record evidence of his having made a Spanish voyage. This statement of Oj/da shows that Vespucci did not sail as a pilot, but does not show in what capacity he did go. Of this statement, Navarrete says, Tom. Ill, p. 718 : "Esta es la timca noticia de que America hubiese navegado halldn- dose en Espafia, y aun se ignora en que clase 6 con que des- tino fae embarcado en esta primer a expedition de Hojeda" The exhaustive investigation of Viscount Santarem shows that Vespucci is not named or in any way referred to in any of the records or archives in Portugal, though the navigation records of the reign of King Manuel were made complete under his personal supervision, and they appear, at the present day, complete and without break. The diplomatic records of that day are full of reports made to the Pope, to various sovereigns, and to the Portuguese embassadors at the various courts, of the voyages and discoveries made by Portuguese fleets, and in them is no mention made of Vespucci or any reference to him. The Portuguese historians and an- nalists of that time preserve the same silence. There is, however, Spanish authority for the fact that Vespucci sailed to South America in a Portuguese fleet. Peter Martyr, who was acquainted with him, and was intimate with his surviving nephew, says that Vespucci sailed to South America at the expense of the King of Portugal. From the declarations made at the council of Spanish pilots held in 1515 (Navarrete, Tom. Ill, p. 319), to determine the line of boundary between the American possessions of Spain and Portugal, it seems certain that Vespucci visited Cape St. Augustine on the coast of Brazil, and from the statement of ISTuno Garcia it seems that all understood that he sailed in a Portu- guese fleet. Gomara, writing indeed forty years later, says that Vespucci coasted along America to fifty de- grees south latitude, under the command of the King of Portugal. Beyond the naked fact that Vespucci sailed with Ojeda in his voyage of 1499, and also visited the coast of Brazil at least once in a Portuguese vessel, the records give no information concerning his voyages. For fur- ther information, we must have recourse to his letters. Of the letters discovered or said to be discovered, in manuscript in comparatively recent times, I have nothing to say. The two letters published in various languages and numerous editions during the life-time of Vespucci, one giving an account of his third voyage, published several times in France and Germany before the death of Columbus, the other describing his four voyages, deserve, as they have often received, attentive consideration. The Bibliotheca Americana Vestustissima of Harrisse, and the admirable disquisition of M. d'Avezac leave little to be desired concerning the bibliography of these letters. The letter to Laurentio Petri Francisci de Medicis was first printed by Jean Lambert in Paris. At least there is a common consent that this edition, with- out date, preceded the edition of Ottmar, printed in 1504, and was the first. In a very few years eleven other Latin and six German editions appeared in France and Germany. In 1507 it appeared in Italian, in the collection entitled Paesi Novamente Hitrovati, printed in Vicenza. Within a very few years numerous editions and translations of this work, in Italian, Latin, French, and German, appeared in Italy, France, and Germany. In different editions, the letter is variously said to have been originally written in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. But whatever may have been the original tongue, all the printed copies, even the Italian, are de- rived from the Latin. For the name of Amerigo Ves- pucci, even in the Italian copies, appears as Alberigo, a retranslation of the Latinized form, Albericus. Hence, not one was printed from the original letter or from a direct copy of it. And while these multitudinous and quickly recurring editions flooded France, Germany, and various states in Northern Italy, no one edition appeared in Portugal, Spain, or Florence. Hence the letter, while printed every-where else, was not printed in the state where the writer was domiciled, or in the state where his corre- spondent lived. The letter states that Vespucci sailed at the expense and by the command of the King of Portugal on the king's fleet. Viscount Santarem, keeper of the Portu- guese archives, after an exhaustive personal examination, says that the marine records of King Manuel, made elaborately complete by the personal supervision of the king, remain to this day complete,'the series absolutely unbroken, and they contain no mention of, or reference to, any such expedition, or fleet, or command. 7 The letter proceeds with stating that while the igno- rant pilots of the fleet were roaming about, not know- ing within five hundred leagues where they were, all would have been lost hut for Vespucci's knowledge of cosmography. " Hence, the mariners held me in much honor, for I showed that without knowledge of the chart, I knew the science of navigation better than all the sea captains of the globe." It is true that Colum- bus had, some years before, in one of his first voyages, complained of the ignorance of his pilots. But Spain was not yet a maritime nation. "While the pilots of Portugal, joining practical experience to careful prepa- ration and training, were the boldest and most skilled of the time. The sea captains of the little portion of the globe contained within the limits of Portugal com- prised De Grama, Cabral, Cortereal, Coelbo, Caminha, Magellan. Their voyages had not only rounded the Cape of Good Hope and extended to India, but Cabral had already discovered and visited the very coast which Vespucci was going to explore. Of sea captains from other parts of the globe than Portugal, we need only to name Columbus, whose superiority as a navigator Ves- pucci never questioned outside of this letter. The boasting and the depreciation are alike inconsistent with all that is known of Vespucci from other sources than these letters. The letter says he observed about twenty stars, of as great luster as we have sometimes seen in Venus and Jupiter. " I have by geometric measures taken their peripheries and diameters, and I have found them to be of greater magnitude." No one can believe that Ves- pucci penned that absurdity. The letter undertakes to describe the stars, their grouping and position, and to give their declination, and diagrams are given to aid the description. Yet no man has ever been able to identify the stars so described. Humboldt with charitable toil essayed the task, and se- lected stars which he supposed might possibly be those referred to. But when his friend M. Ideler, the as- tronomer, at his request made a like attempt, a wholly different list of stars was the result. The constellations of the southern hemisphere attracted the attention of every navigator who crossed the meridian. Dominating over all, the splendor of the southern Cross fixed at once the attention of all. No difficulty has been found in identifying constellations, stars, nebulae, coal bags, and Magellanic clouds named by other navigators. But no man has been able to comprehend the description of this astronomer, who sailed to fifty degrees south, with- out observing the Southern Cross. The meteorology of the letter is akin to its astronomy. It says : " I have seen .things quite at variance with the doctrines of philosophers. A white iris was twice seen about midnight, not only by me, but also by all the sea- men." It is not easy to understand what is meant by a white iris, other than the common circle arounu the moon. And if, as Humboldt benevolently suggests, a lunar rainbow was meant, the announcement is not much less puerile. A long paragraph is taken up in enforcing the state- g incut, that as Lisbou is thirty-nine and a half degrees north, and the voyage extended to fifty degrees south, Vespucci sailed ninety degrees, and, to aid in making that statement intelligible, a diagram is added. All which is more like the babbling of a child than a serious communication from a learned man to one of the fore- most citizens of Florence. In describing the natives, the letter says : " Human flesh is their common food." "A father has been seen to eat his sons and wives." ' I also tarried twenty- seven days in a certain town, where I saw from house to house salted human flesh hanging from the ceiling rafters as is the custom with us to hang up bacon and hog's flesh." Both Columbus and Hojeda understood signs made on one or two occasions of natives to mean there was a tribe of cannibals living at a distance whom they dreaded. But the cannibals were never found. It is very certain that -Vespucci did not see feasts of human flesh, nor did he see salted human or other meat hang- ing from the rafters of native huts. And Vespucci stood in high repute among those who knew him. Professor Ringmann, of Strasbourg, coming across a copy of this letter, was so fascinated with its extrava- gance, " ipsis quidem inlerfectis inimicis cupidissime solet vesci" prepared another edition, which was printed by Hurjfuff in 1505. But in some introductory verses, he gives the prudent caution, Candide sincero capias hunc pectore lector Et le.ge non naso Rhinocerontis. The genuineness of this letter as a veritable produc- 10 tion of Vespucci has, perhaps, not been questioned. A contest has raged upon the different question, whether or not Vespucci was a deliberate falsifier. Humboldt, whose Examen Critique is as remarkable for its perfect judicial temper as for its prodigality of research, sug- gests that the letter was seriously mangled in getting into print. There is no ground for questioning the veracity of Vespucci outside of the printed letters which bear his name. If we extract from this letter all the passages that are absolutely inconsistent with all that we know of. him from other sources, but a slender thread will be left. For one, I find it easier to believe that " le celebre humanists, epigraphiste, architecte, et matke- maticien veronais, Fra Giovanni del Gf-iocondo" while con- structing the Pont Notre-Dame and Petit-Pont in Paris, whiled away his idle moments in composing this letter, a fiction adapted to the public imagination, heated by fragmentary accounts of the new lands just found be- yond the great ocean, than to believe he was translating it from a genuine letter written by Amerigo Vespucci. The letter which so fascinated Bingmann in Stras- bourg, stated it was an account of the third voyage made by Vespucci ; that he had previously made two other voyages, and was about to make a fourth, and that he proposed to " write a book of geography or cosmography, so that my memory may live with pos- terity," etc. Two years later the famous Cosmographies Introductio, being a treatise on cosmography, together with a letter of Vespucci, describing his four voyages, appeared. 11 published in the neighboring town of St. Die, prepared and edited by three of Ringmann's friends. M. d'Ave- zac, in his Martin Hylacomjlus Waltzemuller, ses ouvrages et ses collaborateurs, has thrown a flood of light upon the preparation of this little book. He shows that Waltze- muller wrote the preliminary treatise on cosmography ; the poet, Jean' Basin, prepared, that is, translated into Latin, the letter, and Walter Lud, hereditary secretary of the Duke of Lorraine, supplied the means for the publication. R-ingmann aided, by giving a copy of the verses which he had prefixed to the Strasbourg edition of the third voyage and writing others. The pamphlet is a unit. The tract on cosmography, filled with allu- sions to Amerigo Vespucci in the annexed letter, and suggesting that the New World should be named from him Amerige or America, is an introduction to the letter. All four of the voyages described are to the conti- nent of South America. The first is Vespucci's first voyage to that continent. The first voyage made to that continent was the voyage of Columbus in 1498. The second was the voyage of Ojeda in 1499. Vespucci was not with Columbus ; he was with Ojeda. These facts are established beyond controversy by the testimony of the navigators, captains, and pilots, in the suit of the heirs of Columbus against the crown. Hence, an account of Vespucci's first voyage is an account of Ojeda's voyage of 1499. Humboldt finds in the narrative in the letter what may be called a substantial, though imperfect and con- fused and inaccurate account of Ojeda's voyage. The 12 year given in the letter is indeed wrong, being 1497 instead of 1499, but is correct in saying the voyage be- gan on the 20th of May, from the port of Cadiz and with four vessels, and continued by the Canary Islands to the continent. The letter, however, says the conti- nent was first touched at sixteen degrees N"., while Ojeda first touched at three degrees !N". The voyage was thence continued along the coast toward the north-west. The inhabitants are described in the letter nearly as in the letter to di Medici, and it is said they eat little flesh other than human food. The voyage continued along the coast till a village was discovered built over the water on piles, which they called Little Venice, and had a combat with its inhabitants. The voyage proceeded thence eighty leagues to a port where the inhabitants were hospitable and gracious, and where the voyagers made a visit to the interior and were received with distin- guished honor. This region, the letter says, is called Paria, and lies in twenty degrees 1ST. Thence they pro- ceeded along the coast eight hundred and seventy leagues farther, and having been absent from Spain thir- teen months, rested thirty-seven days in the finest har- bor in the world, repairing their vessels. Being much besought by the natives, they sailed for the island of Ity, inhabited by a hostile and dreaded tribe. This island being reached after a sail of seven days by numerous other islands, a fierce battle ensued, in which the Span- iards lost one killed and twenty-two wounded. They sailed thence for Spain with two hundred and twenty- two captives, who were sold as slaves upon their arrival 13 in Cadiz, Oct. 15, 1499, after an absence of eighteen months. Ojeda, in proceeding along the coast, at first noticed the sea was quite fresh from the quantity of water dis- charged by two great rivers, and the coast low and swampy. The current swept toward the north-west. They entered the Gulf of Paria, and at Cape Codera made a visit to the interior, where the Spaniards were received by the natives with distinguished honor. Thence to the port of Chichirirchi, where ensued a fierce battle, in which the Spaniards lost one killed and twenty wounded. To cure the wounded, Ojeda went to a port near Yela de Coro where he rested twenty days. Ac- cording to the testimony of the pilot, Andres de Morales, Ojeda passed by the Island of Giants (the island of Curacoa). Farther on he discovered a village built over the water on piles like Venice, the inhabitants of which he found more beautiful and gracious than the other natives. In three months he had visited six hundred leagues of coast, and on the 30th of August sailed for Haiti. Passing many islands, he reached Haiti Sep- tember 5, 1499, and landed at the harbor of Yaquimo, having been absent from Cadiz three months and six- teen days. Ojeda had many captives with him on his arrival there. He was arrested by Roldayf, and detained in Haiti till February, 1500, so that he did not reach Cadiz on his return till the middle of June, 1500. While there are some striking points of resemblance between the account of Vespucci's first voyage and Ojeda's voyage of 1499, yet the differences are greater 14 and more positive. The letter describes the inhabitants of Little Venice as hostile and repelling the approach of the Spaniards by stratagem and violence, while Ojeda was received with gracious hospitality. The letter de- scribes the visit to the island of Ity as made with hostile intent, and that island as the scene of the fierce battle. Ojeda had his battle on the continent, and found Haiti already occupied by a Spanish settlement and govern- ment, that had no trouble with the mild and submissive natives. The letter speaks of Little Venice as near the begin- ning of the coasting voyage, while it was near the ter- mination of Ojeda's. The letter describes a voyage begun in 1497, reaching the shores of South America at sixteen degrees N., proceeding thence to twenty degrees N.,and eight hundred and seventy leagues beyond that, in thirteen months. Ojeda sailed in 1499, reached the shores of South America in thirty degrees N., and spent three months on the coast, making in all six hundred leagues along the shore. The letter makes Vespucci return to Cadiz in October, 1499, while Ojida did not return till June, 1500. If we accept the suggestion of Humboldt that Ves- pucci, with one vessel or more, left Ojeda at Haiti and proceeded at once to Cadiz, still the letter can not in any real sense be called a narrative of Ojeda's voyage. M. de Varnhagen, in his paper read before the Societe de Geographic, in Paris, in 1858, rejected the idea that the letter is to be regarded as an attempted description of Ojeda's voyage, and accepting the dates, latitudes, 15 and distances as given in the letter, maintains that Ves- pucci made, in 1497, an unrecorded voyage along the coast of South, Central, and North America, circling the entire Gulf of Mexico, doubling Florida, and ex- tending into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is true the testimony given in the case of the heirs of Columbus against the crown makes it quite impossible that any such voyage was ever made. But the paper of M. de Varnhagen is interesting as unintentionally showing that the account of Vespucci's first voyage, as given in the letter, is not a real account of any actual voyage. According to the letter, Vespucci started from Cadiz, on his second voyage, in May, 14&9, passed by the Canary Islands and the Island of Fire, and sailing nine- teen days thence across the ocean, reached, in five de- grees S., on the 27th June, a new land, which was taken to be a continent. The shores were low and marshy, and the water of the sea made fresh by the current of great rivers. Sailing along the coast, they met a fleet of canoes and captured one. Farther on, they were delayed seventeen days in the harbor to repair, and bought a number of pearls. Later, they reached the Isl- and of Giants, inhabited by people of prodigious stature. Farther to the north-west, they stopped in a sheltered cove forty-seven days to repair their vessels, and here purchased one hundred and nineteen marks of pearls. Thence he proceeded to the Island of Antiglia, " dis- covered a few years before by Christopher Columbus," remained there two months and two days refitting, sub- jected to continual annoyances by the Christian colo- 16 nists, and sailed thence directly for Spain, leaving on the 22d July, and reaching Cadiz 8th September. The actual voyage most resembling this narrative is that of Pinzon. He left Palos with four ships in De- cember, 1499, passed by the Canary Islands and the Island of Fire, and reached the coast of South Amer- ica in eight degrees S., on the 20th January, 1500, Pinzon landed and took possession with all the cere- monies of the day. He noticed new constellations ID the sky and the absence of any star marking the south pole. The natives were large and warlike, the country flat and marshy, and the sea made fresh by the quantity of water discharged by large rivers. First advancing forty leagues farther south, he turned to the north r passed the mouths of the Amazon and the Orinoco, and was put into peril by the commotion of the waters. Landing, a combat with the natives ensued, in which ten Spaniards were wounded. Sailing along the coast to Little Venice, he then directed his course to Haiti, stopping on the way at Guadalupe and Porto Rico. Without delaying at Haiti, he sailed to the Bahama Islands, where two of his vessels were wrecked and lost. Turning thence for Spain, he arrived at Palos, 30th Sep- tember, 1500. This voyage was distinguished for bring- ing home topazes, medicinal herbs, and some animals. While there are points of resemblance between the letter and Pinzon's voyage, it is obvious that the letter can not, in any sense, be called a narrative or account of that voyage. The discrepancies are so great as to be entirely irreconcilable. The extent and direction of the 17 voyage along the coast, the delay at Haiti (Antiglia be- ing the Portuguese name of Haiti), and the rough treat- ment received at the hands of the Christian residents of that island, correspond with Ojeda's voyage, and accord- ingly M. de Yarnhagen maintains that Vespucci's sec- ond voyage was, in fact, the voyage of Ojida of 1499. The purchase of the great quantity of pearls along the coast, however, belongs neither to the voyage of Pinaon nor to Ojeda, but to the wholly different voyage of Alonzo Nino, who left Spain in June, 1499, and coasted, along the northern shore of South America. Nino brought to Spain one hundred and twenty marks of pearls, and it was on that account famous as the pearl voyage. It was in Nino's voyage that occurred the incident of the capture of the Carib canoe^with ban- daged Indian prisoners. Nino reported the practice among some of the natives of chewing green leaves. Contributions from the three voyages of Pinzon, Ojeda, and Nino make up nearly the whole of the second voy- age of Vespucci, as narrated in the letter to Rene. The rest can easily be found in the voyages of Columbus. The narrative of Vespucci's third voyage being his first voyage in a Portuguese vessel, is shorter and pruned of many of the extravagancies which appear in the sep- arate narrative of it previously published. But in this letter also, it is stated that Vespucci noted the diame- ter as well as the declination of many of the more con- spicuous stars. The narrative also gives a warm ac- count of a pressing letter sent by King Manuel, of Por- tugal, to Vespucci, inviting him to Lisbon ; the special 18 messenger sent to enforce the invitation ; the enthusi- astic welcome given by the king to Vespucci ; and his departure in compliance with the entreaties of the king upon a fleet dispatched by the king. The investigations of-Viscount Santarem show, as far as negative proof can show any thing, that no such letter was written to Ves- pucci, no such reception was accorded to him, and no such fleet was despatched by the king. If Vespucci made the voyage, it must have been a private expedition. The whole story of the invitation seems merely a sub- stitution of the names of Vespucci and King Manuel, for Columbus and King John, in the account of a real transaction which happened some years earlier. While in this narrative there is more reserve in the description of the natives, the itinerary is more full. But as there is no account of the voyage other than the account given by Vespucci, we have nothing to compare his statements with. We can, however, observe that the letter states the highest southern latitude reached was fifty-two degrees S. ; while it also states that a point was reached where, on the 7th April, the nights are fifteen hours long, or seventy-two and a half degrees S. Of the remainder of the narrative, being the account of the fourth voyage, it is not necessary to say any thing. It is generally admitted that this is intended as an ac- count of the voyage of Coelho. Yet, while Coelho, having lost four of his ships by wreck, brought himself the remaining two back to Lisbon, the letter says that Vespucci brought the two saved vessels to Lisbon, while the commander was lost with the remainder of the fleet. 19 / And while nearly one-half of the narrative of this voy- age is taken up with an account of the island in mid- ocean, two leagues long and one league wide, and the disaster on its shore, it has been impossible to identify the island so carefully described. The island of Ferdi- nand de Noronha, which agrees more nearly with it than any other, is at least eight times as long, and, instead of being midway between Africa and South America, is, relatively, near to the coast of South America. \The drift of these remarks, which could be continued to greater length and in greater detail, has not been at all to argue that Vespucci did not make four voyages, but to show that the letter to the Duke of Lorraine could not have been written by Vespucci as a narrative of his voyages. The letter consists of two parts a preliminary epistle to Rene, Duke of Lorraine and Bar, and called also King of Jerusalem and Sicily, and a narrative of the four voyages. The narrative was written as a report to King Ferdinand, and a copy or duplicate was sent with the preliminary epistle to Rene ; " ad Ferdinandum Cas- tiliae Regem Scriptas, ad te quoque mittam." Vespucci sailed with Ojeda in 1499, and, accepting the theory of Humboldt, it is quite possible that he sailed also with Pinzon. But this report to King Ferdinand of two voyages made under the flag of Castile, is, clearly, not an account of those two voyages ; it is not an account of any voyages ever actually made ; it is a patch- work of the routes and incidents of various voyages made by 20 various navigators, represented as happening at impos- sible dates. Both the preliminary epistle and the narrative call Ferdinand of Arragon, King of Castile, and state that the two Spanish voyages were made by direction of Fer- dinand. Yet Vespucci well knew that the citizens of Arragon were not even allowed to visit the American shores, the possessions of Isabella of Castile. As Ojeda, in his voyage of 149/, used a chart of the coast which Columbus had sent to Spain, and found along the coast traces of the visit made by Columbus, Ves- pucci would hardly, in his narrative of that voyage to the king, have omitted all reference to Columbus and written as if he were the first discoverer of that coast. In the entire letter the only reference to Columbus is the incidental mention that he had lately discovered the island of Antiglia. It is not credible that Vespucci, in writing to King Ferdinand, would call Haiti by the name given to it by the Portuguese. In the entire narrative there is no mention whatever of the name of the commander of any expedition, cap- tain of any vessel, or pilot, or any other person in any of the expeditions but of Vespucci ; nor is there even any indication of what position he held or in what capacity he sailed. Navarrete remarks upon this (Tom. 3, p. 290) : "El no haberse expresado el nombre del comandante de la escuadra, ni el de otra alguna persona en las cuatro relaciones precedentes, puede inducir sospechas de su poca veracidad. No parece sino que se quiso huir de que hubiese citas que evacuar y modios de comprobar lo cierto." While it is true that the entire absence of names and other means of identification, the "vague desesperant" that Humboldt complains of, may well be pronounced a contrivance by the writer of the narrative to prevent the detection, or at least the immediate detection, of his fiction, yet one can not imagine a more idle and vain eifort than such a contrivance in a letter from Vespucci to King Ferdinand concerning voyages said to be made by Vespucci under the orders of Ferdinand. The only way I see out of the difficulties which sur- round these letters, is to say they were not written by Vespucci. There is some warrant for this conclusion in the absolute inattention and indifference to these letters among the contemporaries of Vespucci in Spain. If any person in Spain supposed that this narrative had been written by Vespucci, if any person in Spain supposed that Vespucci ever claimed to have visited the coast of South America in 1497, there would have been some mention of it in the case of the heirs of Columbus against the crown, where the government strained every nerve to restrict the extent of the actual discoveries made by Columbus ; and the friends and partisans of Columbus would have shown some resentment against Vespucci. But the friends and opponents of Columbus alike ignored, as if it did not exist, this narrative that was flooding France and Germany ; four editions of which, as M. de Varnhagen shows, were printed in St. Die, in 1507. It was only later, many years after the death of both Co- lumbus and Vespucci, when the abundant translation and repetition of the narrative in all the countries of 22 Europe outside of Spain and Portugal, had incorporated the narrative into the literature and the belief of Eu- rope, that the good Las Casas inveighed against the false- hood of Vespucci. If the letter shows an ignorance, that would be sin- gular in a resident of Spain, of the title of King Ferdi- nand, it displays an equally singular minute acquaint- ance with the title of Rene, Duke of Lorraine and Bar/, Rene's grandfather, Rene the first, had borne the empty title of King of Jerusalem and Sicily. A careful search of the records has not yet discovered that Rene the sec- ond ever assumed this title. But if the title had fallen into official disuse, the courtiers of the duke would not fail to remember it. The family of Lud, that had for several generations supplied the place of secretary to the dukes of Lorraine, above all, would loyally remember the generally forgotten title. Indeed, in 1507, Griinin- ger printed in Strasbourg, a little tract, Speculi Orbis (Harisse, No. 49), which is inscribed, fnclytissimo Renato Hierusalem et Sieiliae Rcgi, etc. Dud Lotfioringie ac Barn., G-ualterus Ludd ejusdem a secretis et canonicus Deodaten- sis sese humiliter commendat." In the same year, ap- peared in the neighboring town of St. Die, the home of Walter Lud, the Cosmographiae Introductio, pre- pared largely at the expense of Walter Lud, containing the narrative of Vespucci's four voyages, with the pre- liminary epistle to Rene, with a dedication in these words : " Illustrissimo Renato Iherusalem et Sieiliae Regi, dud Lothorengiae ac Barn. Americus Vesputius humili- mem reverentiam et debitam recommendationem." 23 The preliminary epistle to Rene, which addresses him throughout as king " inclytissime Rex" reminds him of the days when he and Vespucci were schoolmates to- gether, under the instruction of Vespucci's uncle, and states that the letter is bo rne directly from Vespucci to King Rene, hy Vespucci's friend and Rene's servant, Benevenutus. As Rene was educated at Joinville, France, by his mother Yolande, and did not visit Italy till he went there at the age of twenty-nine years to ne- gotiate a treaty at Florence, Lud and Waltzemuller and Jean Basin, the trio who prepared and edited the Cosmographies Introductio, knew that at least that part of their work was fiction, and they would hardly dedicate a fiction of that character to the duke, their master as well as friend, without a full understanding that he would accept it good-naturedly as a joke. If the trio undertook to write out a fictitious narrative of four voyages made by Vespucci, two under Spanish auspices and two under Portuguese, such a narrative as was, together with a treatise on cosmography, promised in the letter previously published, describing the third voyage, they would of necessity avoid the use of names or other means of identifying the voyages described in the narrative with any real voyage. In that case the "vague dfaesp&rant" which perplexed Humboldt and made Navarrete indignant, is not a dishonest trick of Vespucci, but a natural stratagem in a writer of a fiction. And hence the verses suggested to Ringmann by the extravagancies of the separate narrative of the third 24 voyage, were, with a slight verbal change, borrowed and prefixed to the letter to King Rene. Candida syncero volvas hunc pectore lector Et lege non nasum Rhinocerontis habens. This hypothesis uow oftered, is not without difficulties, but it is easier at all events, to believe that the narrative of the four voyages, dedicated to King Rene was not written by Vespucci, than to believe that he wrote it. 128632 X-X -^ /? ^> ^- a#&& 4 >^ ^\r^^< /^ /t^^f'i^t^^) *^^~-L**^~fi^' ' /A-^ x^^^^ /