LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF O.JFORNIA DAVIS AMERICA'S GODFATHER - General View of Florence. AMERICA'S GODFATHER florentine dSentleman BY VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON AUTHOR OF "GENOA, THE SUPERB," "THE LILY OP THE ARNO," ETC. BOSTON ESTES AND LAURIAT PUBLISHERS LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA T-N A T T1 C> Copyright, 1894, BY ESTES AND LAURIAT. iHntoersttg $ress : JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. Une nouvelle, une brochure m'arrivent de Florence. C'est un pays d'oil il nous vient souvent de grandes nouvelles : en 1300, celle de Dante ; en 1500, celle d'Ame- rigo; en 1600, Galileo. Quelle sera done aujourd'hui la nouvelle de Florence? MICHELET. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. IN GREAT COMPANY 1 II. ON THE LUNG' ARNO AMERIGO VESPUCCI . 12 III. THE TAPESTRY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY 29 IV. IN THE MORNING OF LIFE 38 V. YOUTH 60 VI. CHOOSING A CAREER 79 VII. AMERIGO VESPUCCI 99 VIII. THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR 116 IX. THE FIRST VOYAGE 152 X. THE SECOND VOYAGE 185 XI. THE THIRD VOYAGE 215 XII. THE FOURTH VOYAGE 235 XIII. A FOREIGNER . . 246 XIV. FOES AND FRIENDS 259 XV. A SHRINE OF MEMORIES , . .279 INDEX 291 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE GENERAL VIEW OF FLORENCE Frontispiece PALAZZO YECCHIO 4 EXECUTION OF SAVONAROLA 8 PIAZZA DI SAN MARCO 12 CAMPANILE OF GIOTTO, AND THE DUOMO 30 CHURCH AND PIAZZA SANTA CROCE 45 PIAZZA SIGNORIA 55 PORTRAIT OF SAVONAROLA 62 PORTRAIT OF MACHIAVELLI 82 STATUE OF SAVONAROLA 100 STATUE OF COSIMO DE' MEDICI 117 GENERAL VIEW OF SEVILLE 136 THE GIRALDA 147 PIAZZA DI SAN MARTINO 166 PORTRAIT OF FERDINAND OF ARAGON 186 STATUE OF AMERIGO VESPUCCI 196 STATUE OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI 219 FRESCO BY FRA ANGELICO, IN THE UFFIZI GALLERY . 245 STATUE OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 255 LOGGIA DE' LANZI , 283 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. CHAPTER I. IN GREAT COMPANY. THE young American traveller arrives in Florence from Pisa, and drives in the prosaic modern omni bus to the Hotel Washington on the Arno bank, where he intends to stay for a fortnight. He is the child of the nineteenth century. All the possibilities of a wonderful development of good and evil in the future of a new wor]d rest with him. Does he realize the responsibilities of his destiny ? In personal appearance he is slight, active, and a trifle pale of complexion, yet he pos sesses a wiry strength of nerve and muscle which will carry him far on occasion. He is the first fruit of civilisation. Will he retain the soundness of upright principle of his Puritan forefathers, while tempering a certain sharpness of look and manner with the amiable consideration of others, in travel, which forms two-thirds of the value of Christianity ? Will he think for himself, after the manner of the i 2 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. young French girl later known as Madame Koland, who stole out of bed in her little closet to read stray volumes, and form her own opinion of the contents, instead of quoting the latest belief of the British in London, the French in Paris, or the Germans of Berlin ? " The Yankee Eagle is a right gallant bird if he will but trust to his own natural plumage," said Charles Kingsley. We are told how gracious a thing is a man, as a true man, but that a real one has ever been so rare Diogenes went about the streets of Athens seeking a specimen with a lantern. Our traveller stands between those vital elements, the early settlers, Anglo-Saxon, Huguenot, and Dutch, and the pioneer miner, farmer, and ranchman of the Far West ; let him look to it that he emulates the virtues of each class, and stamps his own individu ality on his country. He is undoubtedly a spoiled child of fortune, born with the proverbial gold spoon in his mouth. Indulgent parents have given him every advantage of education at a famous college, together with a choice of personal preference in a future career. Juvenile brothers and sisters receive his letters bearing foreign stamps with lively inter est, and more than one maiden of his circle of friends wonders, with a little heart-flutter of doubt and an ticipation, if he intends to return home soon, go yachting on the Mediterranean and the Nile, or salmon fishing in Norway, to scale the Matterhorn, shoot in the Indian jungle, or make a tour of the world. IN GREAT COMPANY. 3 The following morning the tourist needs no guide to sally forth on the Arno, and follow the quay past the Carraia bridge, the graceful arches of the Trinita, and the quaint, crowded structure of the Ponte- Vecchio, until he emerges from the narrow and shadowy space of the Via Archibusieri at the Uffizi. There is an aspect of sober magnificence about the vast building as sturdy Piero Capponi, brave Ferruc- cio, Farinata degli Uberti, and the warrior Medici Giovanni delle Bande Nere, grasping the sword he was warned not to unsheathe save in the cause of honour, seem to guard the spot in their niches. The Arno flows below, catching the hue of the blue sky in an occasional azure ripple on the tawny current, and the height of San Miniato rises above the line of opposite embankment in sharp outline of terraces flanked by steps, with the mosaic of the facade of the church gleaming amidst the cypress-trees, and the bronze statue of David beyond. To pass under the arch of the portico is to have suddenly revealed that marvellous perspective of the Uffizi flanking both sides of the narrow space, and the Palazzo Vecchio at the further extremity. Familiar as the locality is to all nations, if only from portraiture in engraving and photography, the scene has ever some new phase of variety and beauty to offer to the con templation of the casual pedestrian. Thus our Young American in his ramble of the March morning comes unexpectedly on the flower show of a Tuscan horticultural exhibition. Is it for him, the child 4 AMERICA S GODFATHER. of his century, that the old Flower City has decked the columns and portico with the delicate bloom of pink and white azaleas, whole sheaves of alabaster- tinted lilies, a prodigal luxuriance of multicolored camellias, while the slender tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, visible in profile, soaring upward towards the cloudless heavens, bears on the summit of the battlement a red flag like the petals of a poppy ? Is it because the statue of Amerigo Vespucci occupies the first niche on the right hand with the base half veiled in feathery bamboos and marguerites? A military band plays inspiriting strains, a group of Bersaglieri officers lounge near a cluster of palms in the centre of the pavement, and a crowd of brown contadini flocks from the rendezvous of the weekly market day in the adjacent Piazza Signoria. The red poppy flag flutters on the graceful tower, the notes of harmony rise in waves of sound above the hum of voices, and the very sunshine, after March days of rain and hail, is caressing as it lingers on the statues and the flowers. Amerigo Vespucci is a harmonious figure, draped in the folds of a mantle, a half-column inscribed with the name of America on his left, and a small alligator coiled about his feet (cayman or iguana). His smoothly shaven, rather worn face is slightly turned, and with the gesture of the right hand he would seem to protest at the injustice of the verdict of posterity. In the adjoining niche the Florentine historian {o Veccbio. IN GREAT COMPANY. 5 Guicciardini, of dignified mien, points to the open book in his hand, as if desirous to confirm the claim to a glorious renown of his fellow townsman, Ves pucci. The outspread page of the volume which he holds may be accepted as his own history inscribed with these words : " Amerigo Vespucci, Florentine, made and wrote of his four voyages in search of new lands, two by order of the King Ferdinand of Castile towards the East, begun in the year 1497, on the twentieth of May, and the others under the commission of Emanuel King of Portugal, towards the South, in the year 1501, on the first of May." (Vol. iii. book 7, page 171.) Beyond, the keen-featured Macchiavelli gazes down in thoughtful mood, as if about to stroke his chin, and give utterance to some sarcasm on the follies of human nature. On the other side Galileo with head uplifted scans the blue heavens above the beautiful tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, with eyes no longer sightless. In the next niche Micheli, the botanist, wearing an ample curled wig, appears to meditate profoundly on the resources of the botanical garden placed under his supervision by Cosimo de' Medici, or the classification of mosses, fungi, and lichens. The Young American is in great company. Should he choose to linger here for an hour he might trace on all these cold faces of eminent men individu alities noted in the history of centuries, in the manifold spheres of religion, science, poetry, and art. 6 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Earthly pomp is firmly upheld by the astute old merchant Cosimo de' Medici, Pater Patrise, and his illustrious grandson, Lorenzo the Magnificent, at the further extremity of the enclosure ; Orcagna calmly contemplates his own work, the opposite Loggia de' Lanzi ; and the celebrated doctor of the twelfth century, Taddeo Accorso, claims considera tion for having formulated a code of laws adopted in Italy for three hundred years. The Young American dines at the table d'hote of his hotel, and exchanges the usual small coin of talk with the bride from the Baltic provinces, en route for Naples and Capri, on his left, the valetudinarian from the Eiviera on his right, and the British maiden opposite, who longs to visit America. The tide of change in such caravanseries is too rapid to induce the friction of national pre judice perceptible in winter pension or summer resort, where pent up humanity resembles only too much the zoological experiments of incarcerating different species of animals in the same cage. Later he goes to the Pagliano Theatre to hear the opera of La Guaranita, with its tropical American setting. Emerging from the building after midnight, he lights a cigar, and strolls back in the direction of the Arno quarter. He threads the intervening streets, and traverses the wide space of the Piazza Signoria to revisit the scene of his morning walk under a new aspect. The night is warm and tranquil, with a full IN GREAT COMPANY. 7 moon shining on Florence. The tones of light and shadow are pure and austere rather than soft and bewitching. Florence is not a town of sinister aspect at night, and the pavement echoes to the footfall of the leisurely pedestrian, undisturbed by drunken brawls. The Palazzo Vecchio rises in sombre ma jesty of outline on the starlit sky, the volume in stone of the history of the commonwealth. Long ago did the teeming brain of that mighty architect Arnolfo di Cambio project the structure, leaving the task to other labourers to execute his plans " in good and durable material," crowned by the tower of his dreams, and given voice to speak in full, cadenced utterance to the heart of the people in the strokes of the bell of the Lion, which rang the Ave Maria of morning and evening, the bell of the populace summoning to council, and the bell of the Podesta calling together a meeting of the commune, all uniting in a chorus of pealing acclamation when the priors and gonfaloniere entered on the function of office. In the shadow of midnight the book in stone holds closely its treasures of bronzes, statues, carvings, frescos, and even the Armadii, or cabinets, once overflowing with the riches of the Medici rulers, furnish an illuminated margin bestowed by Art on the written scroll of human wisdom, courage, madness, and folly, as the exterior scutcheons of princes, tyrants, and guilds beneath the parapet may be accepted as embellishing the cover. The old lion, the Marzocco, holding the shield of the city in 8 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. one paw, guards the mediaeval clasp of portal of the precious volume, and gazes down from his pedestal at this hour, with an impassible, stony countenance in no wise feline. He seems to say to the traveller, " Serious man of to-day, keep your polchinelli toys and tin soldiers, and do not despise the toys of children of other times, who did not scorn your own, perhaps, because they did not know them." There is a certain element of grim humour further suggested by the lion guardian of the Palazzo Vec- chio. In 1331 the Florentine Eepublic conquered the town of Barga in the Garfagnana district of the Apennines. The people of Barga rebelled in 1528, and showed their defiance by ringing the church bells, sounding their trumpets, and, with much pomp of ceremonial of a derisive character, dug a hole in the Piazza, and buried a statue of the Marzocco, as the lion insignia of Florence. The moonbeams shimmer on the bronze eques trian statue of the merchant prince, Cosimo I., convert the figures of the adjacent fountain into a snowy shaft, and shed oblique rays into the depths of the Loggia de' Lanzi. The moonlight is whitest on the open space of square where Savonarola was burned. In the portico of the Uffizi beyond, the statues stand in their respective niches, but the plants and flowers of the day have all been swept away. Thrilled to transient animation by the spell of the moon, do the marble lips of the great company Execution of Savonarola. IN GREAT COMPANY. 9 again whisper the secrets of their earthly aspira tions in the flesh ? When the moon draws a veil of passing cloud over her radiant disk, and sudden gloom falls on arch and column, do statesmen and artists descend from their alcoves to rehearse on this narrow stage of pavement their individual drama of existence, in all the passion and vitality of purpose that once impelled heart and brain ? More fantastic than the fretwork of silver, wrought by the lustre of the Queen of Night on step and coping, does the spirit of Paganini flit to hold com munion with worthy old Guido Aretino about the notation and composition of early music, on a spot where the eccentric violinist once snatched a guitar from the grasp of a party of young men, and wrung from the instrument those melodies which were a reminiscence of his own youth ? Does Benvenuto Cellini pause in rapt contemplation of his own group of the Perseus, so long after the day when, stricken with fever, he quaffed the beaker of cooled water, and leaped from his bed to kindle the spent furnace, in which the bronze was being fused ? Do Leonardo da Vinci, Niccolo Pisani, and Leon Battista Alberti converse together calmly on certain problems of architecture ? Does Michelangelo argue vehemently on questions of form and colouring with stanch Giotto, and Cimabue ? In mild radiance of the spir itual beauty of benevolence in old age Sant' Antonino ponders apart on the means whereby he may further relieve pain and poverty in his flock, the inhabi- 10 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. tants of the town. A wonderful gathering this, in the silence of night, touched by the wand of fancy, or a stray moonbeam, and such as the world cannot offer to contemplation elsewhere. Greatest of all the group to our Young American stands Amerigo Vespucci, turning from the mighty Past, and the manifold awakening of the Eenais- sance period, in which the career of most of his companions was involved, to the Future. He gazes beyond the Palazzo Vecchio, the sleeping town, and even the limits of his native Italy, toward the vast realms of the western ocean. As the moon grows pale, merging into dawn, another band of phantoms seems to hover near to greet him, alone : Magellan, Cabot, Cook, Behring, Davis, Frobisher, Drake, Ker- guelen, Schouten Van Horn, or Dumont d'Urville. Only in the stillness of the balmy night do the navigators and discoverers forget national jealousies and emulation, weather-beaten and careworn of aspect after the countless perils and vicissitudes experienced in fulfilling their painful, if glorious mission on earth, questioning each other and Amerigo Vespucci on his pedestal with glances of mutual sympathy, and joining hands as a great brotherhood, working together in the harmony of other spheres. Only while the moonlight lasts on the statues of the niches of the Uffizi portico do they attain the Biblical unity of purpose, when " the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smote with the anvil him that smoothed with the IN GREAT COMPANY. 11 hammer." These phantoms bring a fresh, invigo rating breath of the sea to the tranquil, inland city in their very presence, while the Polar ice clings to their beards, and their garments exhale the fra grance of the Tropics. In the space of a few paces the loiterer of noon day, or midnight, may here lose himself in hours, nay, in years of study, if he will. CHAPTER II. ON THE LUNG* ARNO AMERIGO VESPUCCI. THE American traveller takes a cup of coffee near a window overlooking the tawny tide of Arno, then strolls along a corridor of the Hotel Washington to pause at another casement which opens on the street in the rear of the building. The Via Borgognissanti is not an attractive thor oughfare, and the twin rows of houses, with shops displaying their stock of mosaic-work, marble statu ettes from Carrara, and glaringly fresh copies of celebrated pictures, Madonnas, Sibyls, and Angels, are the reverse of impressive. The tourist of diverse nationalities emerges from adjacent hotels, en route for the Bargello, the Cathedral, and the cloister of San Marco, red guide-book in hand, and fingers to inspect local wares. One may jostle here a Siamese prince, a slender, olive-hued youth, clad in a robe of soft silk ; a Grand-Duke of northern Europe, digni fied and impassible, with blond beard and hair ; the Dutch planter returning to Java with a parchment complexion of the colour of his own coffee ; or a diminutive Indian ayah, with gold earrings, and a yellow shawl knotted across her shoulders, dand- di San Marco. ON THE LUNG' ARNO. 13 ling a pale, blue-eyed baby, as well as the most prosaic type of Anglo-Saxon. A smell of drugs pervades the street, the mud of winter clings to the pavement, and the sultry glow of summer suri smites unpityingly on the pedestrian. The thorough fare received its name from the church of the Ognissanti near by, which was built by the Frate Umiliati. This company of monks brought to Florence the craft of working in wool. They dwelt and worked until the year 1206 at San Donato in Polverosa, when it was decided that the locality was too distant from Florence for their industry, and they were accorded Santa Lucia sul Prato as a new abode, a spot still outside the limit of the city walls. In 1256 the convent of Ognissanti was built, in turn, and the street became gradually occupied by their dye-houses and fulling-mills. The Young American glances out of the case ment of the hotel, and notices the building on the corner of the street above in the direction of the church of Ognissanti and the open space of the Piazza Manin. This structure is the Hospital of San Giovanni di Dio, with a pharmacy attached, a civic institution where eminent surgeons give their services in alleviation of the poor, in consulta tion, at stated hours. The property of the Vespucci family has been incorporated in the hospital, and here Amerigo Vespucci was born in 1453. An inscription on the wall records : " Ob repertam Americam sui et patrice nominis illustratori ampli- 14 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. ficatori orbis terrarum" The Florentines rejoiced in the renown of their fellow-townsman, and the Signoria ordered the building where he was born illuminated for three successive nights, after his voyage in 1499. Simone, son of Pietro Vespucci, is reputed to have opened a hospital in the year 1400. The Confraternity of San Giovanni di Dio united this charitable foundation to their convent and church adjacent in 1587, and subsequently enlarged the premises in 1785. After the discovery of America the Vespucci were allowed to attach a fanale to their houses, but now the inscription alone remains. A monk, wearing the brown robe, and a small skull-cap of the Franciscan orders, pauses at the portal of the hospital to inhale the fresh air. He is a nurse, with a thin, pale face, and his opportuni ties of breathing the outer atmosphere, snatched in a moment of leisure, are confined to the narrow limits of the Via Borgognissanti. Did ever monk climb the steep path of his earthly Calvary by a more painful route of drudgery ? His dark form in the doorway affords the sole feature of suggestive association between the past and the present per ceptible about these precincts. The Frate's minis trations do not seem to appertain to such modern remedies as quinine, vermouth, and antipyrene, but rather to the elixirs and cordials of mediaeval mon- asticism. Is he not versed in the miraculous virtues of the syrup of cedar, camphor, alkermes, the root ON THE LUNG' ARNO. 15 of the white lily, goat's rue, amber, sweet and bitter almonds, treacle, myrrh to hold in the mouth in a season of infection, and talismanic properties of certain gems, such as the jacinth stone? Might he not sell an infallible powder to a municipal commission of health, as an antidote to cholera, for the sum of one hundred gold florins, as well as a certain priest in the time of the great Plague ? Does he deal with the oil of St. John, probably tinctured with the plant St. John's wort, which is still distributed to the mothers of the people, for childish ailments, if each seeks a palace in the Via della Forca furnished with a little flask on the Eve of the Baptist's festa in June, as one of the most ancient traditions of the city ? An iron lamp hangs suspended above a little shrine on a house opposite the hospital. This tabernacle is another relic of past customs. Peter Martyr spread the sentiment of devotion to the Madonna, and instituted the custom of attaching her image, with that of Christ and various saints, to dwellings, urging the lighting of lamps during the hours of darkness, quite as much as a measure of security against the attacks of robbers, or assassins, on peaceful citizens late abroad as to inspire devout meditation. Worthy preacher, who believed in demons of night, and terrified imaginations, as tempting the souls of the faithful, what would be your astonishment at the pallid glow of electric globes now illuminating many portions of Florence ! 16 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. The Young American watches a country waggon as it pauses at the hospital. The hale father, and lean, brown son detach the horse from the shafts in order to assist the mother to alight, with the aid of crutches. The cripple wears a copper-coloured hand kerchief tied over her head, and a curious shawl of green crepe, some relic of her wedding day. She glances back at the old husband and son, wistfully, wruen about to enter the domain of pain supported by her daughter-in-law, and the men nod cheerfully. A transient ripple of sympathy pervades the street. The domestic drudge hurrying homeward with a flask of wine hugged under one arm, and a can of petroleum in the other hand, pauses to exchange a word with the bootblack seated on his stool on the opposite kerbstone, while a group of young soldiers pause a moment, then stride on, possibly experien cing a novel sentiment of gratitude in the possession of their own vigorous juvenile members. The American resident calls on the traveller, and together they stroll down the Lung' Arno Amerigo Vespucci. The sky is obscured by clouds, and the quay deserted. " Why should we not believe in Amerigo Ves pucci ? " queries the former. " Let us believe in him, by all means," assents the latter, with animation. " Especially as to-day, the ninth of March, is the date when the Florentine gentleman is supposed to have been born," the resident adds. ON THE LUNG* ARNO. 17 An old Capuchin monk, with a coarse sack slung over his shoulder, who has trudged into town on sandalled feet, pauses to exchange greetings with the servants at the door of a modern palazzo, with closely shuttered casements, denoting the absence of the master. He proffers his horn snuff-box to the porter, who gravely takes a pinch of the fragrant dust. A young, red-haired groom leads forth a white horse from a stable to pace the Arno bank. The gentle and pretty animal is covered with a blanket of pale, sea-green tint, and moves with a coquettish, mincing gait, while the lad holds the bridle. The white horse, short in the barrel and with rounded limbs, resembles the steeds depicted by early painters, especially Benozzo Gozzoli. Given trappings embroidered and fringed with gold, and the red-haired groom attired in slashed doublet and silken hose, both horse and attendant might serve in a procession of the Magi of some fading fresco on a chapel wall. The rural baker halts in his little cart to deliver a large round loaf at a garden gate. The cart is drawn by a sturdy nag wearing blinkers and bells, and is painted a bright blue, with the design of three blades of wheat crossed on the tail-board. Consider, for a moment, the antiquity of this sym bolical stalk of grain, ripened in Egypt, Tartary, and Siberia, brought to Marseilles by the Phoenicians, and known as the Uadus of the Latin race, ground by the water-mills invented by Belisarius or erected 2 18 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. by Julius Caesar, as stated by Pomponius Sabinus. One associates wheat, also, with a wise and gracious Queen of Sicily, Dio by name, who taught her sub jects to sow, reap, and crush the gathered harvest in the year B.C. 427; while hungry Gaul awaited the discovery of windmills, as used by the Saracens, by the Crusaders in 1040, devouring acorns, chestnuts, and oaten porridge in rude haunts of the woods, meanwhile. The worship of Ceres may still find root here on the Lung' Arno in the soft spring morn ing, when a faint tinge of green begins to cloud the distant trees of the Cascine, and a line of vivid emerald marks the growth of winter crops beneath olive-trees on hills across the narrow span of river Arno. What does the baker's cart, a sort of bin on wheels, contain ? Merely the wholesome country loaf of whole meal, or some lineal descendant of the seventy-two kinds of raised bread reputed to have been brought from the East by Megalarte, whether mixed of barley, rye, and wheat, made with oil, flavoured with cheese, unleavened, as the Azyme of Jewish captives, strangely compounded of milk, fat, and pepper, or cunningly flavoured with wine and honey to a semblance of modern gingerbread? Eather may one infer that the humble conveyance holds no such tempting delicacies, but only the por tion for the nourishment of man first baked by Sara amidst the ashes of the hearth for the angelic visi tors to her tent, possibly before the Hebrew race adopted the small portable oven attributed to them. ON THE LUNG* AKNO. 19 British philanthropists deplore the inevitable im poverishment of the labouring classes in discarding barley and oatmeal porridge in favour of dry white flour, and the Florentine lower orders consume the chaff of the town baker in preference to the more solid and nutritious rural aliment, yet there is a certain phase of patriarchal custom still to be asso ciated with the little cart driving in the gate of the Flower City, and the names of such localities as the Canto alle Farine, near the Palazzo Vecchio, or the duty of the very ancient Magistracy of Abun dance that the eight captains who had been elected to buy foreign grain for the town should climb the tower of the Church of Or. San Michele once a year to survey the surrounding country, and make an estimate of the prospects of the harvest. "Look at the rainbow!" exclaims the country baker, a jovial, brown man emerging from the garden gate, and followed by the gardener's wife, with a brood of chubby children already munching slices of fresh bread. " Eh ! That was made by a good architect ! We shall have a fruitful year with all that yellow for the oil, red for the wine, and green for the corn." The two Americans walk along the quay, with umbrellas closed, the traveller, with whom all impressions are fresh, observing his companion with some curiosity. The older man, gray-bearded, reti cent in manner, and quiet, defines himself as a waif, an exile from America, where an occasional visit takes 20 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. his breath away in all the rush of active life, tele phonic systems, and electric tramways which signify progress. He resembles the artist in Eome who led new-comers to a certain spot on the Aventine, and silently absorbed the beauties of the scene outspread for his rapt contemplation, awed to incapacity, while the students dashed off hasty sketches of a crude, first impression, each in his own fashion. On the changing lights and phases of his Florence the American resident is usually mute. He lingers in the shadow of a church portal, or in the house of Michelangelo to contemplate the desk of the great man. He basks in the sunshine of a winter afternoon on a hillside of the environs, making a drawing, furtively and secretly, in a pocket album all abloom with purple, russet, and gold, with a background of snow peaks, intoxicated by a cry stalline purity of atmosphere, and a riot of colour earthward, Italy smiling on him in the radiance of the day, and the stillness broken by the occasional note of a church bell. He haunts auction sales, on occasion finding in the wreck of a foreigner's household gods, whether Dutch, Eussian, or British, none of the resources, indeed, of Christie's, and the Hotel Drouot, but a pathos in chairs, tables, worn embroideries, and punch-bowls, of which dust is sole record, such as keeps him in touch with his kind. He dwells on the Lung' Arno Amerigo Vespucci, in one of the apartments with a gallery enclosed with glass, surrounded by furniture, pictures, books, ON THE LUNG' ARNO. 21 and objects of art, chiefly of the date of the fif teenth century. " You have lived in Florence for a long time," the Young American observes. " Yes ; I drifted here ages ago," the exile answers. " You have often heard of the typical Englishman who seeks some obscure Continental town for a week and remained twenty years, no doubt. Well ! Americus Vespucius was kind enough to give his name to my country, and, in turn, I have discovered his birthplace. Is not that like looking through the reverse end of a telescope ? I came to Florence as a tourist, then returned to spend a winter and spring j and ultimately took up my abode here." The Young American glances up and down the Lung' Arno, the capuchin, who is the type of Boc caccio's merry, gossiping frate of the countryside, has trudged on with his sack over his shoulder, the rural baker has driven off, and the white horse, after Benozzo Gozzoli, been led back to the stable. " It seems a very quiet place," muses the stranger. " At such moments as this one gets back a little of the old feeling, and the atmosphere of other times, just as the lover of Eome comes down of a summer afternoon from some cool retreat in the Castelli to ramble about the deserted streets, un- jostled by modern, fashionable life," the old Ameri can makes response. They pause, and the Young American traces the course of the Arno westward, with his furled umbrella. 22 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. " When Amerigo Vespucci quitted his native city did he take boat, and seek the Mediterranean Sea by way of Pisa ? " he ponders. "Who knows?" echoes his companion. "What are we to think of Amerigo Vespucci in our time ? Was he a vain upstart of a Florentine, who strove to rob the great Columbus of his laurels of glory ? Would not you or I have boasted a little, had we made four voyages to America across nearly untried seas, in the craft of his day instead of on board of the ocean greyhound ? Was he ignorant of the fame in store for him, that bauble extended by posterity all too late to so many of the sons of earth ? Who may decide ? " " Ours is an age of doubt in most things," sug gests the Young American. "A period of doubt because everything is reputed to have been done, and we have the leisure, there fore, to meditate on a matter of interest, each in our own fashion, and discuss it at greater or less length. The Marchese Girolamo Serra, the Genoese, states that our age inclines to philosophical history, in which an author may recount, sift, and reflect, but attempts to change nothing, like an expert captain who remains imperturbable in the midst of battle. Now if we could all weigh Amerigo Vespucci's claims to consideration in such a spirit !" rejoins the old American. Youth makes a gesture of impatience. " One does not know what to believe, nowa days ! " he exclaims, suddenly, with a clouded brow. ON THE LUNG' ARNO. 23 " Courage ! " says his companion, reassuringly. "It is a fact that 1 Wisest is he who, never quite secure, Changes his thoughts for better day by day ; To-morrow some new light will shine, be sure, And thou shalt see thy thought another way.' " But the Young American persists in being ag grieved at the tendency of certain wise heads to check all enthusiasm in a most pessimistic vein. "We are not even allowed to consider William Tell as a historical character," he grumbles. "We are told that the apple business has been forever discarded by the cantonal government of Schwyz, and the hero excluded from school histories pub lished on authority. Somebody else hastens to bowl down the very suggestion that Tasman christened Van Diemen's land in honor of Miss Marie Van Diemen at home in Batavia. What good is it for the iconoclasts to sweep away everything ? I read the guide-book item that Galileo's telescope is kept in the Museum of Natural Science here, to a girl with an eye-glass on the train from Bologna, and she said she did not believe it." " Why did she discredit the fact ? " demanded the senior, after a pause. "Oh, she affirmed that they say those things in every place ! " " Meaning that there is a Galileo and a telescope in each town," supplements the old American. " Logical reasoning ! Well, no law forbids every 24 AMERICA'S GODFATHER, Miss making an idiot of herself in travel, if she chooses. Ah, I rejoice that I was once young, full of ardent curiosity to pound my toy watches with any stray hammer, and spy at the mechanism, run ning full tilt at all windmills of chimera, a wor shipper of heroes, warriors, and poets, with juvenile warmth of imaginative reverence, and falling into many a ditch of cruel disillusionment, yet learning, always learning for myself." "The hlack beetle is even now worried in the cause of science, and declared not to be a beetle at all," protests the young American. " From William Tell to black beetles ! where shall we stray next ? " and the senior laughs. " Also, the blind worm has been pronounced not blind, and one of the most useful of God's creatures." " Of course ! " " On the other hand, restitution is being made," muses the old American. "Nero is said to have cherished enlightened schemes for the re-building of Rome with broader streets, after consulting archi tects, providing tents for the houseless people, and a store of corn at Ostia, rather than to have merely applied the torch of a madman to the Imperial City. Intimidated by the result, he attributed the crime to the new sect of Christians. Lucretia Borgia is found on later evidence to have been a worthy matron enough. Even Queen Joanna of Spain has had the veil of mystery lifted a little, with the query if she was actually mad, or a dangerous prisoner of ON THE LUNG' ARNO. 25 state with leanings to new doctrines of Protestantism' in the infernal machinations of Spanish politics. We, the doubters, listen, and wonder, moved to leniency of judgment by a lock of Beauty's golden hair treasured in a museum, or thrilled to sympathy by the picture in the Spanish collection of the Paris Exposition of 1878 of daft Joanna escorting the corpse of her husband amidst flaring wax torches. Was Nero altogether a brute ? Was Queen Joanna insane ? How complacently wise and sound histo rians portray prominent personages : this one as akin to the demigods, who proves to have been a clever actor wearing a mask before his audience, and that one a cowardly miscreant, in failure, shown by later research in the guise of a true and pure patriot, maligned by the hatred of contemporaries ! Let us not scoff at the seekers of truth, my friend. Those who toil in the vast field of the rectifications of his tory resemble Old Mortality tenderly removing the moss from the epitaph of tombs. If Tertullian affirmed, in his time, that the world became each day more embellished and magnificent, with the most remote nooks rendered accessible and fre quented, deserts once dreaded covered with fresh herbage, the forests conquered by agriculture, wild animals driven to distant lairs before domestic herds, the sandy wastes sown with seed, the rocks crushed, and the quagmire converted into firm ground, how much more readily can we make a similar boast." " There 's always some one ready to take a fellow 26 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. down a peg if he gushes over the least little thing ! " exclaims the Young American, with petulance. "Adhere to your own standard," the senior ad monishes good-humoredly. " Dare to be true to your accepted creed. Now concerning Amerigo Vespucci, his identity has always vastly interested me, if only for the place he filled in history. The direct line of his family became extinct with the descend ants of his brother, Giovanni di Antonio, in 1712, but other bearers of the illustrious name are said to still dwell here in Florence. Is it not a most curious circumstance that a man born in an in land town, and not ti son of the sea, by nature or profession, should have given his name to a new continent ? " " Yes," assents Youth meditatively. The rainbow has dissolved, and vanished over the country in the direction of Monte Morello, and the sun, piercing the clouds, tinges the Arno, the bridges, and the roofs with a gleam of pale gold. The two Americans enter the house with the glass- enclosed gallery, for luncheon. The whims of the host are speedily revealed by the decoration of his abode. Helmets, greaves, cuirasses, armlets, and scutcheons are grouped on the walls of the vestibule and corridor as the heirlooms of medievalism. Sev eral chambers are crowded with the implements of savages, Maori clubs, Indian tomahawks, African spears, agricultural tools, idols from the South Seas, an Ashantee casket of cowrie-shells, dedicated to ON THE LUNG* ARNO. 27 Ori, the god of good luck, a necklace of whale's- teeth, and a miniature canoe swung on cords above a door. He smilingly invites his visitor to enter a cabinet which he seems to have dedicated to the memory of Vespucci. A bust in plaster of Amer ica's godfather placed on a bracket between two windows is his own work. As a dilettante, he wrought the clay in the studio of a friend, an emi nent American sculptor, during one winter, with much animated discussion on such debatable mat ters as the probable shape of Vespucci's nose, the family cast of feature, and the accuracy of the por trait at Naples, painted by Parmigianino. Several pictures on the wall are from his hand, as well : water-colour sketches of the Brazilian forest-depths in the heat of noon, when birds and animals re tire beneath the canopy of leaves ; the rosy glow of sunrise, and an Indian poised in his canoe on a misty river shooting fish with his bow and arrow ; or a drawing in black and white of moonlight on a tropical swamp, with an alligator in the foreground. Collections of butterflies and humming-birds fill the angles of cornice, while a glass case in an al cove contains wax models of a pineapple, a potato, a tomato, a ripened ear of maize, some leaves of to bacco, and specimens of the bark of the chincona tree, vanilla-pods, and cacoa-beans. " America's gifts to Europe," he remarked. " Let us add, introduced by Amerigo Vespucci, since he was one of the instru ments. Ah, we do not pause in this busy world to note the significance of such trifles I" 28 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. The noonday meal over, the host proffers boxes of cigars and cigarettes to his guest, and lights his own pipe. He is an inveterate smoker, and the atmosphere of the apartment is usually opaque. He leads the way to a tiny hot-house, built against a projecting wall at his own expense, where orchids bloom such as the Greeks and Komans might have revelled in, yet never enjoyed. He fosters, with a delicate sympathy in all the eccentricities of plant life, the Flor de Majo (Laelia majalis), the crimson Masdevallias, the West-Indian Bletia verecunda, or the C. album of the United States. "My loyalty in expatriation should not be doubted," he says as he adjusts a glass slide here and there, with reference to the temperature best adapted to these capricious children of the New World. Later the resident leaves a copy of Wagner's Jeunesse at the hotel for the traveller, with his card inserted at the charming dedication: A LA JEUNESSE ET A TOUS CEUX QUI I/AIMENT POUR ELLE-MEME. CHAPTER III. THE TAPESTRY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. How are we to consider Amerigo Vespucci ? As a pastel, an etching, a fresco in such company as the Florentines of Ghirlandajo in the church of Santa Maria Novella, or as a portrait of the Venetian school rich in vitality of colouring ? Ah, if by some subtle process of the silversmith's craft, followed on the Ponte Vecchio and in dark nooks of his native city, we could hope to fuse the seething metal of historical material in the crucible, and refine it until the features of the Florentine gentleman were clearly reflected ! Ah, if we could hope to hold up a transparent crystal as the medium which permits an image to pass through, like the Arabs of the Middle Ages, who adopted the arrangement of the Peripatetic philosophy, that a single thesis should become the nucleus of a vast system, the duty of mind being to perceive forms while remaining free of all trammels ! Amerigo Vespucci, as a memory, resembles more those old coins described by Sturtz as stamped with the effigy of monarchs we know not, and yet whose courts were brilliant, and fre quented by poets and authors esteemed, renowned. 30 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Still more does he seem to appertain to the tapestry pattern of his time. Far from the Vespucci quarter of the Ognissanti, beyond the Duomo, and the Piazza of the Annunziata, the Egyptian Museum gives access to the Gallery of Tapestries on the Via Colonna. Here is a high-warp tapestry of the fifteenth century, interwoven with gold thread, representing nobles, soldiers, ladies, persons of distinction, and simple folk, with several pheasants in the fore ground, and a canopy upheld by falcons. The piece might have been wrought by any one of the emigrant workers of Arras, Lille, and Bruges, who trooped over the Alps south between the years 1420 and 1500. These sought employment in Tuscany, Man tua, Venice, and Urbino, their luggage consisting of the sections of a very primitive loom, and a few cartoon designs, while Italy assured an abundant supply of the raw stuff requisite for textile fabrics. In the Tapestry Gallery several easels support the canvas of the English and American ladies, who copy favourite subjects with the colours of South Kensington, in arabesque scroll, Medici scutcheon, nymphs, and goddesses. We have little leisure, in our day, for the patient task of drawing the fibre of wool, silk, and burnished threads through the sub stance, on the wrong side of the design, if the same effect can only be attained in form and hue by a surface of paint and photographic process of re production. The eye instinctively reverts to the Campanile of Giotto, and the Duomo. TAPESTRY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 31 tapestry of the fifteenth century, and seeks Amer igo Vespucci in that noble company gathered be neath the sumptuous canopy held in the beaks of the falcons, which may be accepted as symbolical of the manifold embellishment of human life wrought by the Renaissance. Prosaically weighed, the strip of stuff suspended on the wall is merely the result of the patient industry of a foreign craftsman hun dreds of years ago; considered in a metaphorical vein it becomes the pattern of weal and woe inter woven in the loom of the years, in some dim realm of cloudland, by the inexorable Fates of an artist's reveries. All those nobles, soldiers, ladies, persons of dis tinction, and simple folk of the tapestry, possess the human interest of portraiture, in their century, had we the curiosity of a Herodotus combined with the vigour of a Tacitus in separating and describing each ; but the lapse of succeeding years has blended them into the outlines of a pattern, one trending closely on the footsteps of another, impelled by circum stance and not seeing their own path clearly, yet forced to advance. These also pass across the drapery in the sinuous winding of the course of a stream : motive and character, cause and effect lead ing to conflict or a new order of things, the glance of the poet or the painter taking in the scenic grandeur of effect of totality, and the scientific annalist noting carefully the volume of water, the speed of the current, and the quality of all sediment held in solution. 32 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Among the nobles we seek Kichard III. of Eng land, small of figure and humpbacked, plotting the overthrow of his nephew Edward V. and Henry of Richmond alike ; the crafty countenance of Louis XI. furrowed with deep meditation as to the fulfil ment of his mission of the unity of France, and the breaking up of feudal tyranny, death crumbling his scheme to dust; the weak and vacant face of his son Charles VIII. in curious contrast; the embroidery of the line of Medici princes ; the crim son thread of the Borgias in the Duke Valentino; Frederick III., the Pacific, of Germany ; Sigismund, king of Hungary, stained by the blood of John Huss. Yonder is the Duke of Burgundy, Philippe- le-Bon, giving his fte at Lille in 1453, after the crusade against Mahomet II., the banquet table adorned with confectionery in the shape of a vessel riding on crystal waves of sugar, a church, and a pastry containing puppets playing musical instru ments, while in a theatre of the hall Mysteries are performed, then a poem of the Golden Fleece, and, later, a giant leads in an elephant, with a tower on its back serving as a prison for a veiled captive maiden, personating Christianity in the grasp of the Mussulman. Behold the group of the Popes of the century : Benedict XIII. at Avignon struggling for supremacy with Boniface IX. at Rome ; Innocent VII. ; Alexander V., speedily making a place for John XXIII., a shuttlecock tossed by adversity between the Council of Constance and two rivals, TAPESTRY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 33 Benedict XIII. and Gregory XII. ; Martin V. ; Eugenius IV. of sumptuous, if troubled, fame, as holding a conclave in the Florence Duomo with John Palseologus, with the aim of effecting a union of the Latin and Greek churches ; Calixtus III. ; Pius II., the accomplished Sienese gentleman ; Paul II., -who first clad his cardinals in purple ; Sixtus IV., the unpopular adversary of Lorenzo the Magnificent ; Innocent VIII. ; and Alexander VI., of eternal infamy. The soldiers have in their ranks Piccinino, loyal to the Visconti unto death ; Carmagnola, changing his armour of the Condottieri with supple address, now in the service of Milan, and again in that of Venice ; Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, no less mercenary in his allegiance to rulers, whether King Ferdinand of Naples, or Charles VIII. of France in 1495 ; and Bartolomeo Coleoni, esteemed the best tactician of his age. The ladies sweep across the space beneath the canopy in their robes of state : Queen Isabella of Spain, of suave and dignified presence ; the melan choly Catherine of Aragon ; the keen Anne of Bretagne, spinning primly among her damsels while scheming to undo her enemies ; the Madonna of Imola, a rich and imperious personality ; or Cathe rine Cornaro, enveloped in the folds of her trans parent veil, and crowned with the diadem of Cyprus, all blooming with the tints of Titian's brush. The notable persons of the fifteenth century 3 34 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. form a wonderful company, a thronging multitude. Erasmus, Luther, and Melancthon are recognizable, with the great Catholic preachers Savonarola and Bernardino of Siena. These traversed their era and the field of life, desolated by oppression, war, and famine, like a flame, while all the elements composing rival States strove to revive the fine arts, establish printing, and perfect engraving on wood and copper. Here are the scholars endeavouring to solve the great laws of the universe, and the navi gators Columbus, Bartolomeo, Diaz, Vasco di Gama, or Sebastian Cabot, who adapted the systems of physics and mathematics to aid their own dis coveries. The artists push aside the folds of the draperies to admit a flood of dazzling light, in the broad effulgence of new power : Albert Diirer, Titian, Eaphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Squarcione, and Filippo Lippi in the imitation of grotesques. Maso Fini- guerra holds a front rank in this group, of whom Baldinucci says : " There was only this artificer who inlaid any object ill silver, by filling up with niello, making a stamp, or impression of earth, and holding the work over liquid sulphur. The design was thus set, and given a certain tint with oil, then pressed gently by means of a wooden wheel, on moist paper, so that the impression of the intaglio remained also on the paper of the first model in the silver, and appeared as if drawn with a pen." Beware of the horde of simple folk underfoot, the serfs and vassals escaping from the yoke of TAPESTRY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 35 ages to make the tumults of the Ciompi, under Michele di Lando, the wool-carder of Florence, La Jacquerie in France, Wat Tyler in England, as well as the more noble dream of founding republican States of an Artevelde of Brussels, or a Eienzi of Eome. The fifteenth century held these forces as well as preceding and ensuing years. And the weird sisters, the Fates of cloud-land ? Imagination has free scope to behold them spinning and weaving their vast design of embroidery. On the margin of the year 1400 the subtle current of religious fanaticism in the twenty thousand peni tents, men and women, clad in sackcloth and white garments, traversing Italy wailing misericordia, and on the other, of the date 1499, the Mussulman impulse to invade the West by Zara, and the Vene tian States. The temples had been demolished, and the Hellenic principles succeeded by superstition, and popular fetes, for France the Pardons, for the Low Countries the robust Kermesse, for Naples a taper burning before the Madonna instead of Ceres and Vesta, as the Virgin further replaced Venus in Sicily and Greece, as the star of Aphrodite that opens the gates of Dawn ; and portents in the sky, of comets, multiplied suns, and contending armies. French chivalry, after the fourteenth cent ury, had been smitten by the English archers at Cre'cy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, and was further scattered by the invention of artillery. England 36 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. had ceased to speak the language of the Conqueror with Chaucer, while wars with the Valois severed the two nations. The Popes built up a vast society spiritual and temporal, while Germany began .to study her Bible, and animate the pulpit. Amerigo Vespucci had a place in the warp and woof of that fabric of the fifteenth century. The words of Mr. Froude recur to the mind in contemplating the tapestry : " If you would understand a particular period study the original authorities. Go to the chronicles written by men who lived at the time, and breathed the contemporary air. Drink at the fountain. The stream of tradition con tracts always some alien matter from the soil which it flows through. Eead, if you can find them, the letters and writings of the persons that you are concerned with. Read what others who knew them said about them, and do not trust your own imagination. Take nothing at second hand. The language itself breathes the atmosphere in which it grew. Do not rest while any point which you can reach remains obscure. You will then find that the forms of departed things rise up, and take shape before you." Has not Amerigo Vespucci been held up for the world's unsympathetic scrutiny in all the unsightly knots and details of the wrong side of the pattern, rather than as a completed and even dignified figure of the surface ? The sober, neutral tints of the background of the tapestry only serve to bring TAPESTRY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 37 out in sharper violence of contrasting colours the shades of foreground, and' middle space ; for, after all, the world's history has a certain uniformity, and everywhere the same causes produce the same result. CHAPTER IV. IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. A BAND of small boys, escaped on a school holi day, troop over the greensward of the Cascine on the spring noonday. A half-column of stone at the entrance of a garden invites their juvenile attention, and emulative ability to surmount it. Did urchin ever behold post or gate without longing to clamber on the top ? Two of the nimble little Florentines essay the column, and fail to scale it ; then a third puts them aside, and with an agile bound seats him self on the summit. He gazes down triumphantly, with dangling legs swinging, and his companions look up at him with unwilling respect. " Aristide, I have a certain method I ! " he condescendingly explains. Aristide blinks, with a flushed little face, and chews a twig of laurel plucked from the adjacent hedge. Evidently the boy on the post is destined to dominate his fellow-townsmen, unless conceit undoes him, sooner or later. The childhood of this group has certain modern, commonplace phases, yet is marked on the calendar of very ancient customs in the City of Flowers. IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 39 Each of these little Christians was presented a bundle of swaddling-clothes soon after birth at the font of the Baptistery for the priest to christen him, as in the day of Dante, who recalled the dark, rich temple, in exile, as his beautiful sheepfold. The dial of the year still marks festivals dear to the soul of childhood. On the festa of St. Simon, in the month of October all partake of boiled chest nuts and new wine, a ceremony especially observed by women and children. The traditional long, slen der glass trumpet will be blown by the band in the streets on the Eve of Epiphany, while country cousins hang their stockings beside the wide chim ney for the Bef ana to fill with gifts ; the old woman who rides about on her donkey during the night as the benevolent Santa-Glaus visits the American nur sery in his sleigh. The rustic does not fail to place a wisp of hay on the hearth for the donkey. Carni val pranks still attach a strip of white paper, cut in the form of a ladder, by means of a pin to the shawl of an unconscious matron, the sly perpetrators of the jest lurking in doorways, and around the corner to enjoy the denouement. The custom is traced to a delightful old woman of the Middle Ages, com pounded of figs, raisins, honey, and nuts, draped like an effigy, and hung in the Loggia de' Lanzi, until cut down by a citizen on a ladder, when her mem bers, scattered on the pavement, were scrambled for by the expectant populace, and devoured in a truly cannibal fashion. The nut-fairs held at one of the 40 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. city gates during the Sundays of Lent delight them with the crowd, the music, the jugglers, and the piles of thin wafer cakes, brigidini, flavoured with aniseed, baked in little portable ovens, and stamped with the design of antique irons. The spectacle of firing the Car of Ceres on Holy Saturday by means of the mechanical dove before the Duomo; the search for crickets in the meadows of the Cascine on Ascension Day; and the illuminations of the city on the June fte of St. John the Baptist, complete the year. In their day the bevy of boys in the Cascine may study law, become merchants, enter the army or religion, or even emigrate to Buenos Ayres and Brazil. Amerigo Vespucci was born on the ninth of March, 1451. His father was Ser Anastasio Vespucci, and his mother Elisabetta Mini. His race ranked among the most ancient of the city, and counted among its members many illustrious men. The family came from Peretola, a village one mile distant from the Prato gate of Florence, where the guide-books state pink lilies-of-the-valley grow in spring, a sugges tion that lends an additional beauty to the robe of the Flower City, and the cradle of the Vespucci. Luca di Messer Piero Vespucci, who formed a mem ber of the Council of Two Hundred after the fall of the republic, is mentioned as a descendant of Ves pucci di Dolce di Bene, wine merchant, of the stock of Peretola. In the thirteenth century they took up their abode in the town, and, as the Canon Ban- IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 41 dini quaintly narrates, " like so many noble families, chose the parish nearest the portal leading to their country property. Thus the Vespucci selected land in the vicinity of the gate formerly named of the Carre (carts), and now of the Prato (meadow), by which the road leads to Peretola, in the quarter of Santa Lucia di Ognissanti in that house at the cor ner of the new Yia di Borgognissanti, and which to-day serves as a hospital for poor sick ones, under the charge of the pious Brothers of San Giovanni di Dio." The Vespucci enjoyed honours, and even distinction in Florence of a dignified sort, eminently character istic of the prudent, astute, religious, and frequently witty Tuscan, at the same time merchant and states man. Simone di Piero Vespucci, who gained wealth in commerce, was noted for the piety with which he spent large sums in charity, relieving the dis tress of the poor, and erecting a hospital on the 31st of October, 1390, under the name of Santa Maria dell' Umiliati. His son Giovanni found favour with Alfonso, king of Aragon and the Two Sicilies, who made him a councillor and associate, bestowing upon him the property of Laconia in the province of Calabria. In 1346 Vespucci di Dolcebene was elected to share in the city government, filling the office of prior, gonfaloniere of justice, and the Buonomini. To anticipate dates, Messer Guido Ves pucci was a legislator, and a gonfaloniere in 1487 and 1498, as well as a deputy to Pope Sixtus IV. 42 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. and to King Louis XL of France. He again sought the Pontiff in 1480 to claim absolution in the name of Florence for the conspirators of the Pazzi cabal, and in 1484 returned to take the oath of obedience to the new Pope, Innocent VIII. In 1494 he was appointed ambassador to the French King Charles VIII. when that monarch meditated a conquest of Naples ; visited Paris in 1497 to ask aid in the war with Pisa ; and filled missions to Venice and Milan. A certain Piero Vespucci was made ambassador to King Ferdinand of Naples, who created him a cav alier, and in 1478 was imprisoned in the StincTie (gaol) of Florence by Lorenzo the Magnificent, for having taken part in the sacking of houses in the tumult of the Pazzi, as an ostensible, public accusa tion, but in reality for aiding the escape of his friend Napoleone Franzezi. This Vespucci was liberated in 1480 by the mediation of the Duke of Calabria. Scholars, prelates, notaries, and sagacious negociarits were not lacking to the race ; yet their abilities were dwarfed to the limits of their own sphere by the light of the wide-spreading fame of Americus Ves- pucius. Such was the family of America's godfather, the Florentine gentleman. In the year of his birth, 1451, Cosimo de' Medici, the elder, still wielded his munificent influence over Florence ; Nicholas V. was Pope ; Francesco Sforza had been made Duke of Milan in 1450 ; Antonio Bentivoglio ruled Bologna ; Alfonso I. of Sicily and Aragon, adopted by Queen Joanna II., IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 43 had succeeded in conquering the entire Neapolitan territory in 1442 ; Francesco Foscari was still Doge of Venice ; and Pietro Fregoso, Doge of Genoa. Charles VII. was king of France, Joan of Arc having delivered Orleans ; Henry VI. was the king of England, robbed of the French provinces of the Crown ; Frederick I., the Elector Palatine, governed Germany as regent, as he had done since the death of his elder brother in 1449. Other childish eyes opened to the light at the same date : Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, Savonarola, and Francesco Francia, master of sweetness and grace in the Bolognese school of Art. Florence did not resemble the modern capital then. The Apennines which encircle the little city may have been more richly clothed in ilex and oak, as marking the maritime region, six hundred metres above the Mediterranean level, with the cistus, myrtles, and laburnums, while inland chest nut swept up to the bleaker region of beech, pine, arbutus, and juniper, shelter of the shepherds, charcoal-burners, and poor mountaineers, culling the gigantic yellow fungus and wild strawberries for food, or fashioning some primitive utensils out of wood, like the salot workers in the Vosges. The city of the Arno has been termed young under Dante, adolescent with Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Michelangelo, and mature with Galileo. "The re cital of her political and intellectual vicissitudes possesses almost the interest of a history of the 44 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. family for the nations of modern Europe, because Florence is their elder, and in some sort presided over their education," says Dele'cluse. Amerigo Vespucci belonged to the middle course of the three phases of her development, as succeeding the primi tive communes of Italy and the south of France, where the consuls, magistrates, and council of one hundred senators were established, in a rudimentary imitation of Eome. The republic won franchise, and founded an influential commerce, with the birth of a poet and poetry that shed glory on the age ; the succeeding oligarchy rendered manufacture still more flourishing, while erudition, agriculture, and the arts were destined to develop under the tyranny of the Medici Grand-Dukes. The first town-wall of the time of Charlemagne, supposed to have been traced on the outline of a Roman settlement, along the right bank of the Arno, with its four gates, that of St. Peter to the east, that of the Bishop north ward, St. Pancras west, and Por' Santa Maria in the south, had been enlarged in the day of Countess Mathilda to the boundary begun in 1285, and fin ished in 1324 with a palisade and a ditch, which formed an irregular demi-circle on the river between the Carraia and Grazie bridges to the Piazza of St. Croce, San Lorenzo, and Santa Maria Novella back to the Carraia bridge. Beyond the Porta al Prato was a large triangular meadow (prato), where the youth of the city practised military exercises, while across the stream, near the Porta San Fredi- Church and Pia^a Santa Croce. IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 45 ano, the craft anchored that came up the Arno from Leghorn, and mills turned their wheels in the wind on the bank. Ghirlandajo painted a fresco of the Madonna, with St. John and Cosimo, in the lunette of the arch of the Prato gate, at the expense of Cosimo de' Medici. Michelangelo is reputed to have fortified the Lung' Arno wall with towers, bastions, casemates, and a ditch from the Piazza of Ognissanti out to the portal, in event of attack. The streets of the town were narrow and dark, paved with large flagstones, and even inlaid with small cobblestones, while certain ancient squares kept the brick tiles, worked with baked clay into a shape and pattern. At one date the city boasted of as many as fifty piazze, the finest being the Signoria, San Giovanni, St. Croce, Santa Maria No vella, and Santo Spirito. In 1288 the Commune bought the gardens of the Cerchi family to include in the space of the square of Santa Maria Novella, the luxury of such flowering nooks having been introduced within the enclosure of cities by the Roman emperors. At the opening of the fourteenth century curious statistics reveal the opulence of the town, such as the annual tide of three hundred thousand gold florins flowing into the public treasury, by means of the impost (tax) of the gates on tons of wine, grain, sixty thousand sheep, thirty thousand pigs, and twenty thousand kids. In a certain month of July four thousand melons were registered as passing the Porta San Frediano. Public function- 46 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. aries were appointed to regulate salaries, the use of ornaments by women, the food of the lions kept in cages in a den in the rear of the Palazzo Vecchio, the pay of heralds and trumpeters, and the expenses of wax torches consumed in public festivals. When the third circuit of boundary had been completed twenty-four convents, ten monasteries, and thirty hospices, with beds for the poor, flourished, schools of grammar and logic were opened, and many strangers visited the town. Florentine palaces and houses were built of square blocks of stone, or had the facade roughly plastered and decorated in fresco, black and white, after the manner of Morto da Feltre. and with the roof pro jecting over the street, an architectural feature which has been attributed to the need of protection from sun and rain. Such habitations had a court, stables, a well of pure water, a kitchen-garden, logge, a public lobby, and chambers and cellars of the ground-floor, which were always cool in mid summer. As late as the year 1527 the Venetian ambassador, Marco Foscari, stated that in the Flor entine republic the men who ruled the State descended to their shops of wool and silk, and, casting back the end of their mantles over the shoulders, weighed goods, and worked in public, so that all might behold them thus employed. The sons of citizens served in the lottega, wearing aprons, and carrying bags and bales for the master. Floren tines were accustomed to carry heavy burthens of wool and silk on their shoulders, like porters. IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 47 In the quarter of the Vespucci one sees in imagi nation, not the corporations of arts and merchants, the bishops who shared in the government, the foreign podestk, the guilds of the larger and the smaller crafts, even the dealers of the Calimala, dyeing and redressing the cloths of France, Flanders, and England, for the markets of Europe, Africa, the Mediterranean isles, and Asia, but the monk, the Utniliati (humble one), of the order of St. Michael of Alexandria, vowed by the statutes of his com munity to work in wool, who sought Florence in 1239, to card and spin the fleeces of Spain, with the fulling-mills and dyeing-vats of the industry occupy ing the Borgognissanti, at first, until citizens, mer chants, and shopkeepers took up their abode here, as well. Naples had her guilds, under the protection of St. Gregory at the end of the sixth century. Milan, in 1198, had several trades dedicated to the care of St. Ambrose, with a treasury, and the jurisdiction of a commune within a commune ; and Pisa had the statutes of each art, with captains, consuls, and gonfaloniere in 1286. Florence later than her neigh bours north and south organised her body of trades, the carpenters and builders, then wool-weaving, silk- spinning, furriers, apothecaries, doctors, grocers, armourers, shoemakers, butchers, carters, and money changers, a hierarchy of industry deemed unique in history. The Carraia bridge belongs to the memory of the monk of the Umiliati. The Podesta Otto da Mun- 48 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. della (1218) laid the piles of the foundation, and two years later the Frati furnished the money requisite to complete the New Bridge, as it was named, leading to the villages on the other side of the river. Some members of the Vespucci family no doubt attended the festival of 1304, described by Villain: " At the time when the Cardinal of Prato was in good accord with the citizens and people, hoping to make peace between them, for the Calends of May fetes of companies and brigades of sports all through the city, each contrada against the other, strove to create gaiety and recreation, as in the old times when Florence was in a tranquil state. Among other sports (it having always been the ancient custom of the Borgo of San Friano to introduce new and varied diversions), a proclamation was sent all about, that whoever desired to hear news from the other world must be on the bridge of Carraia, or on the Arno banks on the day of the Calends of May, when they arranged boats and floating platforms on which the infernal regions, with fires and torments, with demons horrible to see, and others figuring naked souls, which were put to diverse tortures, with fearful cries and shrieks, the which was frightful both to hear and to see ; and, as this novelty had attracted many citizens, and the bridge was crowded and packed with people, it fell being then of wood with the great weight of the people on it, whereby many were drowned in the Arno, and many others were injured, so that the sport from simulation proved to be true, as the proclamation had stated, and some by death went to learn news of the other world, to the great grief of all the town, IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 49 each one having lost a sou, or a brother. And this was a sign of future misfortune which was soon to fall upon our city for the excessive sins of the inhabitants, as we shall presently relate." One would like to know more of the childhood of Amerigo Vespucci ; but no mediaeval gossip of his race, like Agnolo Pandolfini, and Buonaccorso Pitti, has left us such amusing and interesting record. In all history we wish for the warmth of a Carlyle, or a Macaulay in character drawing, and to learn how the person delineated by posterity was clothed and lodged, how he looked and spoke, how he sor rowed and rejoiced, in fact, what sort of world it was in which he worked, sighed, and hoped, from the cradle to the grave. The house where Amerigo was born must have possessed the usual features of such dwellings, the windows and doors of the lower story being strongly barred, a stone stairway leading up from the court to the family living chambers, which consisted of an apartment of state hung with damask, and appointed with heavy tables and chairs of polished wood ; the dining-room, with a ceiling of beams, and frescoed walls, flanked by the long seats (cassoni}, and oaken sideboard, holding majolica, and silver flagons ; and the kitchen near by with the rafters strung with produce from the country property : hams, bacon, sausages, garlic, dried figs* and grapes, and pots and coarse ware. The store rooms below were sure to be amply stocked with 4 50 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. grain, fruit, onions, and cheese, and cellars with casks of wine. What manner of woman was Elisabetta Mini? Oh, for a vivid contemporary portrait of the mother of the man who still enjoys such a singular, and much disputed fame ! We are not told that she had wonderful dreams before his birth, as did the mother of Dante. She belonged to that company of noble ladies of the period, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, mother of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who composed sacred rhymes and Carnival songs for Florence ; Costanza da Varano of the Signore di Camerino, born in 1428, and estimated as the most celebrated woman of the century, after praying Bianca Visconti, wife of Francesco Sforza, to restore the family seig- neury to her brother Eidolfo in a Latin oration, at the age of fourteen years ; Laura Brenzoni Schioppi the Veronese; Serafina Colonna, Anna di Spina, a Roman, deemed an admirable versifier ; Isabella of Aragon, wife of Gian Galeazzo Sforza ; and Ippolita Sforza, daughter of Francesco, consort of Alfonso II. of Naples, who wrote two Latin compositions in the Ambrosiana collection, the first in praise of her mother Bianca, and the second a eulogy on Pope Pius II. ; as well as Alessandra Scala, daughter of Barto- lommeo, beloved of Politian, and wife of Michele Marullo, famous for her Greek epigrams ; or Cassan dra Fedele, the Venetian, proficient in music, philoso phy, Greek, and Latin. As a bride the notary arranged the wedding settlements, the dowry of the maiden, IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 51 and even the amount of household linen stored in her wedding chests (cassoni), and jewels. That was the prosaic side of the matrimonial question, which prevails to this day in the poetical and classical land of flowers and the sun. In early times a girl's dowry was limited to one hundred lira, but gradu ally increased to a demand for fifteen hundred, two thousand, and three thousand florins by prudent parents of eligible sons. Also, at that epoch, a damsel of good position, whether Tuscan, or Eoman, was given a picture of value in addition to her other trinkets, wardrobe, and marriage settlements, so that Elisabetta Mini may reasonably be supposed to have brought to the house in the Via Borgognissanti her wedding chests bravely painted with curious alle gorical designs by 'some famous artist, seats of Spanish chestnut wood and walnut, a coverlet of precious needlework for the great Cinque Cento bed, with the baldacchino, or canopy of heavy draperies, a prie-dieu mounted on gilded claws, and a vessel attached to the wall to hold holy water, either fash ioned of majolica, or a carved pilgrim's shell of pearl. Etruscan urns, Eoman amphorae, lamps of terra cotta, hangings of stamped leather, portieres of vel vet, wrought with the family arms, panels of ivory, and the sparkle of Venetian glass tazze may have invaded these sombre rooms, in time, as a part of the taste for enervating luxury sternly reprimanded by Dante. Elisabetta Mini appears, for a moment, before us 52 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. in the dark thoroughfare, like a fleeting sunbeam, attired in her white zimarra, embroidered with pearls, her head-dress, and veil, coming from the ceremony of the church to take the seat of honour beside her bridegroom at the wedding feast, when a poet did not fail to recite an ode, composed for the occasion, and pass the evening al fresco with a gay company of guests and musicians in the space of street before the mansion, carpeted and adorned. As a wife, did she hold a cushion on her lap for lace- making, and wield the spindle of bone in weaving delicate meshes, and embroider priestly vestments for some favourite sanctuary ; tasks varied by turning the pages of her one book, a volume of devotions, or poems, superbly bound in velvet, with clasps of enamel, silver, and gold? Did she ride forth to public joust or tournament, in brocaded robes, mounted on a steed richly caparisoned with trap pings of velvet and silk ? Wheeled vehicles did not belong to her day. The ladies of the family of Cibo, the Marchesane of Massa, dwellin in the palace of the Pazzi, in 1534, used the first carriage, which was covered with cloth in the shape of a pavilion, and had a door in the side, an excess of pomp which scandalised all worthy burghers, and was satirised by the poets. Was she a notable housewife, super intending servants, accomplished in the serving of the peacock in his plumage, the capon stuffed with mushrooms and chestnuts, the roasted kid, the larks stewed with grapes, the wild-boar in some equiva- IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 53 lent of the modern agro dolce sauce, compounded of sugar, vinegar, citron, pine-nuts, raisins, and spices, and the dressing in oil of such fishes as the tenches of the marshes ? Did she make confetti and pastry with her own hands, like the French chatelaine ? When Catherine de' Medici, known as the Duches- sina, was being educated in the convent of the Murate at Florence, the nuns made a certain cake, or tart, called lerlingozzi, for gifts wherewith to propitiate high functionaries of the commonwealth. The art of making confectionery is attributed to Cappadocia, and the first pastry-cook appeared on the stage of grateful Europe in The'arion, a Sicilian, in the year B. c. 157. A French chart of 802 records the order of Louis le De'bonnaire to a certain farmer to furnish the Abbey of St. Denis with five muids of flour in order that the monks might regale them selves with some good pastry. Dame Vespucci was familiar with sugar, since the Chinese gave the cane to the Arabians toward the close of the thirteenth century, although a Venetian only found the secret of purifying the article, and making the delicacy into a loaf in 1471. She knew the value of those Eastern luxuries, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg from Java and Ceylon. Favours were sought of sovereigns by obsequious courtiers, as the gift of spices from the Abbot of St. Gilles, Languedoc, 1 1 63, to King Louis le Jeune. The condiment mustard must have seasoned her viands, whether as derived from the plant seneve, the mus- 54 turn ardens of scorched palates, or the much disputed Moutarde Dijonnoise of 1382, traced to the arms sculptured on a town gate of Dijon of the Duke of Burgundy, Philippe le Hardi, with the device Moult me tarde. The board of the Vespucci no longer had the slices of bread cut round to serve as a plate, afterwards given to the poor, a usage described by Virgil in the repast of the companions of ^Eneas, and followed by King Louis XII. of France. The knife is of such antiquity as to be traced to Abraham, al though manufactories of cutlery were first renowned in France in the tenth century. Did the lady use a napkin at meals ? Was she skilful in employing a silver fork ? Near the wide chimney of the sala was always a sink, with a copper vessel in which to wash the hands before going to table, and a towel Later, servants passed silver ewers for these rites of ablution. Before the sixteenth century Florence began to cool her wine in wells, and the use of ice is more than hinted at in beverages and dishes, even in winter, by sundry authorities. Did modern America acquire this reprehensible habit from her godfather, the Florentine gentleman ? We may well believe that Madonna Elisabetta sipped iced water, flavoured with lemon, jessamine, cinnamon, or sugar, on occasion. Two sons were born to the lady, and then a third, Amerigo. Was he carried to the baptistery, a wee bundle of swaddling clothes, and christened Amerigo, a name Latinized as Americus, and derived from fta Signoria. IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 55 the old High German Amalrich, signifying the steadfast, according to the Edinburgh Keview of July, 1892 ? The Christian appellation had never been an uncommon one in Italy from Amerigo di Mazzeo, Amerigo da Narbona of Liguria, Amerigo Donati of 1333, Amerigo Cavalcanti, Grand Cham berlain of the court of Naples, in 1316, to Amerigo degli Albizzi in the sixteenth century, as well as a Cavaliere Amerigo Strozzi. We find an Amerigo Gondi di Cerretani in our time. Amerigo di Bardi was the father of Dianora. Doubtless the infant Vespucci had for nurse a peasant woman from Peretola, as Michelangelo was consigned to the care of the stone-cutter's wife at Settignano. The foster mother is another living picture in the dark street, warmly coloured by the sun, and robust, animated, and smiling, returning to visit her charge in childhood, twirling a distaff where her descen dants now knit, or plait straw as they walk. Did Amerigo Vespucci await the coming of the Befana at the Epiphany, and spread hay on the hearth for her donkey How real the presence of Madonna Elisabetta walking abroad, enveloped in her wimple, with her little son Amerigo clinging to her hand or her skirts ! Florence had spectacles enough for juvenile eyes in those days. Instead of pinning a paper ladder to the shawl of a matron, a boy could share such diversions as those described by an ancient chronicler of 1400 when the Piazza Signoria was 56 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. adorned with the tributary banners of Pisa, Volterra, Arezzo, Pistoja, and Cortona, and one hundred towers, made of wood and pasteboard, mounted on cars, surrounded the square, having devices of animals, trees, and fruit, while mechanical figures of all colours, horses, warriors, and dancing girls moved about these gilded structures. During the festivities of May there occurred the procession from the country, consisting of women of the people divided into three classes, girls, matrons, and widows, chanting and carrying wax and flowers, and then men, preceded by priests with a crucifix, leading an ass loaded with a barrel of oil, and a youth dressed as an angel, perched on the top. These offerings were destined for the church of the Annun- ziata. May not mother and child have eaten boiled chestnuts and drunk new wine on the festa of San Simone ? Peep-shows cannot have failed to amuse the little Vespucci with the capers of those puppets that still represented the satire and moral of Italian cities and provinces. To the masks of the Latin comedy Maccus, the clown, Bucco, the glutton, Pappus, the good papa, and the wise Dossemus had succeeded the Pantaleone of Venice, the old merchant vain and gallant, Scaramouch, the boastful adven turer, the amiable Harlequin of Bergamo, the lovely Cassandra of Siena, the pedantic doctor of Bologna, and Stenterello, the eternal dupe, of Rome, or the immediate ancestors of these famous actors. Did Amerigo accompany his mother to the churches on IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 57 Saturdays after vespers to join in singing spiritual songs with men, women, and children ? Instruction was not lacking to a boy belonging to the class of the immediate precursors of Savonarola's band of children, who burned the funeral pyre of the Vanities. Nine companies in Florence taught and led the children in procession and singing lauds in the sanctuaries. " I learned Latin without fear or chastisement in the midst of the caresses, smiles, and play of my nurses," said St. Augustine. Childhood must have listened spellbound to dark histories of the times, as well, such as when the two boys of the Cancellieri family of Pistoja played together, and the son of Guglielmo Cancellieri acci dentally hurt Geri, son of Bertuccio Cancellieri. Full of concern, Guglielmo sent his boy to ask pardon of Bertaccio, when the latter, transported by rage, seized the lad, and cut off his hand. Hence arose the conflicts of the Blacks and the Whites. Pistoja became divided into two camps of the angry kinsmen, and, the feud extending to Florence, the Neri chose Corso Donati for their leader, and the JBiancki Messer Veri de' Cerchi. Medical science of our day would, no doubt, like to test the state of liver, or nerves of Bertuccio Cancellieri, when he lost his temper with such disastrous results to his fellow creatures ; while Leigh Hunt might have gravely questioned the pernicious effects of olive oil in diet as too heating for the stomach and blood 58 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. of the Italian. From a historical standpoint, Pope Boniface VIII. , and his successor Benedict XL, strove to make peace between these turbulent fac tions, through the mediation of the Cardinal Niccolo of Prato, who gathered the Florentines on the Piazza of Santa Maria Novella, to attain this end, on the twenty-sixth of April, 1204. Even more thrilling was the recital of that date of the wicked priest Neri Abati, prior of San Pier Scheraggio, probably insane, who, in 1304, set fire to the house of a relative near Or' San Michele, and then to a second mansion of the Caponsachi family in the Via Calimala, and, a strong north wind prevailing, twelve hundred buildings in the heart of the town were burned, comprising churches, palaces, streets, and logge, all reduced to ashes. In reverie one likes best to conjure up the pres ence of Madama Vespucci and her little son moving about old Florence, the Piazza delle Cipolle (onions), the Canto alia Paglia (straw), the street of the cheesemonger, Via Cacciajuoli, the Via Calzuoli, renowned for the manufacture of the serge stockings worn by the Emperor Charles V. as a compliment to the city in 1536 ; and the squares of the chestnuts (marroni*), of oil, of eggs, of hemp, and curds (ricotte). Did they not occasionally pause to listen to the bells of Santa Maria degli Unghi, the church of the seventh century, now the modern oratory of the Strozzina? These bells were cast by Niccolo Caparra, and the government allowed them to ring IN THE MORNING OF LIFE. 59 at sunset. Also, they may have prayed in the very ancient church of St. Elizabeth, situated on a little piazza of the same name, leading to the Via dell' Oche (geese), a temple once dedicated to St. Michael of the Trumpet, and the body of Trum peters of the Signory once dwelt around the walls. The house in the Borgognissanti boasted the scutcheon of the Vespucci, bands of azure, a swarm of golden wasps on a red field, with four quarterings of silver, and a gilded vase holding a gillyflower of the natural size. The coat-of-arrns is not as sugges tive as that of many of the noble houses of Florence, unless the swarm of wasps be accepted as the stings of posterity on the fame of the son Amerigo. The Medici balls have been designated as the golden apples of the Hesperides ; the Ruccellai family have a sail inflated ; and the Tolomei, the pretty device of a bunch of grapes, covered with three leaves and tendrils, with the motto, Quce tegit ornat. Thus the morning of life opened for Amerigo Vespucci in the land of the vine, the mulberry, and the fig, where the Etruscan Greek and the Eoman had passed away, leaving mighty records of their power and civilization in the ruins of their cities ; and he was destined to aid in solving the problem of the migration of the races of the future. CHAPTEE V. YOUTH. WHEN one meditates on the youth of Amerigo Vespucci, a figure familiar in the designs of the painters of the fifteenth century fills the mind : a lad clad in a silk jerkin, with slashed sleeves revealing fine linen, parti-coloured hose, and a little cap on his long hair. The background setting of this typical image in the group of Vespucci habita tions of the Borgognissanti is such a fresco of the period as was recently uncovered in the Old Market of Florence, representing rich antique stuffs and tapestry, as if suspended on rings and rods around the walls of a chamber, and a scutcheon in intricate design of ornamentation. Two men of serious mien guard careless adoles cence, with the floating locks crowned by the gaily tinted little caps, the father and the uncle of Amerigo Vespucci. Ser Anastasio, notary of the Signory, wears the attire of a citizen of his class, the lucca of black serge, with ample sleeves, a cap on his head, and a double strip of cloth, the becchetto, one end falling on the cheek, and the other wound around the neck. Black was rapidly becoming the favourite YOUTH. 61 hue with men and women of maturity, either in the coarser woollen fabrics of Flanders and Perpignan and velvet, tabi, a wavy silk, for summer use, ter- zanella, a stuff made of silk of an inferior quality, and sarcenet. The fashion of France and Milan in adding embroidery and gold fringes, as well as the taffetas and grosgrain of Holland, belonged to the sixteenth century. Equally important in the development of America's godfather was the uncle, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, in the garb of a priestly scholar, who superintended the boy's education. Fain would we know more of the teacher of youth, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, than any con temporary record vouchsafes us, as shedding clearer light on the real character of his pupil in making those four voyages to America than will ever shine on the path of an obscure man, now, in this world. What influence did Antonio Vespucci, the uncle, exercise on the awakening mind of the nephew, Amerigo Vespucci? What opinion had the master of the capacity, probity, arid temperament of the scholar ? Who knows ? A certain sentiment of pride in training the lad up to the existing standard of education requisite in his position as a Florentine gentleman, as well as a kinsman, must have accorded with the innate, immeasurable superiority to all contemporaries inherent in the race in the senior. Both were citizens of no mean city, and in an age flowering into the manifold splendours of the Eenais- sance. We must not forget that a portion of the 62 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. obloquy, as well as the neglect of silence in ignoring him altogether, cast on the fame of the discoverer in later years emanated from the multifarious ele ments of rival nations, or unscrupulous, perhaps ignorant fortune-seekers who designated him as a " Florentine adventurer " in the confusion of wrang ling to wrest from him the prize that had fallen into his hand. The uncle, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, was regarded as one of the learned men of the fifteenth century. He translated from the Greek the documents of Sextus Empiricus, and was admitted to intimate association with the Platonic Academy. He is mentioned by Bandini as a worthy embodiment of Florentine integrity and piety in his career. Aban doning all the paths of earthly pleasure, and the comfort of his own house, he retired to the monas tery of San Marco, and took the vows of a Domini can under the sway of Savonarola. He died at the convent of Fiesole on the seventeenth of April, 1514, at the age of eighty years. That which concerns an American more nearly than any subsequent religious meditations, according to his creed, of the worthy preceptor is that he taught Amerigo Vespucci his tory, geometry, languages, and physics. The boy is reputed to have diligently studied cosmography, astronomy, and navigation. What sort of instruc tor was Antonio Vespucci ? Did the spirit of a Froebel of any century dwell within him? Did he strengthen the memory of his renowned pupil Portrait of Savonarola. YOUTH. 63 after the method of Pietro Francesco de' Tommasi of Padua, by requiring him to render grammar and jurisprudence into verse ? Did he emulate Guarino, Aurispa, and Gasparone, who kept school at Novara, in 1431, with such success ? He may have had his walls and portals covered with pictures of the earth, with its nations, towns, continents, oceans, and rivers, as the Gallo-Romari orator Euminius adorned his abode, in order to explain to youth the system of the universe, and the invincible power of ruling princes in some campaign in Persia, Libya, on the banks of the Nile, and of the Rhine, thus : " Behold this territory, it is Egypt, and chastised by the arm of Diocletian, and wearied by her own rebellious spirit, she now rests submissive and repentant. Here are Carthage and Africa. Maximian subdued the revolted Moors. This isle is Britain, and yonder humid land cov ered with forests is Batavia. Constantine has brought both into subjection under the laws of the Empire. You perceive down there the Euphrates, and the Tigris, where Maximianus Galerius trampled under foot the bows and quivers of the Persians. It is well for a Roman to study the world when he owns all." Possibly the imagination of the uncle, Antonio Vespucci, was infected by the manifold astrological subtleties of the times, when Paolo, the geometri cian, enjoyed additional fame as an arithmetician in adequations, and an astronomer familiar with ancient as well as more recent systems of reasoning. Paolo was a diligent observer of the stars, and the 64 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. movements of the planets proved the inutility of the Tables of Ptolemy, and the instruments of the astrolabe, according to these tables, as deviations from the rules of astrology and astronomy. Under similar influences, Amerigo Vespucci may have early begun to dream of the mysteries of destiny, and, like the late King Victor Emmanuel, have awaited his star. Astrology throve in the four teenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries fostered by Alfonso X. at Toledo, Charles V., Louise of Savoy, mother of Francis I., Catherine de' Medici, Henry IV. of Navarre, at the birth of Louis XIII. of France, and even Anne of Austria had his horoscope cast in the infancy of Louis XIV. Dante consigned all divinators and astrologers to one of the circles of Hades, while Petrarch condemned them with no less severity. The intellectual Petrarch did not allow himself to be drawn away with the popu lar current. He gives a very graphic description of the folly of the pretended science in a letter to Boccaccio : 44 Perhaps you have heard that in the last expedition to Pavia, the gentleman who governs us Galeazzo Visconti wishing to besiege the place, all the astrologers shuddered, and especially our own, a man of such great fame, who is believed by the common people to rather anticipate than merely forecast the future. He was able to delay the march of the army already ordered for some days, saying it was best to await the hour ordained by the heavens. When, finally, it seemed to him to have arrived, YOUTH. 65 all the legions moved at his command. For many months the sky had been serene, and the earth parched with drought, when behold! on that very day, and for many days and nights afterwards, there fell such heavy rains that all the plain and camp were inundated, and those who should have conquered by arms were nearly conquered themselves by the waters. "This same astrologer, at the commencement of the rule of the three brothers, Matteo, Barnabo, and Gale- azzo Visconti, selected with great care the particular moment in which there should be conferred on them the insignia of the principality ; and while I was addressing the multitude in that august assembly, as I had been enjoined, he interrupted me, saying the hour had arrived? and it was perilous to allow it to pass. I, although I well knew the folly of this, to avoid incurring the hatred of these madmen, was silent, although I had not reached the middle of my discourse. He then paused, hesitating, and as if astonished, and said to me that there was still some time before the hour would arrive, therefore I could continue. I replied, smiling, that after closing ray dis course, I had only to add to it, and no other story came to my mind to recount to the Milanese people. He became agitated, and rubbed his forehead gently with his nails, while some meanwhile became angry, and others laughed, until he finally exclaimed : f The hour has come ! ' Then a soldier charged with the duty took three fine stakes, straight and white, placed one in the hands of each brother, with words of good augury, but with so long an interval of time between one and the other, that if it be true, what is told of the wheel of Nigidio Figulo one should believe with reason that a very 5 66 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. diverse fate might have the mastery of them ; it was otherwise, for the elder before the year was out had lost the Signoria of Bologna, and later his life, at a still fresh age. The other two, after ten years, live, and reign prosperously." Alchemy reduced many ardent partisans to poverty. Saint Thomas of Aquinas did not believe the changing of other subtances into gold to be impossible. Arnaldo di Villanuova, living at Naples in 1294, performed the act of transmuting metals in the presence of the celebrated Kaimondo Lullo, who visited Milan later, to practise alchemy. Tiraboschi is of the opinion that a letter to his father by Amerigo Vespucci, at the age of fifteen or sixteen years, evinces very mediocre abilities. The letters of lads of that age are not usually of a dazzling brilliancy either of ideas, or composition, and are indited, as a rule, reluctantly, and under the constraint of some necessity. Boccaccio recounts of King Robert of Naples, pronounced the wisest sovereign among Christians for five hundred years, that his father found him in early years of a slow and torpid intelligence, acquiring the elements of grammar and the sciences only with difficulty, until a master by means of JEsop's Fables succeeded in instilling into his mind an eager thirst to learn the liberal arts, as well as the most profound doctrines of philosophy, so that Solomon could not have excelled him in maturity. Bandini states that the favourite authors of Amerigo Vespucci, as instructed YOUTH. 67 by his uncle, were Virgil in Latin, and Dante and Petrarch in his native Tuscan. Did he, also, study Seneca, Aristotle, Ovid, Cicero, Livy, Pliny, Saint Augustine, and Saint Ambrose ? One pictures him as possessing some element of the dignity of superi ority as a Florentine citizen of Dante in foreign lands, for the rare details left of Amerigo Vespucci do not reveal him as loudly blustering over those misfortunes which are reputed to have awakened the sympathy of Columbus, or maintaining a swag gering and boastful demeanour such as could not have failed to render him a more conspicuous person among his contemporaries. Petrarch would have assuredly charmed the pupil of Antonio Vespucci, whether in the lines of the Vita Solitaria, or the Disprezzo del Hondo. He may have shared the hero- worship of the worthy goldsmith of Bergamo, Arrigo Capra, who closed his shop and spent his fortune in adorning his house with busts and portraits of the poet as well as having his entire works copied at great expense. The date of October thirteenth, 1358, was the happiest day in the life of the goldsmith, when Bergamo received Petrarch officially, and he lodged in the small house of Capra instead of the Municipal Palace, deigning to repose in a chamber hung with purple, and a bed embroidered with gold. Amerigo Vespucci must have imbibed in the very atmosphere of Florence and Italy a perception of the value of education, and even of learning. The proverb had full weight in the fifteenth century, 68 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. " He who reads, rules " (Chi legge, regge). In 1398 the modern club was substituted by companies of philosophers, such as met in the convent of Santo Spirito to discuss logic, metaphysics, and physics in a time when Giannozzo Manetti was noted for eloquence. Conferences were held daily, and a written paper suspended to a column of the cloister stated the subject to be discussed, in advance. In 1438 the Platonic Academy was founded by Cosimo, Pater Patrice ; the Florentine School of Harmony, consisting of fifteen members in 1480, with Antonio Squarcialupi, the organist, and a certain Cieco, known as a musician, a philosopher, and a Latin poet ; and the society of the Cauldron under the sculptor Eustici the same year. When a return of tranquillity in public affairs permitted culture the Umidi carried on to 1540 a reunion of studious young people, who met on Sundays and Thursdays to read the sonnets of Petrarch and make classical Latin translations ; the Florence Academy and the Alterati became merged into the celebrated Academy della Crusca in 1582, while the Academy del Cimento belonged to the pupils of Galileo in 1657, and in 1698 the Academy of Apatista and Instan- cabile combined, to make a Society Colornbaria in 1735. The universities of Bologna and Padua took pre cedence in importance, and after these the seat of learning of Naples, founded by Frederick II. toward the close of the thirteenth century. In YOUTH. 69 1391 the university of Ferrara existed, that of Pavia was endowed by Gian Galeazzo Visconti. Piacenza studied civil and canonical rights, and the perusal of Dante, Seneca, and other authors, also Brescia, Siena, Lucca, and Perugia, while the Pope John XXII. urged Corsica to open schools in 1331, and Pope Honorius IV. established the instruction of Oriental languages as early as 1286. The Italian language became matured in elegance and sweetness in the time of Vespucci, Greek had revived in the previous century, and the Provencal of the Troubadours merged into a fondness for French that endures in Italy. In the time of Brunetto Latini he wrote his famous work II Tesoro in French to suit the popular taste, " parce que la parleure est plus delitable et plus commune a tous langaises." Also, a manuscript Codex of 1275, in the Kiccardiana collection, of a history of Venice, was translated from an ancient Latin chronicle into French by Maestro Martino da Canale, who states in the introduction : " Parce que la lengue Franceise cort parmi le Monde, et est la plus deli- table a lire et a oir, que nulle autre." Apparently Amerigo did not seek a wider field of instruction than the sphere of his uncle's tuition. The chron icles of Florence have a certain quaintness. The Grand Seneschal Niccolo Acciajuoli, who built the Certosa, added a house with a school for the accommo dation of fifty students and three masters in 1228. The university of Florence (studjj), having fallen 70 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. into disuse, was re-established in August, 1357, by the Eectors, in spite of the malevolence of certain citizens ; and the town agreed to give two thousand gold florins annually to the Doctors, a committee, and a guard of twenty-five soldiers. Charles IV. confirmed the regulation by an imperial decree in 1358. The Florentines were determined not to have the shame of seeking instruction out of Tuscany. Still more curious is the picture of the college of ancient Pisa closing its portals, the sciences and the Muses silenced, in the time of the Plague, and fleeing to Prato and Pistoja to pitch the tent of transient tuition. King Lothario had expressed a wish for the general education of the people in 817. The rise of schools of secular knowledge resulted, after the monastic and those of medicine ; Monte Cassino and Bobbio having contributed to the first, and Salerno, chiefly, to the second fulfilment. The Italian univer sities owed their origin to princely, imperial, and pontifical patronage. Amerigo Vespucci, adhering to the stanch Florentine creed of studying at home, does not seem to have even sought famous Bologna, to associate with the English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Bohemian, Polish, and German students attracted to the seat of learning, where Erasmus and Copernicus came later. How rich is the picture of the mediaeval College of Bologna, founded by Charlemagne and the Countess Mathilda of Tuscany ! In the thirteenth century YOUTH. 71 ten thousand pupils were gathered within these pre cincts, and thirteen thousand in the fourteenth cen tury. How pompous the ceremonials of the election of a new rector, when this worthy walked in a proces sion to the Cathedral, clad in a red toga embroidered with gold, escorted by the syndic, ecclesiastics, pro fessors, magistrates, and students carrying gilded fasci, the seal and statutes of the university, to receive in the church the formal dignity of office, listening to orations, and making suitable response full of gracious promises ! How extensive the sys tem of mechanism in the corps of notaries, treas urers, copyists of manuscripts, and stationers ! How real the daily life, even now, of madcap youth, revelling in the races, games, and tournaments of public festivals, the citizens of Bologona calling the students " the sons of the people," the swag gering about armed with dangerous weapons, even the rarity of books, which must not be car ried out of the town without a stamped certificate of license ! The University of Turin enjoyed unique privi leges. The Jews of the city were obliged to pay twenty-five gold scudi to the scholars on the fall of the first snow, to be spent in the Festa of St. Catherine and St. Francis. When comedians and dancers arrived a tax of eight tickets of their theatre to each professor was exacted, while salt- imbanks and clowns contributed to these college functionaries eight vases of unguents, all liquor 72 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. dealers phials of spirit (acquavita), and the shop keepers one pound of sweetmeats (confetti), and pastry on the eve of the Epiphany. Amerigo Vespucci was rooted in unfolding intelli gence on that solid rock of educational foundations, mathematics, by the pious care of his uncle. In his " History of Tuscany " Lorenzo Pignotti pays an especial tribute to this branch of knowledge. He says : " In the midst of the visions, dreams, and philosophies, mathematics has a character of its own ; it is gold, abhor ring all false dross, and if it moves slowly it is ever with a secure step, an advantage which it owes to the infalli bility of its method. Among the mathematicians of earlier date, eminent rank must be accorded to Fra Luca Pacioli of the order of the Minorites, who was unequalled in ability. Tuscany first taught the algebraic rules by means of the Pisan Leonardo Fibonacci, who introduced the exotic plant among us obtained by him from the Arabs. Fra Lnca cultivated the study before all others. The first book given to Europe on algebra was his work, entitled 'Summary of Arithmetic and Geometry. 7 It is written in a style a trifle barbarous, half Latin and half Italian. One discerns in this book notable progress in the science from the starting-point of Leonardo Fibonacci and the Arabs, in the solution of those equations of all the degrees derived from the second grade. It cannot be positively ascertained whether he was the inventor or the expounder of this method, but the acuteness of mind of Fra Luca was evinced by the resolution of a problem of the fourth grade with all its terminations." YOUTH. 73 Vespucci lived before Copernicus and Galileo had given the result of their labours to the world, yet astronomy, supported by mathematics, and allied to her wizard sister astrology, had already illustrious exponents in Tuscany and Italy. Is it not probable that he was familiar with the observations on a new comet made by the Bishop of Fiesole, Gugli- elmo Becchio, and dedicated to Piero di Cosiino de' Medici in 1456 ? He grew to manhood in unob trusive guise, unless all record of his talents is lost. Had he been other than a conventional type of youth mention of him must have been made in the annals of the day, which were ever ready to catch some straw of personal anecdote and raillery. Had he been conspicuous for grace, agility, prowess of any sort, even the turbulence and disobedience which marked the adolescence of, St. Andrea Corsini in the previous century, whose mother dreamed he was a wolf changed to a lamb, some notice must have been taken of the fact by keen and brilliant contemporaries. Had his soul burst into songs of love, emulative of Cavalcanti, Pellegrino, and An tonio Agli, Bartolomeo and Filippo Valori, Bernardo Nuzzi, Poggio or Rucellai, composed a history of the times in rhyme, as Buccio Eenaldi wrote of his native Aquila, or piped of agriculture like Paganino Bonafede of Bologna, in 1360, modesty could not have destroyed all lines. Fazio degli Uberti wrote a treatise on geography in verse ; Domenico di Silvestro equally on all the isles of the sea ; the 74 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Cardinal Luca Manzuoli, a Florentine, translated Lucan as a poem; Jacopo Gradenigo, a Venetian, who died in 1420, rendered the four Evangelists into forty-four capitals; while Federigo Frezzi da Foligno imitated Dante in the four reigns of Love, Satan, the Vices, and the Virtues, and Riccobaldo of Ferrara compiled a universal history under the title of II Pomario (the orchard), as gathering the suave fruit of all ages. We are not informed that Amerigo Vespucci wrote an elegiac poem on the inconstancy of Fortune, and the consolations of phil osophy, as did Arrigo da Settimello, although the voyager might reasonably have done so in the latter portion of his life. The previous century had ele vated the study of Dante, and Petrarch, and of Italian poetry, and Amerigo lived in the midst of the prevailing excitement of contest between the two schools of Platonic and Aristotelian philoso phies. The statement that he made several voyages to the Levant, and even to England before a final departure for Spain, is discredited, as well as the poem, given by Bandini, composed by the Florentine Girolamo Bartolommei in which Amerigo recounts his travels to the Emperor of Ethiopia. Youth, in the doublet and the parti-coloured hose, must have shared the life of the Florence of that period, walking arm in arm with gay comrades, a mandoline or a guitar slung over one shoulder, fre quenting that open-air drawing-room of fashion, the square of the Duomo, in the coolness of evening, and YOUTH. 75 supping at such taverns as that of Michele del Bello in the Via di Pilastri, renowned for highly seasoned ragouts, as those of Frascati and Pievano for Bologna sausage, kid, ribbon vermicelli cooked in broth, force meat balls, and fish, and Neghittosa, famous for ex quisite jellies, tarts, and blanc-mange. Coffee and chocolate were not introduced into use at Florence before 1668, and grave Messer Anastasio Vespucci must have sought the apothecary-shop for the enjoy ment of masculine society, the spezieria of the Giglio, the Eed Cross, or the Diamond, instead of the modern club or cafe*. On Christmas eve youth went about the streets with lanterns, torches, and trumpets when the churches of San Lorenzo and of the An- nunziata were thronged with people gathered to .share in the Gloria, and the lights shone on the rich attire and gems of the company. Madonna Elisabetta no doubt wore superb yellow stuffs, and the zimarra of green, and other hues, while the maidens about her sighed for strings of pearls, and silken stuffs, and mankind showed a tendency to attach frivolous knots of ribbons to sober attire ; for the day of Lorenzo de' Medici was dawning. Youth also had the realm of the theatre opening before his wondering eyes, all dramatic composition having been in Latin until the beginning of the fifteenth century. Instead of quaint monastic dia logues between the Soul and the Creator, between the Violet and the Kose, the Fly and the Ant, or the singers and the tumblers of the Piazza, he was 76 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. diverted by La Floriana, a comedy, or farce, in terza rima, by an unknown author, with such accessories of scenery as Duke Ercole d'Este employed in 1486, in the splendid spectacles organized in the cortile of his palace at Ferrara, when the actors had a wooden tribunal with five houses, and a window. Apparently no thread of romance was interwoven in his life, bred of the flashing glance of coquetry at a casement, or the languishing grace of womanhood, crowned with the wreaths of the goldsmith, at the balls given by the Guild of Silk in the Mercato Nuova. Amerigo's Florentine sense of humour must have relished the Attic salt of the barber Domenico di Nanni, called Burchiello, who was born in the Via di Calimala in 1380, and died at Home in 1448. The barber made the town merry for many years with his proverbs, jests, repartees, and Tuscan puns. The godfather of a new continent cannot have failed to smile at the latest witticism of the priest Arlotto Mainardi, vicar of the Church of Jesus the Pilgrim, in the Via San Gallo, whose epitaph in the pave ment was long read with a shuddering interest: "This sepulchre the Vicar Arlotto had made for any one who wishes to enter." He died in 1484. According to the brief statement of Bandini, when Amerigo Vespucci was twenty-five years of age a fatal malady smote the cities of Italy, threatening the lives of the Florentines, and Ser Anastasio therefore prudently removed his family to a villa and property at Trebbio in Mugello for the preser- YOUTH. 77 vation of health, keeping his household in the fresh air of the country until all danger was over. Amerigo pursued his studies of history, languages, mathematics, metaphysics, and the moral sciences, especially the branches of astronomy, cosmography, and geometry. Surely the lad with the bright cap sang and laughed at times, in his breast the melo dies of Leopardi's " Hymn to the Springtime," and on his lips some joyous refrain snatched from the store adapted by Lorenzo de' Medici in his carnival ditties. " How beautiful is youth ! " Bandini writes thus : "In that time commerce acquired great activity, and our Florentines were engaged in trade with all parts of the world with much success, not only to individuals, but to the State, as is revealed by the archives of the republic ; and it may be affirmed, with every reason for the boast, that precedence of other nations had been gained, bringing large sums of gold to our city, so that Florence held her own in competition with different portions of Italy in the fabrication of magnificent and costly stuffs. The name of Florence became diffused over the world ; for which reason the house of Vespucci selected one member to represent their interests abroad. With this aim in view Girolamo, the eldest son, had undertaken several voyages to the Levant without success ; therefore Ser Anastasio chose Amerigo, by reason of his studies in geography, the sci ences, and navigation, to replace him." In the year 1490 Amerigo left his native land for Spain, accompanied by several young Florentines, 78 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. and his nephew, Giovanni Vespucci, who became a brave pilot, as is mentioned in the history of the West Indies by Peter Martyr. One likes to think of him as preparing to depart in the month of March, at the rising of the Pleiades, and the moment when vegetation revives, and the classic sea was deemed again navigable by timid mariners. CHAPTEE VI. CHOOSING A CAREER. THE young Florentine of to-day, of the social class of Amerigo Vespucci, puts on his ulster, straps a small bag over one shoulder, looks to the contents of his cigar-case, and vaults into a rapid train for Paris, London, Berlin, or St. Petersburg. He travels at night by preference (in order not to see any novel object, possibly), and, arrived at his destination, makes his toilet, dines, and goes to the theatre. This type of the jeunesse doree does not deign to mention a long journey, if escape from a railway accident has left him with whole members. At home he occasionally joins in some historical mas querade in emulation of German and Austrian pa geantry, when a Eidolfe carries the standard of the Guild of Wool, a Frescobaldi the Ensign of Silk, a Martelli that of the Cuirassiers, and a Strozzi leads a band of the Lancers of the Commune. The Florentine of the Middle Ages is a far more interesting object of contemplation, as, clad in a leather jerkin and a furred mantle, armed with the sword and spurs of a cavalier, he rode forth out of 80 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. the gate of the town on a mission of importance to the commonwealth, or in quest of private adventure of fortune. Did Amerigo Vespucci thus depart from his native Flower City ? Is it not more probable that he gained the Mediterranean shore on horseback, by a land route, either at Leghorn, Genoa, Savona, or even Marseilles, to take ship for Spain, than that he crept down the Arno tide to Pisa by boat ? Did he ever revisit the inland city ? All authorities seem to agree as to the circumstance of a personal acquaintance with Paolo Toscanelli, who " first aroused in his imagination a question of the exis tence of a new world." The fact has a deeper sig nificance than chance personal intercourse of the shop and the street, with Burchiello's fun, the witty barber, and the whimsical priest Arlotto, whose latest jest flew over the town. Paolo Toscanelli, student of astromony, medicine, physics, Latin, and Greek, was born in Florence in 1397. He con- tructed the Gnomon in the Cathedral, it is supposed, to do honour to his master Brunellesco, who had instructed him in mathematics, and on the plan of the neglected sun-dial of the Baptistery. The height of Brunellesco's cupola rendered the obser vation of the solar ray that falls on the pavement in the summer solstice one of great delicacy and accu racy ; and the length of time it remained visible aided in the complete perfection of the instrument of measurement. The lofty temple became for Tos- CHOOSING A CAREER. 81 canelli an oracle which he frequently consulted, and by means of which he is reputed to have cor rected the Alphonsine Tablets. He formed a pro ject of shortening the route to China by steering westward, and corresponded with Columbus on the subject about the year 1474. One of the most eloquent figures of all time among the sons of this wonderful inland city is Toscanelli, poring over his charts and astronomical instruments in some dark nook, remaining quietly at home, and indicating to the bold and restless spirit of other men the great highways of future enterprise over the seas for unborn generations. Is not the very memory of such a man like the beam of summer sunshine slanting down through the dome of the Church of the Lily on the Gnomon of the pavement as in San Petronia at Bologna, Santa Maria degli Angeli at Home, and St. Sulpice of Paris ? Tuscan authors like to dwell on the retrospection of his long career of eighty years, the modest retirement of philosophical ease, rather than any attempt to shine by means of a vast erudition, marking his course, yet his fame for astronomical and geographical knowledge mak ing those in remote lands desirous to consult him. The merit of having aided in the discovery of the new world by means of a direct influence on the intelligence of Columbus is universally accorded to him. The King of Portugal is believed to have in terrogated Toscanelli before Columbus, through Fer dinand Martinez, Canon of Lisbon, as to the best 6 82 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. method of navigating westward ; Portugal having already evinced remarkable zeal in exploring the coast of Africa. Such was the fellow-citizen with whom our silent young Amerigo Vespucci must have held some intercourse. A French author affirms that the principal currents of fresh impulses of human thought emanated from the City of Flowers and Tuscany. What were the meditations of Amerigo in that Villa of Trebbio in Mugello, whither his family had withdrawn from the plague-threatened town, the reticent, conventional young man, conspicuous for no merit or defect in the eyes of a community quick to admire or to ridicule ? One seeks in vain ade quate store of letters, or diary, which might reveal his tastes and pursuits in a daily routine, after the manner of Machiavelli writing to his friend Vettori, a partisan of the Medici, from his villa at San Cas- ciano in the parish of San Andrea : " I live on my property," gossips the great roan, who died in 1527. " I snare thrushes with my own hand. I rise before day. I prepare the bird lime, and I go out carrying on my back a quantity of cages, like Geta when he returned to port with the books of Amphitryon. Each day I take from two to seven thrushes. I have hunted thus during the month of September. Here is my actual life : Rising before the sun, I go to my woods, which I order cut down. I spend a couple of hours watching the woodcutters, who quarrel with each other, or the neigh bours. Later, on coming out of the wood I go to the foun- Portrait of Macbiavelli. CHOOSING A CAREER. 83 tain, and the places where my nets are spread to entrap the birds, carrying a book under my arm, now Dante, now Petrarch, now another poet of a class less elevated, like Ovid or Tibullns. From thence I go on the road to the inn ; I talk with the passers-by, and ask news of them. I learn many things, and I observe all the dif ferent tastes and fantasies of mankind. Soon arrives the hour of dinner ; I eat in company with my servants, and it is my slender patrimony that furnishes the table. After dinner I return to the inn, where I usually 'find the innkeeper, the butcher, and the miller. I play all the rest of the day at la erica " (a game of cards). " Often, a propos of a soldo lost or gained, there arise contests, quarrels, and abuse, so that we may be heard wrangling as far as San Casciano. Yet it is thus that I divert myself, and prevent my brain from growing dull. Yes, I abandon myself to the malice of Fortune, hoping that after spurning me beneath her feet, she may finish by having a little shame." Oh that Amerigo Vespucci had been as discursive as Machiavelli ! But Amerigo Vespucci was reserved, perhaps haughty, and as far as we are aware kept even his thoughts to himself. Ser Anastasio had decided to send forth his third son in quest of fortune, perhaps as the men of Jut land drove out their offspring to seek a home else where every five years, although not with the same severity as the parents of the old Celtic sagas, who had their gold and silver burned with them to force the children to depart by sea. The resolution 84 AMERICA/S GODFATHER. formed by the house of Vespucci had the more civi lised phase of the modern Dutch merchants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, in sending a young kins man to the Spice Islands, or China, in the interests of the firm. Amerigo undoubtedly had the Floren tine spirit for novelty and travel of the time. Was he moved to agreeable speculations of getting gain, solely, by journeying to Spain, in the shrewd spirit of the Florentine banker, broker, and weaver, with whom the golden florin had acquired a wonderful value since the ledgers of the fourteenth century had been opened ? The reaping of fortune had an especial charm in trading in pearls of the East, dealing in mastic and perfumes, or discovering a purple lichen, called erba orcella, on the rocks, capa ble of yielding a rich dye, as did the cloth merchant Rucellai in the Levant. Did the old tales appeal to his imagination, instead, of how Hercules of Tyre once went by all seas seeking the precious products of each land, in trade, the fine garnets of the coasts of Gaul, the coral of the Isles of Hyeres, and the rich metals of the Alps, Cevennes, and the Pyrenees ? Was he eager to haunt the great fairs of Troyes in Champagne, Aries, and Frejus, where the Florentine and Genoese silk stuffs were displayed beside the furs and leather of the North, and the gems of the Orient? The stars shine with a crystalline brilliancy in the firmament above Tuscany, and while his naked eye, or the few primitive instruments adopted then CHOOSING A CAREER. 85 may have disclosed comparatively few of the one hundred and sixty million stellar worlds known to science to-day, with the reasonable prospect of other millions becoming visible when more powerful glasses are invented, his thoughts may have plunged into spaces far beyond the encircling Apennines of his birthplace, some whispered note of the myste ries of an unfathomed universe awakened in his brain, from the arguments of Toscanelli, the weird sophistries of the Eastern magicians, the very rever ies of philosophy. Did the spiritual significance of the sea, as meeting the need of pent-up, restless man, appeal to the soul of Amerigo Vespucci ? The energy and enterprise of the Florentine in travelling abroad during the Middle Ages were remarkable characteristics. The most picturesque example, familiar to Vespucci, was Buonaccorso Pitti, whose descriptions of his journeys and adventures possess such freshness and naivete*, combined with exceeding worldly wisdom, that the task of selecting and cur tailing paragraphs from the pages of this young gentleman's diary is difficult, one is so tempted to give it in full. In the country retreat of the Mugello district Amerigo may well have studied the writings of Pitti as a sort of mediaeval guide-book, while pre paring to quit the paternal roof. Buonaccorso Pitti, the father of Luca Pitti, the rich rival of the Medici, kept a diary, or chronicle, which is a picture of the times. He was born in 1354, and died in 1430. His journal comprises a 86 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. period between 1374 and 1430. He must have furnished a golden key to the imagination of Vespucci. In addition to the family feuds, detailed with a mixture of frankness, piety, and the guile of the old race, he writes : "In 1375, being young, and not having yet chosen a career, and wishing to seek fortune in the world, I associated myself with Matteo dello Scielto Tinghi, a merchant, and an inveterate gambler. We went success ively to Genoa, Nice, and Avignon, where we arrived during the festivals of Christmas. We were arrested and conducted to the prisons of the Pope's marshal, where we were detained for eight days, as spies of the Commune of Florence. In the interrogation to which we were sub jected, my companion Matteo was shown a letter of his brother's stating that Bologna was in rebellion against the Pope, and aiding Florence. After an examination of our affairs, and the replies we made, it remained clear that we were wholly innocent. However, a bail of three thousand florins was exacted, and the assurance that we would not quit Avignon without asking permission of the marshal. Matteo found vouchers for us, but he judged, when we were liberated from prison, because of the war which had burst out between the Holy See and Florence, that it would be wise to depart to avoid new dangers. We returned to Florence, where we received intelligence from Avignon that Gregory XL had arrested all Florentines, and seized their property." Still more curious is the next speculation under taken by these dauntless young adventurers : CHOOSING A CAREER. 87 " In 1376 Matteo, having resolved to visit Prussia, invited me to share the journey, arid to await him at Padua and Venice. He rejoined me in the latter city, where he bought one thousand ducats' worth of saffron. We went by sea to Signa in Croatia, and then by land to Buda in Sclavonia, where . he sold the saffron for a profit of one thousand ducats. Falling ill at Buda, I was left by Matteo with Michel Marucci, to whom he gave twelve ducats to cure and send me back to Florence, promising to pay any surplus of expenses on his return. He departed ; for myself I became seriously ill, owing to a lack of all care. I had for a bed a miserable mattress in a small chamber, where I received neither the aid of a doctor nor of a woman. There was in the house only a valet. I remained thus between life and death for six weeks. Finally there came, on the night of Saint Martin, a troop of Germans, accompanied by players on the horn, to dance in a room adjoining the hole where my pallet was spread. One of these, having poked in his head where I lay, discovered me. Others followed him, set me on my feet, wrapped me in my pelisse, and led me to the dancing-hall, saying : ' Either you will be cured or killed, but, at least, you can suffer no more.' And in fact, despite my tears and prayers, they did not leave me in peace until I fell on the floor from fatigue. Then they carried me back to my mattress, threw over me their pelisses, and returned to their room, where they danced and drank all night. Under the pile of garments I first shivered, then perspired in abundance. In the morning the Germans re-entered my chamber, took their pelisses, restored mine, and made me drink with them, which I did willingly. When they had departed I rested for an hour or two, and then I went out to seek Guido Baldi, a 88 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Florentine, who was the director of the mint of the king of Buda. He welcomed me amicably, and invited me to dine, after which we hegan to play. With fifty-five Venetian soldini which remained to me, I gained four gold florins. There were not slow to arrive Jews and Germans, who were in the habit of playing with Baldi. I made a party with them, and gained twenty florins, which I took home with me. I returned to Baldi the next day, and this time I won forty gold florins. In fact, in the space of fifteen days with my fifty-five little Venetian pennies I won twelve hundred gold florins. Marucci, with whom I had fallen sick, advised me to tempt fortune no more, but to buy horses, and to return to Florence, promising to accompany me as far as Signa. I followed his counsel. Having purchased six horses, and procured a little page and four valets, we left for Signa, where Marucci found me five more horses. I hired a vessel of Marseilles, and, after a painful voyage of twenty-four days, I arrived at Venice, where I lost one of my best horses. In the mountains near Bologna, I lost two more. I arrived at Pontremoli with the eight that remained to me. At the end of six months of travelling, in counting the losses and the gains, over the expenses of my tour there remained to me, on entering Florence, only two horses, and about one hundred gold florins." Tracing the thread of business transaction in the career of this active and wonderful young gentle man, Pitti, in 1380, went to Lucca and Genoa, where in a month he made fifteen hundred florins. He visited Verona, the Romagna, and Arezzo, and then borrowed fifty ducats of some obliging compatriot, and went to Avignon and Paris. In 1340 he met a CHOOSING A CAREER. 89 Corsini and a Degli Spini in Paris, where these Flor entines came as ambassadors. He states : " I left for England. There I consigned to Mariotti Fer- rantini and his partner the sum of two thousand five hundred gold francs to buy wools, which he was to deliver to me at Florence." Note Amerigo Vespucci musing over this lively chronicle before choosing a career, and going forth to Spain, as he probably did, imbued by a common sentiment of curiosity in the Florence public. Note the knowledge of the world, of men, and things, gained by personal observation and experience, of the Florentine of that date, before America was dis covered. The modern youth may seek Monte Carlo to stake his gold on the gaming-table, or enter the manifold phases of speculation. Both were known to Pitti. " In 1381 Bernardo Cino advised me to go to Brussels, where the Duke of Brabant was giving fetes and tourna ments, and play. I went. In a few days I lost more than two thousand gold francs, which I had brought from Paris ; for in my association with Cino he furnished the money, and I only my stupid head, which risked all on two dice. The last night, having lost five hundred francs borrowed of the Duke, and possessing only a similar sum at home, I left the gaming-table to follow him and his gentlemen into a room where they were dancing. As I was looking at a very "beautiful young girl of fourteen, the daughter of a high Barori, with extreme pleasure, she approached me, saying : ' Lombard, come and dance. Do not be down hearted if you have been losing. God will aid you.' " 90 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. After the dance the Duke of Brabant proposed to cancel the debt of honour, or to defer payment. Here is an instance of speculation of the boldest sort : "In February, 1382, Bernardo Cino confided to his nephew two hundred gold pieces, as well as pearls and jewels to the value of three thousand francs, desiring that we should go to Holland to sell them, or to play with the Duke Albert of Bavaria. We went to the Hague, where we found the Duke, but he would neither buy nor gamble for the jewels. We defrayed the expenses of our journey out of the two hundred francs, and returning to Paris in April we gave back to Bernardo Cino his pearls and gems." Here, again, is an instance of the Florentine spirit of the banker : " In 1385 I loaned to the Count of Savoy for play five hundred francs. I also rendered him similar service at Bruges, Arras, and Paris, at the moment of his departure from the city. In short, I had advanced to him, in all, thirty-five thousand gold francs. I sent some one to Savoy to ascertain what precautions to take to secure my debt. The count assigned a time of payment, and I went to receive it, but he demanded a new delay of six months." Pitti continues : " I passed the winter (1389) at Paris, where I won nearly two thousand francs in gold at play. I bought a house which cost me six hundred francs. Then the following Lent I went to Holland and Zealand to visit Duke Albert CHOOSING A CAREER. 91 and his lords, of whom I won fifteen hundred gold coin. Keturning to Paris in October, I departed to join the King of France, who was going to visit the Pope Clement VI. at Avignon. On the march I met Porro, the commis sioner of the Duke of Milan, hastening after the mon arch, like myself. I won tweh^ hundred francs of Porro. Finally we reached the king, and afterwards arrived at Toulouse, where they were celebrating Christmas." Was Amerigo Vespucci ever thrilled with the ardour of chivalrous deeds in early youth ? Behold Pitti ! ready to enlighten his fellow-citizen as sharing in stirring scenes that read like the pages of Sir Walter Scott. Even more does Pitti resemble the knight of a chess-board drawn up in battle array. "In November, 1382, I was present at an engagement near Ypres in Flanders, where Charles VI., king of France, fought the Flemish in the battle of Rosebecq, according to French historians. The latter numbered forty thou sand, and we on the side of the king were only ten thousand. The contest began a little before dawn. The fog was so dense that one could scarcely see the light. As we were in three divisions the king had raised a banner (called an oriflamme by the French), which they said was given to them by a miracle in ancient times, and as soon as it was waved the fog melted away, and the two armies became visible to each other. It was the Con stable of France (Olivier de Clisson) who began the battle, at the head of the first battalion, throwing himself on the Flemish, who were formed in one corps. The 92 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. engagement lasted for two hours. The Flemish were de feated, having lost twenty-five thousand killed. After this victory the French pushed on to Courtray, a town of about the importance of Prato, which they took, and burned to avenge a former defeat. Then the king returned to Paris with his array." * In 1383 Pitti gives the following description : "This year the English came over to France between Flanders and Picardy, to the number of ten thousand combatants, both archers and men-at-arms. The king of France, Charles VI., summoned his barons, cavaliers, and grooms of the kingdom, and in August entered on the campaign with two hundred thousand horse, among which were counted ten thousand cavaliers of the Golden Spur. Curious to witness these great events, I agreed with a Sienese, and a Lucchese, friends of mine, to enrol our selves under the command of the Duke of Burgundy, and we equipped thirty-six cavaliers at our own expense. The Duke was at the head of twenty thousand men. The army arrived near Mons, where a portion of the English were intrenched. The king of France had destroyed everything surrounding the city to further the battle on the following day, but during the night, as the English wished to quit the town, and the inhabitants opposed their flight, many skirmishes and murders took place. A little before daybreak all of the English escaped from Mons. As day broke we approached the gates, and hav ing broken them down, we entered the city without striking a blow, which we found strewn with dead bodies, and on fire on all sides. The next morning we pursued CHOOSING A CAREER. 93 the enemy, and overtook them at a town named Holberg. We attacked the place, throwing rockets and fuses, but the English defended themselves valiantly, and did us much harm with their arrows. We retired with damage, and little honour. In the retreat I lost my comrade, and our servants who were all in the assault. I could, no doubt, have rejoined them, but I was so fatigued that I threw myself into a. ditch, and slept until daybreak. On Sunday morning the Duke of Burgundy, who was in the service of the king of France, with twenty thousand men, took his orders to treat with the English, who evacuated Flanders." Consider the contrast of races in the sequel : "In May, 1385, I made a journey to Florence, and returned to Paris in October, where I learned that the king of France had gone to Flanders with a large force to prepare a fleet at 1'Ecluse, and go to England. Francesco, Berto, and I, well armed and mounted, went to join the king, with the intention of taking part in his expedition. When I reached Bruges I met the same Lucca friend who had been my companion in the Grand Army, and we again joined forces to hire a vessel, which we did at 1'Eeluse, where was the king and his army, ready to depart. I saw in this port twelve hundred vessels, half of which were transports. The army waited fifteen days for good weather to put to sea. In a royal council the masters of these vessels were consulted as to the best course to pursue. As we were at the end of November it seemed to them imprudent to depart with so many ships, which the first storm, would send to bottom. The king and his lords recognised the wisdom of this advice, and we returned to France." 94 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. In the service of the Dukes of Orleans, Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon, dwelling in an atmosphere of court intrigue and dice-playing, Pitti might rea sonably have been supposed to have entered swiftly on the road leading to destruction. Instead, he sought Florence in due course of time, and decided to marry, evincing sagacity in the measure. Messer Tomaso de' Neri, being a man held in high honour in Florence, Pitti addressed himself to him in the most flattering manner, requesting him to select a bride, and even urging that the maiden should be of his own family. The alliance was arranged, and the daughter of Luca di Piero Degli Albizzi chosen. Pitti became the sober parent, and pompous citizen, gathering wealth, and filling high offices, famous for counting the fruit trees of his garden thus: "In 1419, on April twenty-fourth, I had one hundred arid sixty-four fig-trees, eighty plums, one hundred and sixty-six peaches, fifty -eight cherries, twenty- four almond, twenty-five apple, sixteen pear, six orange, four walnut, and sixty olives growing." The phase which brings Pitti very near to Ame rigo Vespucci, as illuminating the obscure path of the latter, is presented in such passages as these : " In 1417, in July, the plague reappeared. I left Flo rence for Pisa with my wife and all my children. Two days later my brother Luigi, with his wife and seven children, then my nephew Neri, his wife and four children, joined us. In August Neri died of the pest, in September my brother Luigi, and also his daughter Brindella, aged CHOOSING A CAREER. 95 twelve years. Learning that San Gerninguario was not infected, I took my family there, with the widow of Luigi and her children, and of Neri as well. These, with three women-servants, three valets, and myself, made twenty- eight persons to nourish, not counting four horses." Or this suggestive line: "In 1423 the plague smote the Valdipesa, and I wrote to my son Luca, who was living at Florence, with his wife Fioretta, and children, to leave promptly for a healthy spot. He went to Pescia, where he rented a fur nished house for four florins a month. I hastened to send a part of my children to Pescia, where I and my wife joined them later. The house was too small for sixteen people, so I slept in a neighbouring habitation, which cost me three livres a month. In 1424 Madama Margherita, widow of Francesco Acciajuoli, came to me with her daughter Laudomine, and her son-in-law Nerozo, my nephew. They remained, and their servants, until May in the succeeding year, 1425. During their stay Laudomine gave birth to a daughter, named Biondella. I give here a note, of which my wife has a copy, to indicate the objects held by my nephew in case the dowry of Laudo mine should have to be restored by reason of her death. The dot is fourteen thousand gold florins." The memoranda are curiously minute : " Objects coming from Xerozo : a robe of silk and gold, with fur, one hundred florins ; a robe of crimson, lined with taffetas, forty-five florins ; a robe of silk and gold, cra- moisie, lined with green taffetas, twenty florins ; a robe of rose-colour, double, eighteen florins ; a dress of silk, gold, 96 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. and velvet, ten florins; a robe, the cappuccino colour, lined with gray, fifteen florins ; a black mantle, eight florins. . . . Objects of Laudomine : a robe of silk, gold, and little flowers, seventy-five florins; a crimson robe, lined with taffetas, sixty; three silver belts, thirty-one; an emerald, a silver collar, and a little ivory coffer, fifty." Domestic interests did not wholly absorb his time. "In 1423 I was elected captain of Castelcaro in the Romagna. I charged my son Luca with the management of my estate while I filled the office of captain. It hap pened that seven inhabitants of Forli, all Ghibelline, came to Castelcaro with a plot to deliver the town to the Duke of Milan during a night of the carnival. One of the seven was a locksmith, who had made a false key of the gates. T arrested them all, and had their heads cut oft'." There is a fearful sang-froid about this execution, the reverse of the modern Italian code of capital punishment, and which resembles the fiat of the Queen of Hearts in "Alice in Wonderland " : "Cut off his head ! " Indeed Buonaccorso Pitti might have been more merciful to his enemies, considering the danger always threatening his own head, in those long journeys beyond the city gates of Florence ; the escapade in early youth of riding to Rome by way of Siena, Perugia, Lodi, Spoleto, and all the roads held by the Florentine League against the Pope, at the bidding of a coquettish dame, only to be mocked at for a madman on his return ; the banish ment for slaying a stone-cutter in the Guelph and CHOOSING A CAREER. 97 Ghibelline riots of the streets ; or the encounter with a troop of enemies near the Porta Komana. Amerigo Vespucci must have closed this diary of a man of his time with a conviction that a similar future awaited himself, as a well-born gentleman. Why not ? Why should he not have returned from Spain to marry prudently a maiden of fortune, with the silk gowns, and the little ivory coffer of a Lau- domine, all enumerated. Why should he not have been appointed governor of ancient walled cities of the hills, and the Adriatic ? Why should he not have gone on missions to Nuremberg, Venice, or have been sent to Germany by the Florentine com monwealth to compliment a new emperor, as was Pitti to Robert of Bavaria, Count Palatine of the Rhine, praying him to come, and be crowned at Rome, and curb the power of the Duke of Milan, with proffers of loans of thousands of gold coin, if needful ? All these eventualities of life would have seemed probable to the young man in the villa at Trebbio, preparing to depart for Spain ; and yet he was destined, instead, to set sail for the shores of a new world. A young Landuccio, about 1475, had such a fond ness for horses, especially the steeds of Barbary, that he visited the Levant to buy them. He won twenty palii (races) at Florence. A charming modern phase was the enterprise of the Senator Carlo Ginori of the last century, who collected clays and minerals for his porcelain man- 98 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. ufactory in Tuscany, and sent a party of young men to China, reputed to have brought the first gold fish called kin-yu to Europe, together with rare plants for Italian gardens. These voyagers may have achieved but trifling result, yet the spirit which animated them was the same that led forth Ame rigo Vespucci in the fifteenth century. The cavalier, in a furred mantle and leather jerkin, with a sword at his side, is a romantic figure of his day and gener ation, spurring out of the city gate on a mission unique in history. Of the Vespucci remaining in "Florence the family line continued to be of honourable distinction. An tonio Vespucci, brother of Amerigo, held the post of First Chancellor of the Commonwealth for a term of thirty years. Bartolommeo, his son, won the laureate in medicine, was an excellent mathematician, philoso pher, and cosmographer, and gave public instruction in astronomy in the University of Padua. Niccolo Vespucci, superior of the Order of the Knights of Malta, lodged Ariosto for six months, in the year 1513, and entertained Leo X., before the latter as cended the pontifical throne, in the hospice built in 1050 near the spot where stood the column of Mars near the Ponte Vecchio of Florence. CHAPTEK VII. AMERIGO YESPUCCI. AT this date in the life of Amerigo Vespucci, he acquires a tangible, and eminently suggestive, his torical personality to the meditative mind of our time, if thought is bestowed on him. We behold him, each from our own point of view, quitting his father's house and his native city, to seek lucrative employment, if not ample fortune, in Spain. Biog raphy is not conclusive as to whether he was in his first youth, or had already attained the mature de velopment of forty years of age. In personal appearance, the most veracious portrait of him seems to be accepted as representing him as a man of medium stature, well made, and of a robust con stitution, with black hair, a dark complexion, and the strongly accentuated Florentine, masculine type of features, which evinces intelligence and refine ment. The face of Amerigo Vespucci is not as familiar to us as others of the famous brotherhood of Florentines, and the great men who shared in the development of the commonwealth. The subtle, delicate physiognomy of Leonardo da Vinci, with the flowing brown beard and hair, is well known, as the 100 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. rugged countenance of Michelangelo, the calm in telligence of Galileo, the keen profile of Macchia- velli, and the profound gaze of Savonarola. No contemporary of note has bequeathed to us such a sketch in words of the real, living person as Boccac cio's description of Dante, gathered from a near time, in the case of Vespucci. For the rest, Vespucci was a quiet and modest man, of good manners and a tolerant disposition, entitled to the respect of his associates and of posterity hy reason of his supe rior abilities. He was further endowed with a pru dence of conduct in his subsequent relations with strangers worthy of all possible commendation. He had that trait of character which is notably Ameri can, a conservative minding his own business, and not attempting to meddle and regulate the affairs of others, whether of individuals or States, which should entitle him to be ranked as the godfather of the race. We thus see him departing from Florence for Spain in the interests of the Medici, at once pat rons and friends, who were teaching their neigh bours, the impecunious kings harassed by wars, and spendthrift nobles, the power of the merchant prince and financier in the game of European politics, their sole rival the Frenchman Jacques Cosur of Bourges. Amerigo Vespucci had the courage and enterprise requisite to depart from his native hills, and con front the world with all its hazards and eventuali ties. Such a mediaeval journey to Spain, whether undertaken by sea or land, meant something more Statue of Savonarola. AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 101 than a modern tour by rail and steam. The Flor entine gentleman was equipped for the struggle with an ample store of education, if his purse was light and his name obscure. Better than gold coin in his belt, and the ready sword of the adventurous cava lier on the robber infested highway, was this resource of early instruction. To the pioneer farmer who seeks a home in the great West or South of Amer ica, Australia, and Africa a knowledge of chemistry, geology, and botany acquires inestimable importance in aiding him to conquer the little kingdom of a farm which he strives to subdue to his needs. To the rover in the Antipodes in this age of globe-trot ters the key of languages, and even dialects, of old Europe may serve, on occasion, to save his own life, as well as the lives of his fellows, by inadvertently acting the eavesdropper on criminal schemes of out casts of society in camp and mine. The superior acquirements of Amerigo Vespucci in astronomy and the science of navigation studies pursued by him to the last days of his life at the court of Spain, and no doubt stimulated by the influence of Toscanelli in Florence, at the beginning rendered his post on board of the Spanish and Portuguese ships of the first importance, especially in storms and disaster ; so that the voyages may be claimed as his own in the full sense of command. Provided with a store of the scholarship of his time, he was further endowed with the requisite intelli gence to use it as opportunity demanded. He had a 102 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. fair knowledge of astronomy, and in methods of calculating longitude and latitude he gained unusual proficiency, which enabled him to hold a post at court of the first importance under King Ferdinand of Spain. Both Peter Martyr and Sebastian Cabot commended his abilities in these branches of study. The former mentions examining many nautical instruments, globes, and maps known as sailors' charts, or cards of the sea, in a secret chamber, in company with Bishop Fonseca. One of these was Portuguese, to which Americus Vespucius had put his hand, being a man most expert in this faculty, and a Florentine by birth, who, also, in the pay of Portugal, had sailed toward the South Pole. An Italian biographer scorns the necessity of Vespucci's childhood of an extraordinary man being full of marvels, similar to that of the infant Hercules strangling the serpent sent to kill him by Juno. He further denies the need of the Florentine navi gator's affording such little anecdotes of boyhood, to awaken puerile and mere vulgar curiosity in the mul titude, as the statement that Pascal, at the age of twelve years, without the aid of books, and impelled by the power of his own genius, alone, solved the thirty-two propositions of the first book of Euclid. In the opinion of his countryman, at once whim sical and glowing, he was no prodigy of apocryphal talents in early years, yet by the lucidity of his own mind succeeded in solving the obscurity previously enveloping half of the globe. Vespucci, according to AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 103 this authority, united a fervent imagination to the most scrupulous reasoning faculty, possessed subtle powers of theorising, yet adhered firmly to a practical manipulation of complicated instruments, studied without respite the planets and stars, gained familiar ity with unexplored lands and seas, combined the rest less activity of the traveller with the repose of the philosopher, the valour of the soldier with the prudence of the mariner, the speculative spirit of the merchant with the honourable integrity of the citizen, vigour with sensibility, and audacity with a religious spirit. In addition he had considerable familiarity with natural history, which was prob ably acquired from his uncle, the Dominican, in the botanical gardens and pharmacies of the monkish orders about Florence, and the villas and parks of Tuscany, where rare plants of the East were early cultivated, as well as wild animals kept in preserves for a pastime of the nobles. We should remember the superiority of Vespucci to his companions, in this particular, when he reached America in his voyages. The Spanish and Portuguese crew were intent only on obtaining gold, pearls, and precious spices, with a feverish eagerness to gain wealth, and realise the dream of Europe as regarded the unknown realms of the West, while Vespucci observed the climate, minerals, roots, plants, and useful fruits of tropical forests, even noting the virtues of medicinal barks of trees and balsams, as well as the customs of the natives, the birds, 104 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. animals, and fish of the coast. Indeed, the trifling fragments of letters left by him, together with other spurious writings attributed to him long after his death, were sufficient to arouse the most lively curiosity and interest in all civilised lands, espe cially his description of the innocent iguana, of repulsive exterior and delicate edible qualities, as a sort of fabulous dragon. If the public was dazzled by the account of the suave delights of the Earthly Paradise as given by Columbus, and the treasure in gold and Indian slaves brought back to Spain by him, the letters of Amerigo Vespucci to his friend Soderini and his patron Lorenzo di Piero Francesco de' Medici may be said to have awakened in man kind that Eobinson Crusoe instinct of seeking palms and coral reefs, jungle and desert, as explorers and sportsmen, down to our day. Such were the gifts and the education of the Florentine gentleman when he prepared to seek for tune in Spain. He has been mentioned contempt uously, by even the English-speaking historical element of succeeding generations, as an unscrupu lous adventurer, who had managed to " pick up " a little knowledge of navigation, which lie had the effrontery, apparently, to use in saving the vessels in which he sailed from shipwreck, on more than one occasion acting as pilot, astronomer, and cos- mographer. How readily does the tide of heedless public opinion, founded on the active malice of an enemy, set against the fair fame of a man after he is in his grave ! AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 105 The belief that Vespucci was mature when he left Florence for Spain would seem rational, as he took several young Florentines under his care, and his own nephew, Giovanni Vespucci. The latter was destined to win esteem in Spain, as a young man of excellent capacities, who must have made voyages with his illustrious kinsman, and inherited his charts, compasses, and astronomical instruments. The bland commendation of Peter Martyr will be remembered, in which the younger Vespucci was designated as his familiar friend, a witty person, and frequently his guest. The other youth must have eventually sunk into obscure mediocrity, settled to various employments in Spain, or returned to Italy with a competency ; for we hear no more of them, either as companions sharing the hardships of Vespucci's voyages, or cheering him in hours of discouragement and difficulties by the warm adhe rence of unswerving friendship. We shall follow the career of Amerigo Vespucci, from this starting-point, striving to realise the wonderful experiences fate had in store for him in that day, in connection with the discovery of Amer ica, an epoch ever memorable in the history of nations. He went to Barcelona in the service of the Medici. Thence he made his way to Seville, was drawn into relations with a Florentine by the name of Berardi, who fitted out vessels for the voyages of the time, and formed an acquaintance of the most harmonious and enduring fellowship with 106 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Columbus and his jealous, exacting sons, Diego and Ferdinand. Berardi died, and Vespucci took his place as an outfitter of ships, thus gaining such familiarity with marine matters as he might not otherwise have done. The next step amidst the excitement prevailing in Seville over the return of Columbus from the coast of Asia, as all believed, was to embark, him self, on the expedition of 1497, which sailed in the month of May from Cadiz. This first voyage was undertaken under the patronage of King Ferdinand, and at the instigation of Bishop Fonseca. The venture was unsuccessful in bringing back great wealth to the Aragonese monarch, and while it was known to have taken place in Spain, the question of infringement on the rights of Portugal, and of Columbus, rendered it prudent to say little about the destination of the expedition. Nor did either voyager or patron know what they had actually attained in the generally accepted conviction of the smallness of the circumference of the globe. According to the latest and clearest researches on the subject, of American students, we may accompany Vespucci on that first marvellous threading of un known seas in a little cockle-shell boat to the Canary Islands, Cape Honduras, around Yucatan to Tabasco, observing the little wooden town of Vene zuela, built on piles and furnished with bridges, as a sort of aboriginal Venice, skirting Tampico which he was long understood to have named Lariab, and AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 107 wise scholars subsequently explained to their own satisfaction as meaning Paria, thus casting a doubt on the whole voyage as fictitious. Passing over the famous description of the iguana roasting on a spit before the fire, the cakes of fish eaten by the Indians, the villages, and general aspect of the country, the vessels traversed some eight hun dred and seventy leagues of a varied coast through the Gulf of Mexico, skirted Florida, and finally visited the islands of certain cannibals, supposed to be the Bermudas. This epistle, written in a hasty, even humorous vein to his friend Soderini, at Florence, has occasioned confusion and debate with succeeding generations, especially from the fact of Vespucci's not mentioning the name of his com mander and associates. We may hope to grasp the meaning of this silence, serving as the very bone of contention worried by more or less surly criticism on the part of various nationalities, much in the same manner that the writer once overheard a grumpy, elderly tourist of the Anglo-Saxon race in a private picture gallery of Florence, to which visitors were courteously admitted, free of charge, on a certain day of the week, demand, " Why don't they put the names of the painters on the frames and save the trouble of catalogues ? " Why did not Amerigo Vespucci make all details clear in his missive to Soderini, and save a deal of perplexity to his successors? He was not responsible to us for what he chose to impart to his fellow country- 108 man. He did not pose on the stage of the theatre of the world in sending a greeting homeward to the banks of the Arno. The age was essentially one of letter writing; noble ladies, Popes, and poets vied with each other in polished phrases, well-turned compliments, and classical allusions. Peter Martyr was a diffuse cor respondent, and his Latin not invariably of the best quality. Vespucci's letter did not pretend to be cast in careful mould, but it possessed an element of good-breeding and tact, which we might well emulate in the aggressive egotism of our day. This sailor, who had reached the continent of America, addressed his schoolmate as a grave magistrate of the city of Florence whom he would not weary with the details of longitude and latitude, and other marine matters destined to be carefully noted in a future book, but to amuse a leisure hour with a slight description of the savages, animals, and birds he had seen on his travels. The second voyage, less obscure, was undertaken in 1499 with Alonzo de Ojeda as military chief, and Juan de la Cosa as fellow pilot. The vessels ex plored the northern coast of South America as far as Brazil and the Pearl Coast, visited by Columbus the previous year, to the Gulf of Maracaibo, where the squadron separated, Ojeda seeking Hispaniola, while Vespucci remained cruising about for several months longer. Hence the descriptions of places given by the two voyagers did not wholly agree. AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 109 Still ignorant of the magnitude of the achievement, Vespucci stated on July 18th, 1500 : "We discovered a very large country of Asia." Wholly unsuccessful, as far as the requirements of King Ferdinand exacted gold, Vespucci transferred his services to King Emmanuel of Portugal in 1501, and the following season made his third voyage with Don Nuno Manuel, touching at the Cape Verde Islands, and following the Brazilian coast southward to the island of South Georgia. We shall see that on a fourth voyage, in 1503, under command of Gonzalo Coelho, Vespucci once more skirted the Brazilian shores in a southerly direction with the aim of finding a passage into the Indian Ocean; but the voyage ended in peril and disaster. Vespucci returned once more to Lisbon, having accomplished nothing in the estimation of the Portuguese sovereign and his own. If posterity be imbued with that true spirit of patriotism which consists in fulfilling one's duty to the human race, and especially in striving to make a worthy person respected by all the races of the earth, America's godfather attains a high rank of heroism and cour age battling with storm, cold, and darkness in the vicinity of Patagonia, his whole nature moved to awe and astonishment by losing sight of the con stellations of the heavens familiar to Europe, while the strange Magellanic Clouds became visible toward the South Pole, and the skill with which he piloted the disabled craft on a homeward stretch, 110 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. without the caravels foundering in mid ocean, or perishing of want owing to false reckoning on the part of one of the company. The indignant protest of Canovai would seem merited, that Vespucci did not follow in the track of Columbus, who colonised the West Indian Islands, and was further intent on establishing the rights of himself and his family to nobility and fortune under the Spanish crown, but followed the coast of a continent, tested baffling currents at the mouth of great rivers, and sailed far toward the Antarctic Zone. Vespucci once more sought the service of Spain, in 1504 married a Spanish lady, Maria Cerezo, and was accorded the important office of pilot-major at court by King Ferdinand. He fulfilled the duties of this post for several years, and died at Seville in 1512. Juan Diaz de Solis succeeded him, and, later, Sebastian Cabot held the place. The statement that Amerigo Vespucci was buried on one of the Azores, surrounded by the waves of the ocean so many times traversed by him, has a certain picturesqueness, but is incorrect. Even if we fail to feel any especial interest in Vespucci, we no longer have excuse to misjudge his true character, owing to the investiga tions of certain modern great minds on his behalf. These, not satisfied with unhesitatingly accepting the dates and statements of Herrera as all predeces sors have done, have sought the original sources of information for themselves, and found the compila tion of the Spanish historian by no means infallible AMERIGO VESPUCCI. Ill in accuracy, as well as the collection of voyages of early Italian authors. We hold the thread of the untangled skein of the career of America's godfather. Once unravelled by logical reasoning, how smoothly runs the line of his dim and wondering perception of the vast extent of the lands discovered to the westward, and decision that the region should be considered a fourth part of the globe, after the death of Columbus ; of the novelty of the species inhabiting those unknown shores, which he suggested in a letter to Lorenzo de' Medici might well be called a new world ; of Cuba detaching its length of leagues from obscurity as an island ! At least let us no longer repeat the idle calumny so glibly told by men of education of different nationalities in the present day, that Ves pucci inserted his name in the place of honour on the maps, a treacherous usurpation of the rights of Columbus. There was no question of the discovery of America during the lifetime of either of these illustrious navi gators, nor in the day of the sons of Columbus, we reaffirm. Kather, let us dwell on the quaint and charming picture of the group of students at St. Die", in Lorraine, under the patronage of Duke Kene* II., devoting their time to perfecting a new edition of Ptolemy's Geography in 1506, and, interested in all matters concerning Vespucci, after a perusal of his letter written from Lisbon to the Medici in Italian, and transposed into Latin, at Paris, by Fra 112 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Giocondo, the famous mathematician of Verona, sug gesting a christening of Brazil and portions of South America simply " America," even as " Europe " and " Africa " were supposed to have feminine derivations. The title evidently pleased the public ear, as harmo nious and convenient, without too much heed being given to the justice of the sources of the appellation. Step by step, after the scholars of Lorraine had passed away, maps gradually incorporated larger tracks of the hitherto unfamiliar continent under the same designation, until Las Casas sounded the note of alarm that the dead Vespucci was being too much talked about, instead of the dead Columbus. An eminent English prelate recently affirmed that human nature is pitiably small in our nineteenth century, and prone to depreciate all nobility of motive or character. If such is the verdict on modern civilisation how can we expect the fair fame of Vespucci in preceding centuries to have escaped the fiercest contests of jealousy, suspicion, and malice, in the claims of different countries to the discovery of the Indies, the route to Cathay and Cipango, Novus-Mundus, or Quarta Pars ? We revert to the leave-taking of the Florentine youth, about to set forth from the gates of their beautiful little city to win fortune in the busy world beyond. Bandini affirms that Vespucci's father sent him, an elder brother having met only with failure and discouragement in voyaging to the East. We may reasonably surmise, therefore, that AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 113 the worthy citizen, Anastasio Vespucci, saw his third son off, in company with Lorenzo de' Medici, who bethought him of certain parting injunctions to give Amerigo as to a wise course to adopt in looking after a presumably dishonest agent of affairs in Spain. There was no telegraph system in that day. Ves pucci's mother, Madonna Lisabetta, was assuredly of the party, if she still lived at the date of his departure, with final words of affectionate warn ing, and timorous doubts as to the dangers of the long journey. The foster-mother, the nurse from the villa property at Peretola, sun-bronzed and smiling, with her children and grandchildren hover ing near, was at the gate to obtain a last admiring glance at her boy who was to acquire such renown. Doubtless she brought him some mediaeval offering from the country, equivalent to the modern fowl cackling in a basket of railway carriages. Lost to history is the maiden who may have gazed forth from the grated casement, with a sigh of regret, then hastened up the stone stairway to the open loggia on the palace roof of her home for a last glimpse of Amerigo Vespucci. Would he ever return, and demand her hand in marriage, with due regard to the dowry, jewels, and store of household linen which would fall to her portion, as became a prudent and thrifty Florentine ? Would she have faded from precocious and brilliant bloom of youth to a shadowy nun in a convent by the day 8 114 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. of his tardy coming, or have been long the wife of another gallant knight ? Eventually Amerigo Vespucci intended to retrace his way to the banks of the Arno. In his corre spondence with the Medici, in 1503, he states that he has already compiled several pamphlets, giving definite and accurate details of his voyages. These notes were in the hands of the King of Portugal ; but Vespucci anticipated soon having them restored to him. Seventeen months later he wrote to Soderini, and referred to his plan of a book, not yet revised and published, which he entitled his " Four Journeys." He early expressed the hope of retiring to Florence to complete his work at leisure, with the advice of learned men, thus utilising in the most accurate manner his knowledge of cosmography. But Vespucci did not return, and his book, which would have been of value to the world, was lost, or fell into the hands of enemies and was destroyed. In the parting of kindred at the city gate, laugh ter, jesting, and the shedding of some feminine tears occurred. Who would survive, of the circle of relatives and friends, to welcome home once more Amerigo Vespucci ? Then the grave citizens retraced their steps to their warehouses and counting-rooms. They were quite accustomed to sending forth the fledglings of their nests to distant countries. Doubt less they discussed the rates of exchange on England or Flanders, and the market value of wool and silk, as they traversed the dark and winding streets. AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 115 Did they not have dealings with the Black Sea, the Euxine, the Levant, the Nile, Syria, Barbary, and the Greek Isles, as well as opulent Venice and Genoa ? Little did those shrewd merchants dream that bold Vasco di Gama was soon to double the Cape of Good Hope, with the result that Europe would cease to depend on the trade of the Italian republics. Still less could they have foreseen the extraordinary fame in store for the quiet Florentine who had just quitted their midst for ever. The women sought some favourite church on the route homeward, and murmured a prayer for the safety of the departed traveller. Within the walls of Florence life flowed on. CHAPTEE VIII. THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. BANDINI states : " Whatever different opinions may be respecting other matters, it is certain that Amerigo Vespucci left Florence about the year 1490, and went to Spain in the interests of commerce, which was the principal object of his voyage." According to other authorities Vespucci dwelt, in an uneventful fashion, at Florence until nearly forty years of age, having entered the commercial service of the house of Medici, and was sent to Spain by Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici. Several young Florentines accompanied him, also in search of a career, and they went to Barcelona. Did he seek another country in order to extend the trade in wool of his quarter of the town ? the cloths dressed and dyed in Florence being so superior to all other manufacture, with the exception of the towns of Lombardy, that in the first half of the fourteenth century the annual sales amounted to seventy or eighty pieces of goods. The service of the princely Medici of that date is a matter of varied suggestive- ness. One may imagine the later descendants of shrewd John and Cosimo de' Medici as negotiating Statue of Cosmo de' Medici. THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 117 loans with impecunious sovereigns, and establishing counting-houses in foreign cities ; but in mercantile transactions, nothing less than silken stuffs, rare gems and intaglios, Greek vases, and chalices of wrought gold, silver, and cut crystal seems to apper tain to them. When Vespucci is not designated as an adventurer and a story-teller (conteur), modern Anglo-Saxon historians place a certain stress on the statement that his family was impoverished. The purse of the Florentine gentleman may have been light on his arrival in Spain, but the poverty of his race is not proved by the circumstance. In the record of the times one of the most curious phases of society is the contrast of the simplicity of customs with a regal pomp as developed in small commonwealths. Florence was democratic and in dustrial, while Venice was patrician and commercial. The Florentine burgher was the potentate of the counter, without title or crown, as opposed to neigh bouring military and feudal principalities. Cosimo de' Medici has been termed the Caesar of bankers, who loaned 620,000 ecus to King Edward of England, and to Charles of Burgundy 80,000 ecus, as Lorenzo the Magnificent received the appellation of the Pericles of the house for his erudition as a merchant- philosopher, and culture of the artist-financier, yet sold the use of his name to various traffics, and was given ^by the Signory of his city the contract to furnish cloth to the troops. In our day a Titian or a Rubens would group those keen-witted Florentines 118 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. as inspecting the latest application of electricity, considering the project of founding a new life-as surance company, or meditating on a syndicate in mines, instead of studying charts concerning the roundness of the earth. The cavalier Messer Pitti, who journeyed to Buda to speculate in the sale of drugs, other goods, and horses, certainly belonged to a family of great wealth. The departure of Amerigo Vespucci possesses a picturesque aspect apart from the momentous re sults of this journey on his subsequent life. The Medici proclivities of a brilliant and short-lived race were rapidly assuming the phase of lavish expen diture, in the increase of despotic power, instead of the accumulation of thrifty earnings. If Vespucci actually carried Italian goods to Spain it must have been as a sort of pedler, for in those unsettled times a merchant was obliged to accompany and protect his wares, either banding together with others in a caravan in travelling on land to a distant mart, pre pared to resist the attack of robber barons watching for such victims to pass their castles on the route, or chartering a vessel to voyage by water, when the captain and crew were given a pecuniary interest in the cargo to insure mutual zeal against the violence of pirates, and the risk of bales of merchandise being cast overboard too readily in storms, to lighten the craft. The modern pedler of rural districts, with his pack on his back, lacks the dignity and importance THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 119 of the trader of the Middle Ages, when the citizens of such maritime republics as Pisa, Genoa, Venice, Marseilles, and Barcelona, equipped ships the symbol of human activity in the thirteenth century, and after the Crusades, to venture even on unknown seas. Thus in the fourteenth century the shores of Provence, Iberia, Palestine, the African coast, Asia Minor, Armenia, Persia, Macedonia, Thrace, and the islands of the Archipelago were reached by the route of Mediterranean navigation as a channel of enterprise for Italians, especially the dealers of Amalfi, Ancona, Venice, Genoa, and Lucca. England, Holland, and even Sweden, were frequented in time, after a passage of the Straits of Gibraltar had been effected. In all these ventures the Florentine had ever been too prominent for the journey, or voyage, of Amerigo Vespucci to have aroused comment, whether in the service of his family, or of the house of Medici. The Florentine was known in the ports of Africa and Asia, in all the marts of Germany, where the bankers Bardi and Peruzzi attained a powerful in fluence, and the annual fairs of different countries, the silks and wools of Florence finding a sale with the oils of Provence, the fruits of the Mediterranean, and the wines of Spain. The incentives to increased activity were constantly developing on every side, as a feature of the age, and Vespucci was one of the shuttles shot across the loom. If doughty Buonac- corso Pitti, riding forth on his steed out of the gates 120 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. of Florence, was not a true speculator, in the later sense of the term, he was assuredly a notable example of a prototype. Amerigo Vespucci may also have cherished many agreeable schemes of getting gain, as he quitted his native shores of Italy. If we pause to contemplate him in this aspect, amidst the mo mentous events, the feverish conflicts of ambition in nations, and the magnificent discoveries of his century, he presents the curious aspect of a mortal blindly following the dictates of destiny ; for he can not have been inspired with any of those latent ambitions, and half-formed conjectures concerning distant lands which probably lurked in the brain of the sailor Columbus for many years before all achieve ment, but had sought Spain, instead, merely as an agent, or a merchant from an inland city. Hence the ironical, almost humorous circumstance of the fame appertaining to him of having been crowned as America's godfather by an acquiescent world. The believers in a man's lucky star, and some sort of talismanic good-fortune as attending his career, may well take a fresh stimulus of credulity in the superstition from his example. Leaving the bank of Arno, Amerigo Vespucci only groped his way, inch by inch, like the rest of us in this life. Truly he did not dream of what the morrow might have in store for him. To again quote the frequently abused Bandini, who is nevertheless the chief authority consulted, Vespucci was in Seville in the year 1492. Other THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 121 accredited research affirms that he first dwelt at Barcelona, the prosperous port and animated city, which still aspires in this century to eclipse all rival Mediterranean marts. The sojourn of a stranger at Barcelona was calculated to exercise a powerful in fluence on the most obtuse mind. The Spanish port was a place of importance even in the thirteenth century, contending with the Italian republics for supremacy in the lucrative commerce with Alex andria and the East, of drugs, spices, and perfumes, to be diffused through Spain and Europe beyond. A spacious city, with docks, arsenals, and gardens, thronged by foreigners, and the enterprising, lively Catalonian population, responsive in movement and temperament to all the quickening impulses of the sparkling sea, Barcelona boasted of her consuls and commercial factories established in every port of the Mediterranean and northern Europe, her legislative independence controlled by bodies of counsellors, and the first bank of exchange, for the use of foreigners as well as citizens, founded in 1401. The famous Consulado del Mar claimed to be the most ancient written code of maritime laws in use in tha Middle Ages, as adopting the code of Khodes which was lost in the mists of antiquity, and was corrected at Barcelona in the year 900, together with sixty of the decrees of Justinian, when the town belonged to Charlemagne. In 1266 further modification rendered the code the judgments of Oleron, which served as a model for the ordinances of Wisby in 1400. 122 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. We like to tliink of Amerigo Vespucci, the quiet Florentine gentleman, inhaling a hreath of the sea at Barcelona, and mingling with the sailors of the quays, listening to a new language, and lured to fresh fields of thought and ambition by the tales of adventure, storms, and riches of those who go down to the deep in ships. He may have imbibed a love of the ocean by lodging in the sailors' suburb, called the Barcelonette. His quest of the merchant may have been the fine fleeces of Catalonia and Aragon, in which Barcelona had an extensive trade, especially with England. If he was in the service of the Me dici, one naturally beholds him in the capacity of banker in some sort, his money-bags filled with Spanish coin, piastres, reals, and maravedi, the ancient piece used by the Goths, as well as florins and ducats, the current medium of such busy marts of exchange. Vespucci went from Barcelona to Seville. Proba bly his departure from the populous and prosperous seaport was as unnoticed as his arrival in the opu lent city on the borders of the Guadalquivir. From Florence to Seville ! What a contrast in their beauty of the South is evoked by the mind- picture of the Italian and the Spanish cities of the Middle Ages, the first a design in niello work, pure and severe in the outline of palace, parapet, and tower, and the second a water-color sketch, glow ing with all the gorgeous tints yellow, rose, pur ple, and ashy-gray of a palette mingled by a Turner, THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 123 in the arabesque designs of Moorish architecture, and the delicate fretwork shadows of orange-trees on marble courts. Florence has her Campanile of the Church of the Lily, and Seville her Giralda; they form a gracious sisterhood of towns, crowned by these characteristic belfries, and all embalmed in the sunshine of mild latitudes, as if musing over the glorious events of their prime, in the reveries of old age, undisturbed by the bustle of modern activity. A French author describes Spain as one of those ancient edifices to which all nations have brought their tribute, each column having its date, charac ter, and school. Different races of the "West ruled in the Peninsula, Eoman, Goth, and Gaul, by turns conquering, demolishing, and governing, before the Mussulman hordes of Africa landed from the sea. Each of these dissimilar nations left the seal of their rulo stamped on the population in customs, beliefs, and ambitions, whether of war, or the luxurious idle ness of peace. Not less happy is the comparison of an English writer who wishes that his pages may resemble one of the old Spanish cities in " cool walks shaded by orange-trees along the banks of a river; great open squares exposed to the burning sun for festivities ; narrow, winding, dark streets composed of houses of every form, height, age, and colour; labyrinths of buildings all confused together, palaces, hospitals, convents, halls, market-places, all resounding with the busy hum of men ; cemeteries where the living are as silent as the dead ; and in 124 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. the centre a cathedral, with sculptured portals and capitals of varied tracery, its deep vaults, its forest of pillars, its chapels, multitude of saints, and high altar lighted with hundreds of tapers. Then in another quarter of the town the vast arch of an aqueduct constructed by the Romans, or, concealed by a grove of palms and sycamores, the ruins of the oriental mosque, with the domes of brass, and en amelled pavements." To Amerigo Vespucci, in quest of fortune, Iberia may have been still more embodied by that mountain of Udalach, which rises in a pyram idal form to dominate Biscay and Guipuzcoa, com posed of jasper, veined with mines of iron and lead, and covered with a growth of fruit-trees and medi cinal plants. Curiosity, and the keenest incentive to observation of novel surroundings, and profiting by such opportunities as offered in a foreign land, would assuredly have appealed to the stranger whose brain had attained maturity in the "subtle air" of the Val d'Arno. Spain occupied a place in the history of the fif teenth century of unique interest and importance. Not only was her fate interwoven with that of the neighboring European States by alliances and rival ries with France and Portugal, or wars of succession to the throne of Naples and Sicily with Italy, but the crowning feat was accomplished of expelling the Moor from her soil with the final conquest of Granada. The nineteenth century has ample leisure, in THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 125 philosophical mood, to deplore the crude fanaticism of the Spanish in thus exterminating, as far as pos sible, the Moor, who had brought to the land of his adoption the manifold culture of Oriental civilisation in science and poetry, accumulated the treasures of Asia and Africa in silks, rice, saffron, sugar-cane, dates, bananas, myrrh, and ginger, while planting the apricot and other useful fruits and raising in stead the standard of the auto-da-fe, enforcing compulsory baptism, as well as the expulsion of the Jews, and all the paralysing system of the Inquisi tion. Posterity has the result, outspread before the eye like a map, in the impartial records of history. " Unfortunate land of Spain, stricken since Charles V., and, above all, since Philip II., with the maledic tion of Heaven in expiation for the blood shed in the autos-da-fe," sighs Charles Didier. " Nothing succeeds, everything has degenerated ; she has lost successively the Low Countries, Italy, Portugal, the Americas ; she has no more commerce, no industries, no marine ; science and agriculture have remained in the cradle, public education is null, morals are de praved, and civil virtues unknown." In the day of Vespucci the first flowering of a splendid phase of the Eenaissance had begun. Since the Saracenic invasion of the eighth century, Spain had been divided into petty States, hostile to each other, and only became blended into one race at the close of the fifteenth century, under the united sway of Ferdinand and Isabella, much as 126 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Germany has welded together her separate kingdoms for the sceptre of the Hohenzollern, and Italy fused her duchies to the single rule of the House of Savoy, in our day. We may even discern an analogy be tween the primitive system, in miniature, of the Hermandad of Castile, the Holy Brotherhood, a confederation of the principal cities, bound together by oath to aid each other in civil anarchy, and the Triple Alliance of a modern day. Doubtless then, as now, the Castilian was polished in manner, enthu siastic, ardent, facile to receive impressions, and curious to learn the modes and customs of other lands ; the Aragonese, brusque and distrustful, with excellent qualities of character, and a somewhat harsh dialect ; the Andalusian, a Sybarite, who esteems himself king of the whole world if given a bewitching lady-love, an orange, a guitar, and the sun; the energetic, laborious, and independent Catalonian, ever ready for revolution ; the indolent Valencian, the Gascon type of this mixed popula tion ; while the Asturians and the Galicians resem bled the drudging Auvergnats and Limousins of France. Ambitious Aragon in the north, severe in outline of mountains, reputed veined with silver and lead, yet blooming with wheat, millet, saffron, and the olive, absorbed Catalonia and Valencia, and con quered Sardinia, Sicily, and the Balearic Isles in the time of Vespucci. No less emulative, ancient Leon and Castile had awakened to the impulse of establishing her pre-eminence over the whole penin- THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 127 sula, and imposing her language as the current coin of speech, holding the Asturias, Galicia, Estrema- dura, Murcia, and the long line of Mediterranean coast to the Bay of Biscay ; and Andalusia sang and dreamed amidst the ripening harvests of grape, citron, and fig, amidst the dust-dried foliage of her sultry summertide ; while Granada in the south basked in the opulence of her Oriental palaces, fountain-cooled courts, and public baths, subse quently destroyed by Philip II. as an infidel luxury, libraries, and schools of Arabic learning, vast systems of irrigation and agriculture. In a land of arid wastes, and hills clothed with aromatic plants, thyme, violets, and anemones, gorse, the crocus, juniper, cassia, cactus, ranunculus, narcis sus, hedges of pomegranate, and the ever fragrant and wholesome laurel, associated with classical rites of household cleansing and linen perfuming in Southern countries ; of savage contrasts of scenery, from the serrated peaks of rocks, touched by the myriad tints of the shadows of passing clouds in a transparent atmosphere, and the drought-parched channels of streams, to the rich growth of palm, orange, and olive, with the cork-tree, when spared the ruthless prejudice of the peasant, the eye is dazzled. To Amerigo Vespucci the flocks of sheep must have possessed peculiar interest in connection with the industry of his quarter of Florence. Catherine of Lancaster is reputed to have brought from Eng land some merinos, renowned for their silky fleeces, 128 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. as a portion of her wedding dowry, when she mar ried the heir apparent of Castile. These herds still afford a most characteristic feature of Spain, and were, from an early date, the object of legislative solicitude as a royal prerogative and source of wealth, fostered at the expense of husbandry, the finer breeds living in the open air, and sleeping beneath the stars, feeding during the summer months on the mountains of Leon, Old Castile, Cuenza, and Aragon, and descending in winter to the plains of La Mancha, Estremadura, and Andalusia. Quaint chroniclers place stress on the fact that the sheep are prevented from nibbling the dew-drenched herb age of early morning hours, and drinking melting hail-water, possibly for the same reason that the children in Switzerland are warned not to tempt pet rabbits with lettuce or blades of grass, chilled by the moisture of dawn, lest bunny pays the pen alty of speedy death. The worthy mule assuredly held his own in Spain in the fifteenth century as sole beast of burden of precipitous paths. He greeted the eye of the recently arrived Florentine gentleman, no doubt decked with gay trappings of red and yellow, and was urged onward by caressing names, as the postilions of dilapidated diligences have guided their team over rough highways in this century. At least, the mule fetched the water of the river Tagus in two earthen jars, balanced across his back, up the steep streets of parched Toledo, in the year 1492, as he has continued to do long afterward, THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 129 the altitude of the city, perched on a granite height, defying all hydraulic appliances. The Florentine tapestry of the fifteenth century in the gallery of the Via Laura, with the princes, soldiers, ladies, persons of distinction, and simple folk gathered under the canopy held by falcons, finds a companion design, woven of the warp and woof of history, in Spain and Portugal of the same period. The Iberian fabric lacked the manifold elements of art and poetry of the Italian, yet pos sessed the richest material in varied arabesque design, like some Oriental stuff mingled with the stouter fibre of wool and linen thread, contrasting and blending in the pattern of conflicting races, purposes, and religions, with their consequent virtues, crimes, and passions. In the dim background Roderick, the last of the Goths, is discernible, a tradition resembling a fairy tale. The Gothic king found in the enchanted Tower of Hercules at Toledo a casket of lapis- lazuli, which contained a folded paper with designs of men in turbans drawn on it, and suffered a speedy downfall from the revenge of Count Julian, the father of the fair maiden Florinde. The heroic figure of the Cid appears, dwarfing all contempora ries, and a fading host of early poets, compiling a national poetry out of the stores of narrative lyrics, enriched by the melody of Moorish ballads, as well as the Troubadours, fantastic, wayward, and degene rating to the jugglers and acrobats of the streets, dancing and singing the weilles rondes. 9 130 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Alfonso the Wise, of Leon and Castile, pores over the astronomical tablets arranged by the astronomers of his age, instructed in Arabian schools ; and Moham med, the first king of Granada, schemes to encourage learning, manufacture, agriculture, and consolidate the immense population flocking to his domains. Hidal gos and cavaliers, Spanish knights and chivalry, prepared to challenge the infidel to single combat, ride in tournaments on caparisoned steeds, wearing rich attire and flowing mantles, like Suero de Qui- nofies, who jousted for thirty days in honour of his fair lady, weighted with an iron collar by feminine caprice, the constable, Davalos, in the reign of Henry III., spurs through his own estates from Se ville to Compostella, Alvaro de Luna, the powerful favourite of John II., is able to muster twenty thou sand vassals for war, a valiant company, used to martial exercise, and proud of their Gothic descent. Members of the Spanish military orders are dis tinguishable in the throng, founded on those of the Hospitallers of Jerusalem, and the Templars, after the Crusades, especially that of St. lago, and equally the Spanish Arab associations of chivalry, the Mos lem fronteros, vowed to austerity, and to die at their posts, guarding their territory from the Christian. The varied pattern reveals King Henry III. of Castile returning home to his palace from the hunt to find no supper prepared for him, because of his lean exchequer, while his nobles feasted with the Archbishop of Toledo; Peter IV, of Aragon, having THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 131 convoked an assembly at Saragossa, cutting the document of the Two Privileges in pieces, and his own hand, as well, with his dagger ; Don Alfonso Perez de Guzman throwing his weapon from the walls of Tarifa for the besiegers to slay his own child; Ferdinand IV. of Castile, named the Summoned because he died thirty days after the execution of the brothers Caroajals, who had cursed him; and the prisoner Yusef playing chess with the Alcalde of Salobrena, when the latter received orders from the usurping brother Mohammed to decapitate the rival, and send back his head with a letter by the impatient messenger, a command frustrated by blunders in the game until delay brought two cava liers riding post-haste from Grenada to announce the sudden death of the wicked kinsman. The Spanish character is deemed frugal, not to say avaricious, to this day. Behold ! a king of Aragon, who made the misers of his kingdom run a foot-race in the sun, wearing a hat of massive gold, and carrying two quintals of coin in the pocket ; and in contrasting hues, Don Juan, Count de Melgar, Admiral of Castile, inviting his sovereign to sup in a grotto of his garden, which was decked with a foliage of vermilion leaves in enamel and metal, with pendent bunches of fruit of sapphires, amethyst, and topaz ; while all that gay company of young mediseval nobles wend along, the Moorish cavalry in sparkling armor and gorgeous robes, and the Spanish soldiers with attendant pages, lackeys, 132 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. and sumpter-mules, the trappings of their steeds richly embroidered, and lodging in silken pavilions, furnished with vessels of gold and silver, in the camps before besieged cities. Here Ibn-Hassaz, lord of Andalusia, brings to his court the silken stuffs of Egypt, and the scimitars of Bagdad, before the Arabs learned to temper Spanish steel into the armour of Toledo, Almeria, Murcia, and Granada ; and here the Sultan, Hakam, perfumes his beard, with the insurgent mob of Cordova storming the gates of his palace, while planning setting fire to a distant suburb of the city, and cutting down the populace thus diverted. Yonder Don Pedro, in the fourteenth century, indites his will bequeathing to his son his sword made at Seville, and ornamented with gold and silver. The Persian Ziryab intro duces to Spain the culture of asparagus, and the making of forcemeat balls and seasoning of a fric- casee, as well as tuning his lyre. In all these elements, the foundation stuff of obscure men, the Hebrew physician studying the virtues of Oriental drugs, and medicinal herbs, Tal- mudic lore, cabalistic mysteries, and with kindred statesmen attached to the courts of different sover eigns ; the Arabian philosopher of the schools of Cordova, Toledo, Barcelona, and Granada, familiar with the Aristotelian doctrines and meditating on phases of experimental science ; alchemists testing the powers of the crucible to make gold; and the poets of the type of the Marquis of Villena, who THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 133 rendered the ^Eneid into Spanish, Lopez de Mendoza, or John de Mena catching the rhythm of the Jewish and Moorish muse, are discernible. It is a won drous thread of life, that wrought by the years on the fabric of Iberia I St. Dominic stands forth in a community where Ignatius Loyola and St. Theresa would arise later; and Moslem hermits of no less holy repute in their sect enjoin on their disciples to read the Koran by the gleam of scented torches in shadowy mosques, while in the tangled web of human interest royal disputes occur with Popes, the siege of Gibraltar, and the inheritance of distant Sardinia and Sicily. The middle space of the tapestry is occupied by the remarkable figures of the Count Henry of Burgundy, and his famous son, Henriques of Portugal, that hero about whose memory cling miraculous legends similar to those embellishing the fame of King Arthur, or Charlemagne ; such as that fire played about his cradle, and left him unharmed in infancy, and his fighting a pack of wolves among the hills of his native country, as a boy, with the courage later displayed in conflict with the Saracen. In the foreground, in close proximity to the date of Amerigo Vespucci's arrival in Spain, are, the Inquis itor Torquemada, of whom a French historian laments that he expired peacefully in his bed, after occasioning the death of thousands of victims, when the most generous and popular of French monarchs, King Henry IV., perished miserably by the dagger of an assassin ; Cardinal Ximenes, Archbishop of Toledo, 134 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. with keen and sallow face, reputed the greatest statesman Spain has ever developed ; Peter Martyr, the Italian scholar ; and King Ferdinand, in shining mail, mounted on a fiery steed, his sword only recently sheathed after the conquest of Granada and the final expulsion of the Moor from the soil of Spain. Place aux dames ! Surely that spirit of masculine chivalry towards the fair sex which would seem to be on the wane amidst the active competition of the nineteenth century, still accords to Queen Isabella the central space in the Spanish historical fabric of the Middle Ages. Pronounced by Shakespeare " the greatest of earthly queens," and commended by Bacon as " an honour to her sex, and the corner-stone of the greatness of Spain," the fair woman with the clear blue eyes, mild physiognomy, and reddish blond hair rides her Spanish jennet, attired in royal robes, beneath a canopy of brocade, and sup ported by brave knights, the Marquis of Cadiz, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, or Gonsalvo, attired in crimson velvet, who gallantly waded into the water to bring his royal mistress to shore from the boat after the fleet had sailed for Flanders with her daughter Joanna, as a bride, and preceded by heralds and courtiers. In the rear gather the half- defined semblance of a kindred sisterhood, incom plete in their fulfilment, sinking into the abyss of violence of enemies, petty court intrigues, and all the reward of their own vanity and folly, in the THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 135 lapse of years. Donna Theresa of Portugal, a woman of fine mind and enlightened ambition, neglecting her son to lavish preference on a lover, is the clearest portrait of 'the dim company, while the Sultana Zoraya lowers her offspring from the tower of the palace by means of silken scarfs to evade the jealousy of her Greek rival; the wife of Moham med V. of Granada disguises him in the garb of a female slave in her apartments to escape the enemy scaling the walls, instigated by Abu-Said ; and the dusky daughters of Beza bringing their jewels to aid the garrison, closely pressed by the host of the Christians. Queen Joanna of Aragon is a vigorous personality, scheming to put aside her popular and ingratiating stepson, Don Carlos, in favour of her own child, King Ferdinand, the Catholic. The lustre of heroism in this group is obscured by the central figure of Isabella. Even critical and pessimistic posterity accords the noble lady homage for the pru dence, purity, wisdom, and moral firmness in adver sity and bereavement, as well as the energetic ambition of her character, according to the lights of her day. Her place is unique in the history of the world as the woman to whom the discovery of America must be ascribed. How glowing the tints of the tapestry are still, in the Castilian and femi nine enthusiasm which has rendered her fame enduring ! Her words remain inscribed on the tablet of the century : " I will assume the under taking for my own crown of Castile, and am ready 136 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. to pawn my jewels to defray the expenses of it." How memorable the gratitude of Columbus, ex pressed in the letter relative to his third voyage : " In the midst of general incredulity, the Almighty infused into the queen, my lady, the spirit of intel ligence and energy." Amerigo Vespucci sought Seville, and formed relations with a Florentine of the name of Berardi. The latter had dwelt in Spain for several years, and was commissioned by the crown to fit out the craft used by Columbus. We are again reminded of Messer Pitti, and his encoun ter with fellow-countrymen at Paris, Avignon, in Flanders, and in England, during his travels. Seville is an ideal Spanish capital to the modern traveller. Built in an amphitheatre on the dusty plain, with boundary walls attributed to no less a person of antiquity than Hercules, and then to Julius Caesar, and crenelated by the successive gen erations of Goths, Moors, and Christians, the city stands divided into two groups, and crowned by the Cathedral, the Alcazar, and the Giralda Tower. An ancient town, surrounded by olives, hedges of aloes, and pine-trees, it was taken by the Vandals in 413, arid the Arabs in 730. When Vespucci reached the portals the Moor had been recently vanquished, and there was a lingering atmosphere of Oriental per fumes about the tesselated courts, with their vases of roses and alabaster fountains, as the gold and arabesque tracery of Moslem rule still adorned the walls of chambers shaded by the interlacing foliage General View of Seville. THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 137 of orange-trees in adjacent gardens. During the term of Vespucci's sojourn in Spain Seville acquired an ever-increasing importance in the development of the fifteenth century as the "Golden Gate to the Indies," as Valencia was christened " the beautiful," and Saragossa " the abundant." The Andalusian town owed this activity to the discovery of the new world, and the fact renders association with the Florentine gentleman even more interesting. Fain would we trace his move ments there more clearly in knowledge gained from accurate chronicler, or mere discursive gossip, just as we should like to know more of his earlier years in the narrow streets of the Vespucci quarter of Florence. There was no Froissart, De Commines, Dr. Pepys, or respectful mediseval Boswell to attend the footsteps of Amerigo Vespucci, and take careful note of his actions and opinions. Fain would we follow his shadow so long vanished through the tortuous, whitewashed streets, with the awnings of matting spread to exclude the sun, and the shops resembling the open booths of Eastern bazaars, where Moors sold stuffs of gaudy colours for the national Mantas, files of mules jostled pedestrians, vendors of water uttered their shrill cry of agua, in a country where the natives are reputed to be as thirsty as the soil, and merchants of dates and sweetmeats abounded. Old women peered out of the casements of crooked by-ways, like that of the Caudelejo, own sisters of the crone who held her lamp at the window at midnight 138 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. to witness the duel of cavaliers below, and recognized the victor as Don Pedro the Cruel, by the peculiar cracking of his knee-joints. The idlers gathered around the door of the little shop of some earlier local wit, of the type of worthy Manolito Gazquey, the velonero, who made the brass lamps, with four wicks, called velon, of humble households, aided by his no less humorous, crabbed old assistant. His meek wife dwelt upstairs, and was occasionally summoned to fetch water to a parched customer in a carafe of gold, at least, while an excuse for the lack of wares was gravely attributed to having freighted two frigates for America with the useful article on the previous day. A gay people, fond of public spec tacles, with the ancestors of Figaro on every thor oughfare, and the ancestress of Rosina leaning on every balcony, veiled in lace draperies, with a rose in her hair, the first lesson of feminine childhood having been to arrange such covering, coquettishly, on her charming head. The tinkle of the guitar, an instrument introduced by the Moor, fell on the ear of Vespucci in the starlit nights, fragrant with jasmine, bergamot, and acacia, repeating the romance of the Cid. " If a learned man dies at Seville, and they wish to sell his books, they take them to Cordova, where they find an assured market ; if, on the contrary, a musician dies at Cordova, they go to Seville to sell his instruments," said Averroes. Fain would we dine and sup with Vespucci on the THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 139 national dishes of his time, which furnished the equivalent in human alimentation of the sauces deeply dyed with saffron, the puchero, the Spanish pot-au-feu, compounded of boiled meat, chick-peas, and cabbage, the olla-podrida of game, fowl, and many ingredients, a ragout of eggs, snails, and mushrooms, or the sausages flavoured with garlic, which the Spanish King Charles IV. found so deli cious that he ate thirteen, without bread, at a meal, in 1788. The ducks and pheasants of Aragon, the tunny-fish from Cadiz, wood-hens of Murcia, water melons and olives of Seville, the wines of Huesca, Saragossa, Colmenar, Alicante, Raucio, and La Mancha, and bread made of the excellent flour of Andalusia and Valencia (which was as highly esteemed as that of Hungary since the reign of Joseph II. of Austria), must have furnished the board of Vespucci. He did not partake of choco late and wafers, flavoured with rosemary or aniseed, of a morning, for the reason that cocoa awaited discovery in America , nor did the excellent potato form a portion of his nourishment, that gift to hungry Europe, more precious than gold, brought by the Spaniards from the new world, first to Galicia, and thence transplanted to France, Germany, and England. According to the Marquis de Langle, the humble vegetable clearly proves the beneficent supervision of a God who intends that all mankind shall obtain sufficient food. Also, tobacco, indigo, and cocoa were unknown during the reign of Isa- 140. AMERICA'S GODFATHER. bella. although cotton was planted with doubtful success, and the brazil wood adopted by commerce for the fine dye yielded. Fain would we linger on the banks of the famous Guadalquivir with Vespucci, accustomed to his own diminished thread of yellow Arno, in contrast with the broad current laving the walls of Seville. The Guadalquivir was then still a Moslem stream, signi fying in Arabic the "Great River," which issued from the Sierras of Segura in the kingdom of Murcia, traversing Andalusia by Baeza, Andujar, and Cordova, trending southward to Seville, and thence to Lucar de Barrameda, where it forces the ocean barriers. In seasons of flood the river is ever a formidable enemy, fed by tributaries, such as the Guadiana and the Zandulilla, near the source, with some currents of salt water in the vicinity of Menxibar, Marnolejo, and Alden del Rio, the Lecobin, and the Vivoras, near the old bridge of Cordova, the Genii having mingled with the Darro of Grenada, coursing in the vicinity of Palma and Ecija, the Gaudajocetto and the Carbones descending from the Sierra de Ronda, and further on, above Seville, the Guadaira. On the right hand the Sierra Morena sends the majority of his springs to this main river, which is not navigable from Seville to Cadiz, although attempted even by large craft in favourable years, as the Romans are supposed to have tested the shallows centuries ago. Inundations of formidable proportions took place THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 141 in 1434 and in 1485, necessitating carrying a piece of the Holy Cross in processions. Such miracles, re sulted as the Madonna of a house-shrine, in a modest dwelling being swept away on the tide, and floating with the lighted taper un quenched. The Guadalquivir was the stepping-stone of Amerigo Vespucci to the wide realm of sea beyond. The Florentine would have been a keenly observant spectator of the church festivals of the city, the great fete of the Corpus Christi, when the houses were adorned with hangings of silk and velvet, as well as the carnival revelry of the spring, and the theatrical representations of annunciations, birth, and adorations, which were earlier autos sacra- mentales of Lope de Vega and Calderon, when Satan may have already appeared as a fine gentle man, dressed in black, with blue stockings, red slip pers, a perruque, and knots of ribbon of the hue of infernal flames ; baptism was personated by a child in white, with blond curls ; confirmation was a beautiful lady; penitence a maiden clothed in sheepskin ; the Sacerdotal Orders a venerable man with long white hair ; marriage a gallant cavalier ; and Faith invariably wore a crown and imperial mantle. The annual April Fair of Mairena, four leagues distant from Seville, on the road to Cordova, was then held, the Moors having early organised the mart in the narrow ill-paved space for the sale of attar-of-rose from Tangiers, dates, and babooshes. 142 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. How readily we can picture Vespucci, mingling with the throng of mendicants, shepherds, and deal ers in cattle and horses ; the Sevillians and peas ants, and the Mayo; the country dandy of the period with the pretty Maya held on the croup before him, the couple decked with silk cords, sil ver buttons and velvet embroideries, his carbine slung at his side, the saddle of a chair shape, and the stirrup of the large, short, Arab pattern, while the steed wore trappings and pompons on the head. The ancestors of the modern Gitana were assuredly there in the motley crew gathered about the fire of aloes, where the matrons fried fritters in oil for the chil dren to vend, with shrill cries ; the old hags told fortunes ; the men doctored horses, and the girls danced fandangos in tawdry finery of orange, crim son, and blue. A strange scene was the Fair of Mairena of discord, music, dust, and confusion; where, as the night came on, tents were pitched, and most of the company supped on a frugal soup, made of garlic, vinegar, oil, and water, with slices of brown bread in the dish, the whole multitude environed by the orange groves of the district, esteemed the best in Andalusia. Earlier record of Bandini states that Vespucci did not marry, but later historians affirm he espoused a Spanish lady, Maria Cerezo by name, about the year 1505, when he took up his abode permanently at Seville. In his youth he strolled in the Piazza of the Duomo at Florence, in the pure twilight of the THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 143 evening hour, with his comrades, and exchanged greetings with the maidens already decked with the strings of pearls, and the garlands of Ghirlandajo the silversmith, so ardently coveted by feminine vanity ; in his maturity the Andalusian, the ac cepted type of all grace and beauty in womanhood, smiled upon him through the grating of the entrance of her home, as she passed the day in the patio (court) with the fountain in the centre, statues, palms, bananas, and flowers. The Spanish ladies wore the dress very long as late as 1680, in order to conceal the tiny feet which have become celebrated as a national feature of beauty. They had largely developed the caprice for perfumes which characterizes the modern Par isian. Their garments, furniture, and mattresses were scented, and they ate musk and amber in addi tion to the food of the day, which was spiced with cloves, cinnamon, pepper, and ginger. Did Amerigo Vespucci attend those mediaeval reunions of Seville society, now known as the tertulias and the re- fresco, when large glasses of fresh water were served with little cakes of sugar of different colours and shapes to dissolve in the beverage, together with biscuit and sweetmeats to the company ? Was that shadowy person of history, Maria Cerezo, one of the bevy of fair damsels who imparted gaiety to the hour by the magic of the dark eyes, song, and laughter ? One cannot help wondering if our Florentine 144 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. gentleman yielded to the seductive Spanish custom of taking a nap in the hours of day. The lines of the poet Herrera may possess a drowsy influence on his countrymen : " O soft sleep I thou who, in tardy flight, Slowly agitates thy heavy wings, Who, crowned with poppies, traverses the sky I " This habit has been severely condemned by viva cious Gallic neighbours, and no excuse allowed for the languor of a warm climate, since, if the Saracen and the Moor nod their turbans in the siesta, the natives of the shores of the Red Sea are far too lively, as well as the Caffres, while other negro pop ulations are said to sleep little. The French critic would seem to be in the right, for, in the language of the Bible, want has come upon slothful Spain like an armed man. Did the "wind of Medina" rasp the nerves of the Tuscan, like the sirocco and the tramontano of his native Val d'Arno ? The sereno (watchman) then perambulated the streets at midnight, a picturesque figure in his man tle, armed with lantern, pistol, and lance, prepared to lead Amerigo Vespucci to his domicile as a bewil dered stranger, if he lost his way, while his sonorous call reassured timid souls. In the literature of the land the watchman has his characteristic songs as well as the bull-fighter (el torero), the Gitana, and the orange-vender. The cathedral was not then completed. Begun THE STKIKING OF THE HOUR. 145 in 1401 only the half-height of the existing walls had been attained in 1462, and the entire edifice was not completed before the sixteenth century. Ves pucci may have traversed the little square which separates the church from the tower of the Giralda, now planted with acacias and oranges, but no mellow rays from the coloured glass of the windows of this stupendous pile shone down on him, whether as a devout worshipper, like Columbus, or a mere philosophical spectator, in an interior at once Gothic, Moorish, and Greco-Koman in architecture, with every century represented in the chapels ; no band of acolytes executing mystical symbolical dances in the vast, shadowy aisles, on occasion; no tomb of Ferdinand Columbus near the west door, adorned with caravels, carved in marble ; and no great Pascal candlestick of silver, containing the candle weigh ing fourteen hundred pounds of wax, twenty-one feet high, and twenty-one inches in diameter, costing four thousand francs; and no shrine of the saint King Ferdinand. The fact that the scaffold of the Inquisition was erected outside one of the gates of Seville for the autos-da-fe in 1482 was calculated to render pru dent a foreigner dwelling in the land, like Vespucci, even as later travellers might be reflective that a woman was here burned alive, as a sorceress capa ble of reading the future, at the close of the last century. The plague visited Seville in 1481, and swept away fifteen thousand victims. 10 146 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Practically considered, Amerigo Vespucci had sought Barcelona and Seville to make his fortune, much as the modern Briton goes forth to the Antip odes, and the American to the great West, or South, of the continent. Seville had not yet become the golden gate of the Indies, although the prosperity of the town was notable in the middle of the fifteenth century, according to the native historian Zufriga. The trade was in domestic fabrics, and the coarse cloths of Castile, and natural products of oil and wine, and especially the wool supplied to Italy, France, Flanders, and England, minerals, dressed skins, steel, and Spanish horses of Arabian breed. Granada did not begin to weave silk with thread brought from Naples before 1500, while it was not until the development of the sixteenth century that Segovia made fine cloths and arms, Valencia and Granada velvets, Toledo woollen and silk goods, Valladolid curiously wrought plate, and Barcelona cutlery and glass. Vespucci must have essayed his chances with these sinews of industry, dealing in merchandise, either as a financial agent of the Florentine bankers or in his own interests, and without success. The key-note to his future is furnished by the statement that he formed business relations with Berardi, who fitted out the first craft of Columbus, and that Vespucci was first made acquainted with the great Genoese by this means. Berardi died, and Vespucci succeeded him. On the eve of the eventful vear 1492 Seville rose, The Giralda. THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 147 a fair city, on the banks of the Guadalquivir, the atmosphere still indolent with the influence of Moorish rule, as of a beautiful woman reclining among her cushions, sparkling with gems, and enveloped in the golden tissues of the East. The Alcazar had been recently vacated by the Arabs who built it in 1181, within a circle of high walls, flanked by turrets, and not yet converted to the uses of a prison. The presence of Abdelasis and of Don Pedro the Cruel remained in hall, court, and bath. The Giralda, that dream of the artist's fancy of warm colouring in the sunset, and Moorish grace in light arch, column, and arabesque casements, pierced at irregular intervals, soared high above the roofs, and had its foundation roots stretching beneath an entire quarter of the town. In the year 1000 the tower was begun, the architect being reputed no less than the Arab Guever, the algebraist, of square cut stone the height of a man, and the remainder of brick. Four globes of gilded copper surmounted the first structure, of such brilliancy when the sun smote them that they were visible for eight leagues. The globes were destroyed by an earthquake in 1395. In 1568 the shaft was raised one hundred feet higher by Fernando Euiz, adorned with frescos of religious subjects, and ultimately completed by the statue of Faith, the revolving figure holding a palm in the hand, christened the Giralda. The tower was thus converted, baptized, and placed under the protection of the two sisters 148 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. St. Justina and St. Rufina, the martyred maidens of Seville ; who, vending the rude vessels fashioned by their father, the potter, in the market-place, refused to sell them to women to carry incense to the temple of Venus, and were killed by the populace. To the painter and the poet, the Giralda is a mutinous slave, captive in Christian fetters, especially in the evening hour when the moon weaves patterns of shadow and light on wall, orange-trees, and columns, as fantastic as the creeds of man. At such moments the echo of the call to prayer of the Muezzin sounds from the airy parapet instead of the bells of the arcades ringing for the angelus, or vespers. In the day of Vespucci, the four bulbs of copper so characteristic of an Eastern city, with its mosques and minarets, had fallen, and not yet been replaced by the statue of Faith. Don Pedro the Cruel had given to the Giralda the first clock placed on a tower in Spain, in 1400. This dial marked the great event of the century, and struck a memorable hour for Amerigo Vespucci, dwelling in the town below. Charlemagne is said to have received the gift of some primitive clock from an Eastern caliph, while St. Louis noted the vigils of the night only by means of burning a blessed taper. The record of passing time kept on the dial of the Giralda is inter esting when considered in the phase of indicating the moment when one Italian, Columbus, beheld the shores of an unknown continent, and another, Amerigo Vespucci, was aroused to a full recognition THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 149 of the importance of the discovery, for the reason that Italy boasted of having first set clocks in church towers. Lost in the mists of an earlier obscurity clocks were mentioned before the four teenth century, and Dante refers to them in his Paradiso. Two physicians of the noble family of the Dondi of Padua, Jacopo and his son Giovanni, invented complicated mechanism, and the race re ceived the surname dell' Orologio. In 1344 Jacopo Dondi placed a clock on the summit of the tower of the Palazzo Publico of Padua, by command of Ubertino of Carrara. The son, always called Gio vanni degli Orologi (John of the Clocks), made an instrument described by some writers as a sphere of the sun's movements, planets, constellations, with their distances, and circles, and wheels. The chron icle is curious : " The most celebrated astronomers came from distant lands to visit Maestro Giovanni and the work of his hands, and all agreed that there had never been so ingenious an instrument of the heavenly bodies as this clock. Maestro Giovanni made it with his own hands, of copper and brass, without the aid of any person, and did nothing else for sixteen entire years." The simple clock of Jacopo Dondi on the tower of Padua has been confounded with the great sphere of Giovanni, which was at Pavia. The sphere was so marvellous that after the death of the inventor no one was able to correct it and adjust the weights, 150 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. until an astrologer and great artificer came to Pavia from France, and after many days succeeded in set ting the wheels in motion. Maestro Giovanni was attached to the court of Gian Galeazzo Yisconti, who gave him an annual stipend. He was the physician of the duke. A doctor capable of adjust ing so many wheels must surely have understood the human system. Columbus had obtained his letters-patent, over come the first obstacles of discouragement and delay, and set sail from Palos on Friday, Aug. 3, 1492. He had discovered land on Friday, Oct. 12, 1492, the day of the week dear to the Emperor Charles V. and the Pope Sixtus V., who had been born, made a cardinal, and crowned Pontiff on Friday, a preference shared by Henry of Navarre, and Fran cis I. of France. Driven to take refuge in the Tagus by stormy weather, on his return in the spring of 1493, Columbus was well received by King Emman uel, aware of the blunder Portugal had made in disregarding his projects earlier. The Portuguese historian, Faria y Sousa, stated in disapproval : "The admiral entered Lisbon with a vainglorious exul tation, in order to make Portugal feel, by displaying the tokens of his discovery, how much she had erred in not acceding to his propositions." Columbus wrote to the treasurer, Sanchez, from Lisbon : "Let processions be made, festivals held, temples be filled with branches and flowers ; for Christ rejoices on THE STRIKING OF THE HOUR. 151 earth as in heaven, seeing the future redemption of souls. Let us rejoice, also, for the temporal benefit likely to result, not merely to Spain, but to all Christendom." He reached Palos on a Friday, and passed through Seville on his way to Barcelona, when every balcony and roof of the former city was crowded with spec tators eager to behold him. The clock of the Giralda struck the hour momentous in the progress of the human race. Amerigo Vespucci listened. CHAPTER IX. THE FIRST VOYAGE. ONE day the idea occurred to Amerigo Vespucci of joining the company of the explorers. The fact is incontestable, or, no doubt, the Florentine gentle man would have been robbed of it by a host of inveterate detractors in the lapse of centuries. Columbus had discovered land, a western margin of Asia, indeed, as all Europe believed, but accessible and teeming with unexplored riches of minerals, plants, and animal life. King Henry VII. of Eng land pronounced the achievement " a thing more divine than human." Peter Martyr, the native of Anghiera, in the province of Milan, who, educated in Rome, had gone to Spain with the Spanish ambas sador, and entered the service of the king and queen, described complacently the expansion of knowledge which would result from such novel enterprises in a letter to the Cardinal Sforza, when previous preparations of his great fellow-country man, the Genoese, had passed unnoticed by him. Amerigo Vespucci, moved by the general sentiment of enthusiasm, the schemes and dreams of all Spain, turned his face toward the sea. THE FIRST VOYAGE. 153 The act evinced a degree of courage which merits respect, as well as ambition. He was not by birth or training a son of the sea, but essentially a lands man, a merchant, and a scholar. However much of a nautical flavour in turns of expression, from long and intimate association with rough Portuguese and Spanish sailors, his letters may have subsequently revealed, he was not born within sound of the waves, with the harvest of the tide in shells, tangled weeds, and strange creatures of the fishing-nets for play things. Bandini, in his "Life and Letters of Amerigo Vespucci, Nobile Fiorentino," devotes some con sideration to elucidating the fact that much corre spondence had taken place between Vespucci and Lorenzo de Pier Francesco de' Medici before the departure of the former for Spain, and especially to a missive found in the Medici archives of the old treasury of Florence, stating the dishonesty of a business agent in Spain, and seeming to suggest that Vespucci should regulate the matter by personal investigation of a house of commerce. In one of these communications Lorenzo charges Vespucci to sell some grain, and to obtain twenty soldi the staio (a bushel), if possible. The value of the florin of that date was about two lira and one soldo of the money of 1789. The result of these transactions must have proved unsatisfactory, as well as serving in the shipping business with Berardi ; and Vespucci decided to try his fortune on the ocean. 154 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. One muses on the manner in which the novel pro ject came to him, if the note of the bells of the Giralda smote on his ear, heralding the dawn, or the sonorous voice of the sereno awakened him from wonderful dreams to a thrilling conviction that the reality was more marvellous than any vision of sleep in its dazzling possibilities of search. Still more probable would it appear that he had listened* spell-bound, to the tales of some ancient mariner, with hands like the ribbed sea-sand, who had made many a voyage to the realms of Wonderland, al though the very existence of the Western Hemi sphere, and of the Pacific Ocean, was unsuspected. In the full noonday light of the present, shed by the conscientious researches of modern historians, we are permitted to believe that Amerigo Vespucci left Seville in May, 1497, and passed down the cur rent of the Guadalquivir, the shores bordered with ancient monasteries, towns, and the ruins of churches, all embowered in oranges, olives, and cypress-trees. Shepherds tended the herds of bulls wandering over adjacent plains, while sheep browsed on the little islets of the stream, now resorts of a midsummer holiday trip on board of miniature steamers. A tower rose above the town of Lebrija, the ancient Nebrissa, the birthplace of Juan Diaz de Solis, the discoverer of the Eio de la Plata, as well of the grammarian Antonio de Ldbrija, who, in the six teenth century discovered unknown realms of lan guage. Flocks of wild geese flew across the THE FIRST VOYAGE. 155 lowlands, and the first sea-birds swept near Vespucci, as if to bring him a welcome from the wild and free element they haunted. The dismantled castle of the Espiritu Santo marked the bar of the river in the line of rocks which require skilful pilotage to pass, and beyond, the port of San Lucar de Barra- meda at the entrance of the Guadalquivir into the ocean. This haven is ever famous in the history of Spain as the place of embarkation of Columbus on his third voyage on May 30, 1498, whither he returned in 1504. Fifteen years later, in September, 1519, Magellan, dissatisfied with the conditions im posed by his own sovereign, the King of Portugal, and having been favourably received by the Emperor Charles V., departed hence with five ships, and thir teen months afterward traversed the straits bear ing his name at the southern extremity of the American continent, only to die in the Philippine Islands, and that single vessel, " La Noa Vittoria " to return to San Lucar, commanded by Sebastian del Cano, having circumnavigated the globe. Fur ther along the coast the women of Cadiz gazed westward from their balconies, type of their city, which has been compared with a ship of stone, anchored in the ocean, the store-house of all trade with the new world until such time as commerce should ebb away to Malaga. In the fifteenth cen tury, as in the nineteenth, the Bay of Cadiz was environed by such renowned sites as Puerto Real, connected by a road through pine-trees with Puerto 156 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Santa Maria, the harbour mentioned by Ptolemy, taken from the Arabs by Alfonso the Wise, and later given to the Genoese admiral, Benedetto Zach- arias by Don Sancho IV. in 1284, in return for placing an armed galley at his disposal, and again accorded, in 1306, as a dowry to Leonora Perez de Guzman, when she married Louis de la Cerda, Duke of Medina Coeli. Vespucci may have been saluted by the terrible levante of the ocean, blowing clouds of dust inland, at Puerto Santa Maria, now a summer resort, with a theatre, an arena for bull fighting, and a parish church adorned with jasper and rich marbles. For the rest, he found a sparse population of fishermen scattered around the bay, and the remains of early towns founded by the Phoenicians, visited by the Greeks and Romans, seized by the Moors, wrested from the latter by the Spaniards from time to time, as well as subsequently stormed by English and French armies. Thence hedges of aloes and the figs of Barbary stretch in the direction of the vineyards of Jerez ; and the children of Chiclana, the country of the bravest toreadores of Andalusia, are reared to manage, taunt, and elude cattle. The laughter and song of a South ern race echoes from every garden nook, as when the poet Cadalso tuned his lyre thus: " We furnish for national defence our horses of Betis, the iron of Cantabria, and the old blood of the Goths, at the command of the king. Cadiz has, to rejoice her, deli cate fresh fish from the shores of two seas, and the THE FIEST VOYAGE. 157 treasures poured by Bacchus on Jerez, Malaga, Peraltra, Tudela, and La Marca. Come, joyously, shepherds and shepherdesses! Tune your bagpipes, guitars, tambou rines, castanets, and Basque drums ! Youths and maidens, mingle the wine, bring forth the hams of Galicia, the sausages of Biscay, and the fruits of Seville and Aragon ! " Amerigo Vespucci, journeying down the Guadal quivir to the sea, may be accepted as one of the elements in the vast movement of the migration of races, driven forth by the famine of a pinching drought, or the floods induced by too abundant rains, as well as the steady pressure of increasing popula tions. Dim traditions of the Celts forcing the Ibe rians to yield them Gaul, of the Slavs and Letts emerging from the southeast to settle on the banks of the Oder and the Vistula; the advent of the Etruscans in Central Italy, as of the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles to Britain, the Phrygians and Armenians crossing the Bosphorus, and the Bulgarians impelled toward the shores of the Danube by the inhospita ble cold of the middle Volga, found another thread in this launching forth on the Atlantic Ocean from Spain in search of distant shores. Vespucci could not have grasped the magnitude of his mission, any more than did Columbus. The timid and disaffected crews of the voyage of the Santa Maria, Nina, and Pinta, pressed into the service of a visionary for eigner by orders of the Crown, were already suc ceeded by the eager adventurers flocking to the different ports to enlist in search of fortune. 158 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. The tide of emigration began to flow toward America with those first cockle-shell craft, the Spaniards to South America, and the British to North America and Australia, as instinctively as the Scandinavians to the States of Wisconsin and Minnesota, or the Icelanders to Manitoba. To the day of Vespucci belonged the cavaliers, the brilliant gentlefolk, ready to pawn their estates for armour and other military appointments, pent up in inactivity by the close of the Moorish conquest, while the campaign of Sicily and Naples had not yet tempted them to again unsheathe their swords, and win fresh laurels of glory under the great captain Gonsalvo. The romance of the European exodus, the knights of the Ponce de Leon fibre, dreaming of the fountain of youth, or the soldiers of the type of Cortez and Pizarro, hastening to the standard of conquest, has faded, become sadly tarnished, as the stream has gathered strength and volume in the prosaic hordes of the sons of labour, uniform in tint, carried with mechanical punctuality, of the steamers plying from the ports of Great Britain, France, and Germany to New York, or from the Mediterranean to Buenos Ayres and Brazil. Could we turn back a page of history, and note the equipping of Vespucci's ships, we should be deeply interested spectators. All those tiny vessels must be esteemed by an American with reverence for the mighty task they accomplished. We place them, poised on the rude waves, between those THE FIRST VOYAGE. 159 first conveyances constructed by man, the raft of sticks loosely bound together, or the trunk of a tree hollowed out with the aid of fire into a boat, as natural development of his instinct to follow the course of the waters in trade and fisheries, and the stately ship full-rigged, the swift American clipper of the Chinese tea traffic of a past generation, and the iron steamship of Liverpool and Havre, or the latest corvette of war built at Spezia. The Mediter ranean galleys, furnished with slender masts, and long, tapering yards hanging obliquely from them, low hull, triangular sails, pointed head, and stern narrowed to a mere span's breadth, with a single tier of oars, were well adapted for inland waters. In 1411 the Portuguese had made progress in ship building by constructing larger craft, rising higher out of the water than the galley, and chiefly pro pelled by the wind, with three or four masts, and square sails, the shrouds brought down to the sides of the vessel, thus giving stability. The mainmast had a top capable of holding two men, a bowsprit was added, a deck was laid, which enabled the ship wright to stow away more conveniently the cargo and provisions, and make accommodation for the crew. The caravel acquires a precedence of fame because preferred by Columbus as best adapted to the explo ration of shallow inlets and tortuous channels of the shores of Asia. The caravel, usually undecked, or half-decked, was built up at the prow and the stern in castles, or cabins, and boasted a forecastle. 160 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. A sentiment of sympathy is induced by the recol lection of the struggles of these gallant little vessels to rivet the bonds binding the earth together, struggles almost human, in the effort to overcome baffling winds, and ride out the storms. To that fleet belong the caravel of fifty-two tons burthen, with a crew of thirty-three souls, fitted out by the Seville merchant, Luis Guerra, on condition that his brother, Christoval Guerra, should be given command ; the vessel of the younger Pinzon, wrecked in a hurricane, and the very timber dragged across the mountains of the Isthmus of Darien by the indomitable Vasco Nunez and his followers to build the first brigantine launched on the further Pacific shore, only to prove unfit for the purpose, as worm-eaten from growing too near the sea ; as well as the pathetic wreck of Columbus, beached on an inhospitable shore to await aid from the first colony, and the crippled flotilla of Magellan thread ing the straits. How were they provisioned, those ships of Palos and San Lucas, in comparison with the abundance of the present day ? When did an enlightened world begin to make hard biscuit for the sailors ? At what date did the Mediterranean crews, those men of copper and bronze, who have imbibed the sun of Africa from their boyhood, ac cording to Michelet, put the first kettle of maccaroni on the fire ? The voyagers of the time mention the indispensable water-casks, replenished at the islands of the Canaries, and at the springs of West Indian THE FIRST VOYAGE. 161 shores, where the Indians pointed their arrows at the harassed mariners from the shadow of palm- trees. Also wine, oil, vinegar, and pulse are enu merated at one time ; bacon, cheese, and biscuit on another occasion; while of the fare of Magellan's seamen, Shakespeare leaves no doubt in the quaint description : "And having in this time consumed all their biscuit and other victuals, they fell into such necessity that they were forced to eat the powder thereof. . . . Their fresh water was also putrefied, and become yellow. They did eat skins and pieces of leather, which were folded about certain great ropes of the ships." More picturesque, if scarcely less terrible, was the hunger that frequently overtook the early naviga tors on reaching America, where an adequate supply of cassava bread for the ships was not always ob tainable, and bands wandered in the forest to gather fruit and roots, much as Stanley's camp has recently survived in Africa. When the vessels sought a port for water, they laid in a store of wood, in addition, from which we must infer that our cavaliers of the fifteenth century added a cook and his galley to the pilot, astronomer, carpenter, and physician of the equipment. The surprising feature of these preparations for long voyages of doubtful issue is the live stock. How did Columbus stow away the calves, goats, sheep, eight hogs, and fowls, taken to Hispaniola on his second voyage ? How did Amerigo Vespucci n 162 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. and Ojeda transport the Spanish horses, fed on barley like the steeds of the Arabs and Komans, destined to overawe the Indians ? Sufficient space there must have been for the hoard of mirrors, combs, hawk's bells, and other trinkets used in barter with the savages for their gold-dust and pearls, while sea-chests and other articles of furni ture must have contained clothing ; for a Moorish robe untouched since leaving Spain is mentioned in one of these records. With all possible respect for the lofty aim of Columbus, and unswerving pur pose in setting sail to discover a new world, we must not forget that neither the great navigator, his contemporaries, nor immediate successors, had a very clear comprehension of what they were doing. Would they have ventured forth so confi dently with horses, primitive artillery, and armour, had they fully realised the perils of wind and tempest ? Columbus had reasoned thus : Holding the princi ple as fundamental that the earth is a globe, he divided the circumference from east to west, accord ing to Ptolemy, into twenty-four hours of fifteen degrees each. Comparing the globe of Ptolemy with the earlier map of Martin of Tyre, he ima gined that fifteen hours had been known to the ancients as extending from the Straits of Gibraltar, or the Canary Isles, to the city of Thina? in Asia, the limit of the world. The Portuguese had advanced the western frontier by the discovery of the Azores, THE FIRST VOYAGE. 163 and the Cape Verde Islands one hour more. There remained eight hours, or one-third of the periphery of the earth unexplored. The eastern regions of Asia might fill up this space, and approach the western shores of Europe and Africa. Amerigo Vespucci sailed as pilot and cosmographer of the expedition "at the expense of the king," despatched on May 10, 1497, of which Vincente Tanez Pinzon was in command, and Solis second officer. The ocean awaited Vespucci, and we may reasonably infer that the element was more to him than to the French gourmet, as the domicile of the turbot, cod, and sardine, and the nursery of the oyster. He was the pilot, and therefore always alert with eye and hand, whether afloat or ashore, to observe the clearness of the atmosphere and the formation of fogs alike, the luminous phenomena of mirage, rainbow, solar and lunar halos, reflections and refractions innumerable. Lieutenant Maury had not been born to determine the direction of currents and of prevailing winds, according to the seasons, and define the laws of harmony in air and water, the elements distributing heat, dryness, and humidity through the world, created by superabundance of rain on the surface of the sea, the melting of ice, and the conflict of electrical tides. The Atlantic was a great school master to America's godfather, because of his own intelligence and previous education, rather than the capricious siren of the poet's fancy, moved to caress, 164 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. frown, and destroy a victim in all the varying moods of calm and storm. By day his eye was charmed by the variety of colour, the limpid transparency of waters suggestive of coral reef and sand, the yellow and turbid tide denoting the channel of great rivers, the fitful changes wrought by gales in the pallid hues of polar ice, or the sunset fires resembling the rosy clouds of the vicinity of the equator, and the red wavelets of the Gulf of Arabia. By night his spirit was awed by the study of the stars, which moved the Portuguese and Spanish sailors to a super stitious reverence of the Creator of the firmament, the gleam of the crescent moon touching faintly the heaving billows of wide, trackless wastes, and the palpable darkness of midnight, when a waterspout may be advancing in the path of a vessel, unseen and with a ghostly swiftness of motion. For him was performed that witches' dance of the phosphor escent life of the surface as the twilight deepened, pyrosoma, salpa, medusa, gleaming through the waves in serpentine mazes of light, soft white, sulphurous yellow, opalescent, in fiery disks and balls of green and blue. The winds waited for him, like hounds held in leash, the mistral and sirocco of the Mediterranean, succeeded by the hurricane of the Antilles, the pampero of the shores of La Plata, while the typhoon slumbered in more dis tant Indian and Chinese seas, and the tornado lurked near the coasts of Guinea and Senegal. Further on his course the Gulf Stream, as king of THE FIRST VOYAGE. 165 storms, fulfilled its mighty mission of sweeping tropical waters to boreal regions, bearing the seeds and wood of the Antilles to Norway, Ireland, or the Canaries, by means of a rotation of currents on the coasts of Veragua and Honduras, and the return toward the Gulf of Mexico, between Cape San Antonio and Cape Catoche. The atmosphere and the water environed him, and the birds piped their harsh note of greeting. Did the frigate bird, soar ing on wide-spread pinions above the fretting storm- clouds of intertropical regions, discern the little craft bearing Amerigo Vespucci to another hemisphere, with the keen eye capable of seeing the flying-fish at a giddy height ? If so, it is probable that the momentous voyage was viewed with the sublime ornithological indifference to the affairs of men of which the bird alone is capable in the scale of crea tion ; and the interest of this monarch of the air turned far more readily to certain rocky islets of Brazil, Timor, and the Moluccas, where a nest could be made in the month of May of small branches and twigs, cut a suitable length by means of the long, keen beak, firmly interlaced, and suspended on a tree inclining toward the water, wherein lay two or three eggs. The petrel surely haunted his course, skimming the curling spray of the waves for marine tid-bits, and justifying the French name of Petit Pierre, in traditional emulation of St. Peter's miracle of walking on the sea. Of all the feathered tribe the petrel most reminds 166 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. us of the modern woman, unwearied in flight, dip ping into every ripple, whether social, religious, philosophical, or scientific, snatching a moment of repose with head tucked under the wing occasion ally, and seldom at home. When the petrel fulfils her destiny, and retires to a cleft in the rock to deposit one large white egg, and subsequently feed her nestling with the secretion of oil in the stomach which renders the species so valuable to the poor inhabitants of Austral lands, to convert into candles, or thrust a stick through the body and burn as a torch in the Faroe Islands, her curious, brooding note may be a protest against irksome domestic duties in the longing to keep committee appoint ments with the gathering tempests of mid-ocean, and whirl about, a mere handful of little feathers, in the eddies of some novel theory of existence. Those vagabonds of the sea, the gulls, circled about Vespucci, greedily intent on obtaining food, cowards alert to profit by any opportunity, and resembling in characteristics only too much the crew of adventurers gathered on board the ships. Below were those dim water spaces, full of myste rious shadow, where the madrepores were silently at work aiding in building up the world ; the algae, gorgonia, and sponges formed submarine forests of interwoven fronds, fit abode for rainbow-tinted fish ; and fragile molluscs, with shells like glass, or trans parent bodies, were ready to teach Vespucci all phases of sea manoauvres, from the casting anchor di San Martina. THE FIRST VOYAGE. 167 by means of silken threads (the byssus) attached to the fringes of the mantle, or of progression with the use of bladder-sail, oar-legs, and rudder-tail. Each form of life had its message, could the serpen- .tine eel tribe, gliding among rocky ledges, the flat disks of the flounder family, lurking burrowing in sand at the bottom, and the alert hosts of mackerel, cod, and herring, journeying in multitudes through the waves, but be clearly discerned. It may be that Vespucci tasted the flesh of the dolphin, digestible or otherwise, on this first voyage, and decided on the delicacy of the porpoise's liver, even compound ing the sauce of bread-crumbs, sugar, and vinegar, with which the gigantic fish is reputed to have been a favourite dish with the English nobility, in the chronicles of London, as late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The iron steamer ploughing through the waves with mechanical regularity has destroyed marine romance. In the infancy of voyaging, when Ves pucci ventured forth from port, imagination peopled the unknown deep with childish terrors, such as the monsters depicted on old maps, the kraken, of which Pliny and Aristotle related marvels as checking the progress of ships in spite of sails and oars, and the naturalists of the Eenaissance, Olaiis Magnus and Denis de Montfort, fostered a popular credence of probability, and all the ogres of the cephalopod race, the sepias and calmars that embrace vessels with gigantic tentacles, and drag them down to 168 dark subterranean abysses. As the scholar of his ship the thoughts of Amerigo Vespucci would have dwelt in the reveries of the evening hour on the earlier classical shapes haunting the azure belt of the earth, the ocean. How readily the hoary heads of Neptune and Nereus, crowned with tangled sea weeds, and the lovely forms of the Oceanides would be evolved, rising in the midst of every shoal of dolphins sporting off the coast of Portugal. Before him floated such fairy craft as the argonautos* renowned among the Greeks and Eomans and de scribed by Oppian in a poem on fishing : " Hiding itself in a concave shell the pompilus can walk on land, but can also rise to the surface of the water, the back of its shell upward for fear that it should be filled. The moment it is seen it turns the shell, and navigates it like a skilful seaman. In order to do this it throws out two of its feet, like antennas, between which is a thin membrane which is extended by the wind as a sail, while two others touching the water guide as with a rudder the house, the ship, and the animal. If danger approaches it folds up its antennae, sail, and rudder, and dives, its weight being increased by the water which it causes to enter the shell. As we see a man who is victor in the public games, his head circled by a crown, while vast crowds press around, so the pompilus has always a crowd of ships following in its track, the crews of which no longer dread to quit the land. fish, justly dear to navigators, thy presence announces winds soft and friendly : thou bringest the calm, and thou art the sign of it ! " THE FIRST VOYAGE. 169 The mediaeval, superstitious phase of the romance of the sea, in the fullest sense, played about the craft of America's godfather, like the golden reflec tions of sunset tingeing the waves. The sailors prayed to St. .Nicholas to calm rough weather, re joiced to behold the good omen of St. Elmo's fire dimly burning in meteoric exhalations at the yard- arm, and dreaded the spells of misty northern shores where Finus sold gales of wind tied up in bags. The compass and the weather-vane guided them. Vespucci was at liberty to estimate the marvellous nautical instrument from which Colurn- bus had just wrested a great secret in the deflection of the magnetic needle on the high seas, as a magician holds a wand, as claimed by the Swedes, invented in remote antiquity by the Chinese, and brought to Europe by Marco Polo, used by the Arabs in India/while the Carthaginians, Romans, and Greeks had acquired knowledge of it from the Tyrians and Phoenicians. The mariners might still gossip over such curious legends as the appeal of the Archbishop of Bordeaux to King Louis to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the Turk. Said the Archbishop : " Sire-le-Roi, you in your Louvre at Paris, clad in rich clothes and with a gold crown on your head, listen to music of violins and hautboys, drink fine wines, attend balls and parades, and play games night and day, while in the country you hunt deer, boars, and partridges ; you know not what passes on the other shore of the sea of Jerusalem, or you would leave your rich garments and 170 crown for a helmet and a cuirass. You would then have a taste for no other music than that of trumpets, drums, and cannon, and in place of hare would hunt Turkish renegades." He further describes how a certain Mahomet, escaped from the galleys at Marseilles, is aided by the devil in working mischief, pretending to be an angel, a prophet, even a Messiah. The tender con science of St. Louis was not proof against such reproaches. He clapped his helmet on his head, ordered out his war-horse, and took ship without delay, making the archbishop admiral, but adding Jean d'Auray, a devout old Breton pilot, who knew all countries north and south, as far as the land of the Turk, to the crew. The king and his soldiers thus embarked ; but the devil also came on board, now pushing the fleet ashore by means of contrary winds, and again raising a fog more dense than the fumes of tar, so that Jean d'Auray, discerning neither the east from the west, implored the Madonna to show her star. Lo ! a fine ship, with three masts, appeared in the sky, more brilliant than the moon. The hull was of gold and pure silver, the banner of St. Anne d'Auray floated from the mainmast, and the mainsail was the mantle of St. Martin, while the Virgin, seated on the poop, clasped the infant Christ, who held the ball of the world. A celestial voice commanded : " Good pilot, take my star. It will also guide you on the sea." Jean d'Auray held in his hand a star of thirty-two THE FIRST VOYAGE. 171 points, with the fleur-de-lys north, a cross east, and west an eagle with two heads. This was nothing less than the ancient rose des vents of early books of hydrography, with the centre of the circle divided into three hundred and sixty degrees, and thirty-two points of the compass, the design of a shrine, with the Madonna enthroned, and each rnast with the French flag, with the fleur-de-lys, a star, and the motto, " Our guide at sea, and to the sky." The crab taken alive by Columbus from the tangled wealth of seaweed belongs to history. No doubt alert and curious fellow-crabs eyed Vespucci as he passed their floating islands, tiny warriors clad in armour every whit as redoubtable as the mail and cuirass of those mediaeval knights on board, from the standpoint of a crustacean. The sea signified to Vespucci the route of the merchant and the speculator, the arena of redoubt able quarrels, ancient and modern, and a series of discoveries and conquests begun by the semi-fabu lous Argonauts, reaching to Saracenic incursions, Norman invasions, the Armada, and far beyond his day to contests around the Poles. In the year 1494 Spain had granted freedom of navigation and com merce of the Indies, a permission which infringed on the rights of Columbus, and was not revoked until June, 1497, when Vespucci had already sailed. Gomara, the historian, affirmed that many navigators availed themselves of the opportunity to pursue the 172 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. discoveries, some at their own expense, and others at the cost of the king, while all dreamed of enriching themselves, acquiring renown, or winning the esteem of the sovereigns ; but the majority of them made no discoveries, and only ruined them selves. " There remains no record of all" Varnhagen states : " The fact is that putting aside the errors of Herrera, and the unjustifiable suppositions of Humboldt, the simple reading of the account of Vespucci made to Sode- rini, on his first voyage, leaves the mind convinced of his veracity, because he speaks to us of a laud that exists as he described it, and which he must have visited himself, unless one accredits him with the gift of divination, be cause at the date when he wrote, in 1504, no description had been given of those regions. Vespucci says : * Having left Cadiz on the 10th of May, 1497, and having sailed one thousand leagues west-southwest, the fleet arrived after thirty-seven days, consequently the 17th of June (several days before the landing of Cabot), in sight of land, in latitude 16 north, and longitude 75 to the west of the Canaries.' " The map shows us this shore on the Gulf of Hon duras, with a slight difference in the longitude, which must have been a little less ; but this slight difference need occasion no surprise when one recalls the imperfection of instruments, and when it concerns a first voyage on the seas where there are currents of which the influence has not been foreseen. The next day, and for two days after, Vespucci followed the coast in sight of land, toward the northwest. This is the direction of Yucatan. He con- THE FIRST VOYAGE. 173 tinned this course for several days, often disembarking, and holding intercourse with the inhabitants. The points of the compass are not indicated in the recital, but there can be no doubt that he circumnavigated Yucatan. He reached a port in the midst of which he saw a collection of forty-four houses built on the water, like Venice, and with drawbridges which they raise to defend themselves. This port was situated twenty-four leagues to the south of another visited by him later, in latitude, north, of 23, and which cannot have been other than Vera Cruz, or even the Isla de los Sacrificios, and that of Ulua with houses. Pursuing his way toward the north, he gained a port nearly under the tropic of Cancer, abounding in fish, of which they made bread. The coun try was watered by rivers, and birds appeared in great numbers. The natives spoke a different language from that of the port he had quitted at twenty-four leagues to the south. In all probability he found himself near Tampico or Panuco. The region is well watered, and abounds in birds. A short distance south is the frontier of the Totonac Indians, who dwell on the coast of Vera Cruz. On another side, at Tampico and at Panuco, the Indians were essentially different from their neighbours of the south, the Totonacs. They belonged to the race Maya, who had invaded Cuba and Jamaica. The descrip tion given by Vespucci, in 1504, on the morals and cus toms of these aborigines coincides with that of other voyagers who later visited this portion of the coast of North America. Up to this point we can perceive no possibility of revoking the details given by the Florentine navigator on his first voyage, after the simple reading of the letter to Soderini, in the original text, and without the aid of 174 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. proofs from any other source. We cannot say as much for the following lines. Vespucci, probably wishing to abridge too much, becomes incomplete and obscure. Here are his words : " ' We left this port (situated at 23 of north latitude), and we sailed along the coast in sight of land, for a dis tance of 870 leagues still toward the northwest, landing often, and communicating with the inhabitants. In sev eral places we bought gold, but in small quantities. . . . Finally, after thirteen months of voyaging, seeing our vessels and their apparel in a bad state, and our sailors very much fatigued, we resolved in council to put our ships to dry, to inspect them (because they took in much water), and to calk and tar them anew, in order to be able to return to Spain. When we made this resolution we were near a port, the best in the world, into which we entered with our vessels, and where we found natives who received us with much good-will. We made on the shore a fort with boats and casks, and placed cannon where they played on all sides. We gathered also all that we had removed from our ships on the strand, to make repairs with the aid of the Indians, who furnished us with provisions in such abundance that in this place we scarcely used our own ; which we found very convenient, as we had but scanty supplies for our return. We re mained here for thirty-seven days. When we wished to pursue our voyage the Indians complained of fearing a ferocious and hostile nation, who, at certain seasons of the year, came by sea to their land, entering by treason or force, and killing many of the inhabitants, whom they ate immediately, while others were taken captive without power of resistance. We were given to understand that THE FIRST VOYAGE. 175 these enemies dwelt on an island one hundred leagues distant. They related all this to us with so many proofs of attachment that we were moved, and we promised to avenge them of their wrongs, which caused them great joy. They offered to join us, which we did not accept for various reasons; however, we took seven of the tribe, on condition that they came alone in their canoes, to which they consented without difficulty ; then we bade farewell to all, esteeming them as friends. Recovered from our hardships, and our damages repaired, we sailed seven days towards the east- northeast, until we found ourselves opposite many islands, some of which were inhabited, and others deserted. We approached one of these, where we cast anchor ; we saw on the beach a great number of natives, who called the island Ity. Seeing these things we placed on board of our sloops chosen men, with three cannon, and approaching the land little by little, we could discern on the shore at least four hundred men, with many women. They were naked, seemed agile, were warriors and courageous, because they were armed with bows and arrows, and lances ; many carried square shields to defend themselves without the trouble of shoot ing their arrows. We drew near to the land in our little boats, and were at a short distance when they sprang into the sea, and hurled a great quantity of arrows at us, to prevent our disembarkation. All had their bodies painted of divers colours, and were ornamented with bird-feathers. Those accompanying us warned us that when they re quired to defend themselves they decked the bodies in this manner, as a proof of their being ready for combat. In fact, they prevented us from landing in such a manner that we were obliged to fire our cannon on them; and 176 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. scarcely had they heard the sound and perceived the effects, in observing several of their number fall dead, than they retreated to land. Then we agreed to send in pur suit forty-two of our men to fight them ; and having landed with our arms, the resistance they made was such that for nearly an hour we struggled with them, without obtaining any success, if it was not killing several, but they parried the blows of our lances and swords with much address. At length we made a charge with such impetuosity that they fled to their forests, and left us masters of the field, with many among them killed and wounded. That day we did not pursue them further because we were weary; we returned to our ships, and such was the joy of the seven Indians who has accom panied us that they did not know how to manifest their satisfaction. The next day we noticed that many of the inhabitants approached the beach all painted and adorned with the plumage of birds, playing on trumpets, and other instruments of war of which they made use. This was for us an admirable spectacle. Perceiving that they were prepared to treat us with hostility, we resolved to attempt to make of them friends, and, in a contrary sense, to treat them as enemies, and consider as slaves all those we could seize as prisoners. This resolution taken, we armed our selves the best possible, and steered for the shore. Fear ing our artillery, as it appeared, they did not attempt to prevent our landing. Arrived on shore we divided our forces into four companies, of fifty-seven men each, with a captain, and we fought a long time, body to body, until so many of them were killed that they had to take to flight. We pursued them to one of their villages, and made twenty-five prisoners. After setting fire to the village THE FIRST VOYAGE. 177 we withdrew to our vessels, taking with us the twenty- five prisoners, and leaving a considerable number dead and wounded, without other loss on our side than one killed, and twenty-two wounded ; all these, thanks be to God, were cured. Having decided on our return, the seven Indians who had guided us, among whom five had been wounded in the combat, returned to their own country well satisfied, and full of admiration of our prowess. We gave them a canoe which we had taken in the isles, with seven of the prisoners, of whom three were men, and four women. Continuing our route to Spain, we re-entered the port of Cadiz, with two hundred and twenty-two captives, on the 15th of October, 1499. We were received with much joy, and sold our captives.' " The objection to the large number of prisoners given, and the probability that the figures " 22 " were actually meant, is urged on the score of the illegibility of the writing. The veracity of this first voyage has been seriously doubted on the score of Vespucci making no mention of the place where he traversed the line of the Antilles. Varnhagen's argument of defence is interesting : " From our own experience, sailing-vessels and steamers may pass through one of these channels between the islands without sighting land, either on one side or the other (especially between San Domingo and Martinique, and also north of Guadeloupe), either because passed in the night, or at a distance, and finally, because of the fogs which gather over these islands so frequently from the ocean, and sometimes envelop them. It is not impossible that the fleet on board of which was Vespucci, and which 12 178 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. saw Honduras at 16, passed between these isles, situated nearly in the same latitude." The letter written by Geronimo Vianello, from Spain to the Signory of Venice, of the date 1506, found by Eanke, and given to Humboldt in 1839, is additionally conclusive of the claims of America's godfather to respectful consideration : " Two ships, which went to make discoveries in India, belonging to the King, my Seigneur, have returned. They have in command Jean Biscayen and Amerigo, Florentine, who have sailed west-southwest two hundred leagues be yond the Isle of Spain, which is two thousand leagues from the Columns of Hercules. And they have discovered a continent (according to their judgment), because they followed the coast for six hundred leagues, and came to a great river forty leagues from its mouth. They ascended this river for a distance of one hundred and fifty leagues, and they observed that it contained numerous small islands, inhabited by Indians entirely naked, who sub sisted on fish. Then they skirted the coast of this land for a distance of six hundred leagues, and they met an Indian canoe resembling a kneading-trough, cut in a piece of wood. The archbishop will send again these two cap tains, with eight ships, and four hundred men, well armed with artillery." Varnhagen adds : " We know that the pilot Juan Biscayan (Juan de la Cosa) was with the Florentine on his second voyage, which he made with Ojeda ; but nothing hinders that the same Cosa should also have accompanied Vespucci on his THE FIRST VOYAGE. 179 first voyage. On the contrary, it is proved that in 1497 and 1498 Cosa was not elsewhere employed, and it is impossible to adapt the description of Vianello to the voyage made with Ojeda in 1499 and 1500; as on this voyage, although they passed three great rivers, the Maraguan, the Amazon, and the Orinoco, it is known that they did not ascend either stream. Let us note well, Vianello states land was found at two hundred leagues from the Isle of Spain. Now two hundred leagues is the distance from Hayti to Honduras. He says, also, that the fleet followed the coast for six hundred leagues, as far as the mouth of a great river. Six hundred leagues is ahout the distance, by the coast, from Cape Higueras to the mouths of the Mississippi." Such is the outline of the famous first voyage of Amerigo Vespucci. The feathered chorus of little greenish birds, since made prisoners in cages all over the world, sang their greeting to Vespucci, as he skirted the Canary Islands. The cliffs, rising above the sea, half concealed by the mists of early morning, yet revealed the rocks whence the early inhabitants flung themselves as a human sacrifice in honour of a chief. In less exalted mood they dwelt here peacefully, subsisting on fruit, barley, and milk, painting their bodies yellow, red, and green, with the juices of herbs, casting stones with unerring accuracy of aim, and climbing the heights with the agility of goats. Vespucci need not have been a mere dreamer if his imagination was bewitched by 180 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. visions formed of cloud, fleeting fog-masses, and peaks defined on the sky of the fabulous Fortunate Isles of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, as luring bold mariners to further research across the seas. Honduras and the peninsula of Yucatan, given the name of New Spain until the date of 1815, awaited Vespucci, the vast plain of the interior, traversed by a low chain of hills from the northwest to the southeast, a nearly waterless region of cactus and red-pine ; the most fertile portion lying in the direction of the Bay of Ascension and of the Holy Spirit, where the trees of Campeachy, in the pro vince of Merida, were destined to acquire such value in commerce. The worthy iguana waited for Vespucci to describe him, with that aptitude of close observation of plant, bird, and animal, which characterised Columbus and the godfather of Amer ica alike. The harmless herbivorous lizard, a fearsome creature, half-serpent and half-dragon to these early sailors, with pouch under the chin, crenelated crest along the spine, the back of a dark- green hue, merging to silver and yellow tints on the scaly body, was already roasting over aboriginal fires, turned on a wooden spit. The manatee of the bays and lagoons of the low shores browsed on the grass and weeds of fresh-water districts, in happy ignorance that another race was approaching its haunts, even more voracious than the natives who harpooned it, and cut the flesh into strips to dry, threatening extinction of species. THE FIRST VOYAGE. 181 The cachalot disported in the vicinity untroubled by the fact that the precious deposit of spermaceti in its own head would compete with the wax of the hives of stingless bees in the valleys of neigh bouring Yucatan to manufacture candles for the religious .ceremonials of Koman Catholic communi ties in the future, and the dread of the British whaler's speedily hunting it away to the South Seas. As for the scissor-bill over on the strand of the Antilles, it trotted, wearing white plumage and a black mantle, in search of food, opening and pick ing up crabs with an epicurean relish entirely unim paired by any doubt whether or not Amerigo Ves pucci would discern land in that quarter, and thus add another knotty problem to history. The alli gator folk, lying as inert as logs in marshy spots, yawned, and prepared to fish for their supper with equal unconcern as to the movements of the great Florentine navigator. Vespucci commended the lit tle cakes or bread, made of pounded fishes by the Huastecas, so we may reasonably suppose that the eager mariners of those first cockle-shell vessels ate steaks of green turtle as well, plantains buried in leaves until decomposed, and cooked after the manner of sauer-Jcraut, oysters gathered from the branches of mangroves on the San Rio, pine-apples, allicavo pears, limes, papahs, cashews, and guavas. The Indian afloat in his dory, cut out of a single log of mahogany or of cedar, surely speared the stone-bass, mullet, mackerel, baracouta, and angel- 182 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. fish for the delectation of the white stranger. Long sustained only by the water of the casks, the wine and vinegar of shipboard, Vespucci must have been refreshed by those beverages drawn from the juices of plants in arid countries, the mushla, the plato- lire pressed from ripe plantains, another drink from the pine-apple named peto-lire, that of the sugar cane caryu-lire, the chiclia, derived from maize, and the famous pulque of the agave. Mexico awaited Vespucci, with all the surface record of her ancient civilisation outspread in her ports and cities, and her riches unrealised, even in passing, her soil veined with mines of mercury and cinnabar, sulphur, carbonate and chromate of lead, fluor-spar, opals, green garnets, and chrysophase. The Mississippi sent a distant welcome to the timid explorers of the Gulf of Mexico, who were aware oh, how dimly ! that before them stretched the alluvial deposit of the vast basin, and the delta of a mighty river. Beyond was Florida, with many a shallow lake, and a margin of coast skirted by islands formed by the action of the waves, and the mouths of streams usually obstructed by sand-bars. A land of magic, Florida, at that first glance of Vespucci, from the silvery sands of the southern and western shores, the low reaches of cabbage-palm and mangrove, cypress swamp, and hummock, with all the dense growth of live-oak, magnolia, bay, or cedar, and undergrowth of sumac, azalea, lobelia, and cassia, to THE FIRST VOYAGE. 183 the upper pine lands. Florida is the realm of charming possibilities, a sort of enchanted garden in our day. Where the valiant knight Ponce de Leon sought the Fountain of Youth modern invalids would fain drink of some spring of renewed health, and the fortune-hunter strives to cull wealth in the golden fruit of Hesperides rather than by delving for buried mineral ore. Little cared the herons, pelicans, white egrets, ducks, and turkey buzzards, the puma, bear, gray wolf, and ocelot, gliding in the shadow of the woods, for the approach of a Euro pean sail. Bermuda awaited Vespucci, a low cluster of islets on the bosom of the ocean, fragrant with cedar- trees, coral reefs stretching far beneath the pellu cid waves, ready to wound adventurous craft with their jagged fangs should the voyager escape the arrows of the then fierce inhabitants. Each crystal- clear pool and inlet was a tiny world of marine life, unstirred by the conflict of invasion, silky ten tacles of algae, rose-tinted and yellow, purple sea- fans, and tawny sponges expanding unharmed in transparent depths, while myriad-hued fish, sea- urchins, and mollusks pursued their own business. Thus the arena of a new world was outspread before Vespucci, as one of the precursors of the great drama of conquest, rivalry, and colonisation about to be here enacted by the struggling races of mankind. Guyot, the physical geographist, states : 184 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. " As the plant for the animal, so America is made for the man of the old world. The two worlds look at each other face to face, and incline toward one another. The old bends toward the new, and America looks to the old." CHAPTER X. THE SECOND VOYAGE. AMERIGO VESPUCCI returned to Spain. The Gi- ralda was again visible as a graceful tower on the horizon, and no doubt he sought a shrine of Our Lady, in which to offer thanks for a safe transit to Spain, after the fashion of the French and the Mediterranean sailors. The Cathedral walls had not yet risen from the foundations above the height of a man. If the town made an ovation, the case ments and balconies of the houses being adorned with hangings, and an enthusiastic populace gathered in the streets, and even on the roofs, to witness the arrival of the Florentine, as on the previous occa sion of the advent of Columbus when en route for Barcelona, no record of the fact has been found. Silence proves nothing, as may often be noted in the career of Vespucci. The reticence of history of that period of discovery affords one of the most curious phases of rival claims and national jealousy in the range of study. It would seem far more probable that the return of Amerigo Vespucci was unnoticed, and any warm welcome bestowed on his companions of ship-board by family and friends 186 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. would scarcely have fallen to his portion as well. He was a foreigner, and must have been a lonely and self-reliant character. He was not married at this date. Neglect as to any public praise of this first voyage need not have aroused especial sentiments of wrong and grief in the heart of Vespucci. His explora tions had met with no brilliant success. He had not sailed into a Spanish port with vessel freighted with pearls, gems, and gold, like some Argosy from the Orient, to excite the wonder and envy of all spectators. The much-disputed first voyage seems to have been of a private, not to say clandestine, nature, and undertaken in the service of King Fer dinand as a venture which must not interfere with the patents already granted to Columbus. In addi tion, the suspicions and animosity of Portugal were always to be considered and allayed. The harvest of the voyage was meagre. King Ferdinand must have frowned and pursed up his lips as he counted the cost of the expedition fitted out by himself. Prescott states : " Probably there has been no period in which the princes of Europe felt so sensi bly their penury as at the end of the fifteenth century." The astute sovereign of Aragon was especially hampered by the financial embarrassments incident to military campaigns. Vespucci did not stand on a promontory and behold America out spread before his gaze, like Balboa surveying the wide expanse of the Pacific Ocean from the moun- Portrait of Ferdinand of Aragon. THE SECOND VOYAGE. 187 tain heights ; he lifted a corner of the vast opaque curtain of the unknown. Truth may be attained only after many stumbles on the rocks of error by the honest seeker, and there is no reason to believe, in our day, that he was not as honest a seeker as his fellows, and guided by the enlightenment of a far superior education and intelligence. In Seville the very air was growing electric with the new impulses quickening the minds of men. The first longing was a greed of gain, from monarch to humblest adventurer subject, the dream of wrest ing fabulous fortunes from untried shores. We do not read so much about the zeal of the crafty Ferdi nand to save the souls of the poor Indians already discovered on those distant isles, and gather them into the fold of the Roman Catholic Church, as to replenish his empty coffers. The generous soul of Queen Isabella was moved with feminine compas sion and piety in the scheme of converting heathen. At this date the first pearl, pure and lustrous, brought from America, may be accepted as having bewitched the popular imagination, and the first specimens of gold have already expanded into the platter of virgin ore, weighing 3200 castellanos, on which Ovando, governor of Hispaniola, who suc ceeded Bobadilla in 1501, had roasted pig served. What did those first little caravels represent to Amerigo Vespucci, save the craft in which to fetch a rich cargo to his expectant patron, King Ferdi nand? The vessels were expected to be like the 188 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. nets lowered into the Nile, at night, to catch the cloves, cinnamon, and precious guins, shaken from the tree of Paradise, and otherwise scattered on the tide, according to the marvellous record of the Sieur de Joinville, in the "Journeys of St. Louis." The gifts of fortune anticipated by Spain were equally naive and ardent. It would seem more probable that the thoughts of Vespucci dwelt on many other elements of the voyage, which were perplexing, even baffling, to the understanding of the age still in the infancy of Western navigation. How early in his nautical experience he divined results as to the extent and magnitude of the lands visited by Colum bus and his followers, we are not made distinctly aware ; but he must have perceived, however dimly, that a wider field of enterprise was expanding before the race of Europeans in a new direction. One would like to turn back a leaf of the centu ries, and share the moods and schemes of Amerigo Vespucci at the time of his return to Seville after his first voyage. He was a human being of like needs and instincts with ourselves, his span divided into hours of activity and rest, hunger and fatigue. Did he disembark from the weather-beaten caravel which had borne him safe to port, and regain Se ville, weary and disgusted with a seafaring life, and determined to remain henceforth a landsman ? Did he, on the contrary, long to launch forth without loss of time on the waste of waters, and make fresh observations of the constellations, and test systems THE SECOND VOYAGE. 189 of measurement of longitude and latitude? Con sider the wakeful hours of night, when the call of the sereno echoed at intervals through the streets of the city, and the Florentine turned on his pillow, vexations, failure, injustice, and the coldness of dis appointment of King Ferdinand stinging pride and ambition sharply, and acquiring a dreary magnitude of importance unfelt when the sun shone. Consider the returned traveller losing himself in the tide of life of the market places of Seville by day, his ear wooed by countless bold projects gathered from the eager discussion of nimble tongues, where, later, the enthusiastic wish to emigrate is said to have threat ened to leave only a population of women. Vespucci decided to again go to sea. Bandini affirms that his spirit chafed at the delay of a long winter, impatient of the enforced inaction, and in spired with the requisite courage to risk fresh perils, until the month of May, 1499, arrived, and the date of sailing. A letter found in the Florentine ar chives applies to this period in his experience, as well as earlier. This missive is addressed to Soderini, and relates to the four voyages of the writer thus : "Your Magnificence knows that my motive in coming to this kingdom of Spain was to deal in mercantile affairs, and how I carried out this intention for four years, during which I saw the varied movements of Fortune in these transitory matters, and how at one moment she keeps a man at the summit of her wheel, and at another time throws him down, depriving him of possessions which one 190 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. might say were only loaned to him, seeing the continued effort man must make to conquer them. Submitting to so many trials and perils, I finally decided to quit the com mercial career, and engage in something more worthy, and free as I was this inclined me toward journeying to see a part of the world and its marvels." Vincente Yanez Pinzon, the younger brother of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, who sailed on the Pinta with Columbus, had been in command of the first expe dition shared by Vespucci, and Juan Diaz Solis was the second officer. Tempting inducements of a flat tering sort may have been extended to Vespucci to join another enterprise in the service of King Ferdi nand, and with equal probability he presented him self as a candidate for the post of pilot. Alonzo da Ojeda commanded the new fleet, and Juan de la Cosa was second in rank. We see Bishop Fonseca as the true motive power of this fresh project. No doubt he encouraged Vespucci to take a share in it. Juan Kodriguez de Fonseca was born at Toro about the year 1452 ; he became Bishop of Palencia and of Burgos, and a councillor of Queen Isabella. Pos terity estimates him as a bigoted Spanish prelate, the advocate of Torquemada, and the inveterate enemy of Columbus. After the lapse of years Bishop Fonseca appears as a very human shape indeed to our understanding. Columbus had offended him, and when the great navigator triumphed, dislike added spite and a desire to thwart and meddle on the part of a prejudiced priest. Perhaps Columbus, THE SECOND VOYAGE. 191 with good-natured sarcasm or serious purpose, proved to the queen that her spiritual adviser knew more about his breviary than the variations of the mag netic needle, and the geographical lore of the ancients ; and Fonseca, nettled, never forgave the affront. It is an unpardonable offence to the jealous, small souls about him for a great man to fathom the mysteries of nature, and succeed in utilising them for the good of his kind. Bishop Fonseca may have been thoroughly conscientious in his antagonism, and truly have estimated Columbus as a visionary stranger, more or less mad, disapproving wholly of the squandering of Queen Isabella's jewels on such rash enterprises as the fitting out of even three small vessels to sail away on unknown seas, and probably never return. Proved in the wrong, both in judgment and knowledge, the most natural action of the bishop was to take up another Italian sailor in Amerigo Vespucci, and maintain a promi nent position in the direction of Colonial affairs at home in Spain. To hamper, wound, and delay the progress of a more noble intelligence, such was the mission on earth of the Bishop Fonseca. His char acter does not shine, viewed in any light, unless on the side of good resulting from evil in the fact of his bestowing favour on Vespucci and his nephew, in contrast with his active hostility to Columbus. Every age has its chorus of doubters, of whom Juan Kodriguez de Fonseca is a fair type. " Impos sible ! " we protest. " Your scheme is impracticable ; 192 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. utterly futile ! Engineers, inventors, and philosophers have never attempted it ; or if they have done so, they have speedily abandoned the very idea as worse than useless. Why can you not be tranquil, and go on in the old way ? " Then the Juggernaut chariot of steam-power, electricity, mountain-piercing, and isthmus-channelling passes over and crushes us to silence, while future generations will smile at our own narrow-minded views of palpable truths. At the outset of this second voyage the Florentine was overshadowed by the brilliant Spanish cavalier, Ojeda. Born at Cuenca, and reared as a page of the Duke of Medina Coeli, Ojeda was the embodiment of the medieval knight, whether amusing Queen Isabella and the ladies of her court by his prowess in all games, and the performance of such acrobatic feats as climbing to the beam of a church belfry, singing the ballads of his native land, or practising the graceful exercises, with trained steeds, learned from the Arabs. He was small of stature, supple, agile, skilled in the manipulation of all weapons, valiant of spirit, headstrong in temperament, and ready for any career of glory or adventure which fate might have in store for him. His nature had been tempered by a certain amount of experience in Moorish warfare ; and he had shared the second voyage of Columbus in 1493, when he commanded an expedition sent to explore the interior of Hispan- iola, with such results as the capture of the chief Caonabo. THE SECOND VOYAGE. 193 Vespucci may have worn a talisman, a medallion, blessed by the Florentine bishop, St. Antonino, as Ojeda cherished the little picture of the Flemish Madonna, before which the soldier prayed devoutly, and ultimately enshrined in an oratory, built in an Indian village after rescue from danger. If the virtue of preservation from peril rests in blessed medals and precious relics sewed up in tiny parch ment rolls, inscribed with characters of mysterious import, and Vespucci believed in them, his amulet was more efficacious than that of Ojeda. Madama Lisabetta possibly tied some precious token of silver, bearing the image of St. John the Baptist, or the stamp of the Florentine lily, around the neck of her third son in childhood, in the Vespucci house on the Borgognissanti at Florence, enjoining him to always wear it. The later career of Ojeda fulfilled the promise of adolescence, in the bravery and recklessness with which he despoiled the natives of Cumana of their household utensils and hammocks in order to estab lish his colony of the province of Coquibacoa, quar relled with Diego Nicuesa over the settlement of San Domingo, suffered betrayal and imprisonment by the treachery of his own countrymen, while unscrupulously sowing the whirlwind for future colonists by fighting the Indians, and returning to Spain in poverty. Even the presence of the famous Biscayan sailor, Juan de la Cosa, as second officer, served to further obscure Amerigo Vespucci, 13 194 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. the foreigner, in the eyes of the Spaniards, on this occasion. Juan de la Cosa was a most valuable aid to Alonzo da Ojeda, whose knowledge of marine laws must have been very imperfect. Indeed, the experienced veteran, deemed a Nestor in all nautical affairs by his contemporaries, even if he did abandon the helm while Columbus slept, with notable results in the history of colonisation, filled the place of wise Jean d'Auray, the Breton pilot on that voyage of St. Louis to Palestine, when the archbishop of Bor deaux held the rank of admiral. The sailor, Juan de la Cosa, is still a warm and generous personality. He drew charts on parchment concerning navigation with much skill, so that it was boasted of him, to gether with Andreas Morales, another pilot, that they knew the tracks of the sea, in cosmography, as well as the chambers of their own houses. His vanity is reputed to have made him feel himself to be the equal of Columbus. Later, associated with Eodrigo de Bastides in another voyage, the sovereigns of Spain granted him an annual pension, drawn from the province of Uraba, discovered by the two, and when Ojeda became governor of New Andalusia, along the Isthmus of Darien through the Gulf of Urabia, extending to the Cape de la Vela, Cosa, as his lieutenant, was appointed alguazil, mayor of the colony. Thus the royal banners were hoisted on a new fleet of cockle-shell vessels, and Ojeda departed in search THE SECOND VOYAGE. 195 of the riches of the East. Doubtless the equipment was the same as that of Columbus, and did not lack a surgeon, a notary, an armourer, the carpenter, a calker, a cooper, with the addition of the horses destined to wear steel and intimidate the savages. How the colours of the picture charm the eye, still untarnished by the lapse of years, the royal standard fluttering in the breeze, the blue sea already tossing the fragile craft about, the soldiers and adventurers gathered on deck for a last glance at shore and home ! Youth bold, imperious, and ignorant, armed cap-a-pie, in the person of the in trepid Alonzo da Ojeda held the first rank, as the ideal of romantic enterprise in search of fame and fortune, destined to arouse all young Spain to speedy emulation. Juan de la Cosa represented maturity, rashness tempered by experience, yet drawn irresistibly to share the exploits of Ojeda in that wide realm of adventure opening before them in a new world, giving purse and ultimately life in the cause of the restless warrior, who made pompous proclamations in the name of the king to bewildered Indians on landing on their shores, and fought duels with rival cavaliers. Juan de la Cosa, slain by the poisoned arrows of the Caribs while defending the turbulent Ojeda, affords the contemplation of one of the noblest phases of humanity amidst all the baseness, intrigue, and jealousy of early colonisation. The picture of the sailing of the ships loses noth ing of richness of tone if the verdict of a later day 196 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. be also applied to it. When Corneille visited Mon sieur de Chalons, the former secretary of the queen's mother, Marie de' Medici, at Eouen, the old man said : " You will find in the Spaniards subjects which, treated according to our taste, and in your hands, may produce great results." Was not the Cid the fruit of the suggestion in French literature ? In all that brave company gathered together on the fleet, weapons flashing, plumes waving on hats, voices mingling in animated debate, or ringing out sharply in tones of peremptory command, the quiet and sober form of Amerigo Vespucci stands re vealed. In an old edition of Bandini there is a quaint engraving representing Vespucci in the garb of a Florentine citizen, making observations of the starry firmament on the shore of South America, with the aid of his primitive instruments, while the sailors are seated on the ground at his feet with their heads supported on their knees, asleep, and the vessels are drawn up on the strand. The South ern Cross is clearly defined in the sky, as a sort of jewelled appendage, and a medallion portrait of Dante laurel-crowned is added in the opposite corner, probably in connection with his own famous lines about the four stars which formed a rhomboi- dal form (una mandorla), the holy lights, cardinal virtues. Canovai states : "All the equipment of Amerigo in these difficult re searches consisted of a quadrant, an astrolabe, the alma- Statue of Amerigo Vespucci. THE SECOND VOYAGE. 197 nac of Giovanni da Montereggio, which had been compiled according to the meridian of the city of Ferrara, and the Alfonsine Tablets." Pearls and gold ! The mirage of sunset in the west beyond the sea ! To win a future of ease, opulence, and gaiety, by means of this voyage ; such was the mutual interest which rendered all these men kin. Has the world changed since ? They believed the words of Columbus in his last letter to King Ferdinand : " Gold is a thing necessary to your Majesty, in order to fulfil an ancient tradition that Jerusalem must be recon structed by a Spanish monarch. Gold is the most excel lent of metals. What becomes of those gems sought at the ends of the earth ? They are sold, and thus become converted into gold." Varnhagen thus gives Vespucci's account : "On the 6th of May, 1499, we issued forth from the port of Cadiz, taking our course toward the Cape de Verde Islands ; and, in passing in sight of the Grand Canary, we sailed as far as a certain isle named Fire (Feu), where we took in a store of wood and water. We continued our voyage, shaping our route southwest. After nine days' sailing we arrived at a new land, which we believed to be a continent, and a continuation of the other mentioned on our first voyage. This new land lay in the torrid zone, at five degrees south of the equinoc tial line, and at a distance of five hundred leagues south west of the isles we have mentioned. We observed them after the 27th of June (read the 21st), when the sun enters 198 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. the Tropic of Cancer, and the days are equal to the nights. The earth is saturated with water, and irrigated by great rivers, and is verdant, and covered with large trees. . . . After making several detours we noticed that all was covered with water, and every spot was inundated. Weigh ing anchor we began to navigate the coast east-south east for more than forty leagues, . . . but we encountered a current so strong from the southeast toward the north west that it was impossible to guide our course. Owing to these inconveniences we resolved to retrace our way, and to steer toward the northwest. In taking this route we had quitted the coast, and at last we reached a very commodious port, at the entrance of which was a pretty isle. We proceeded, skirting the shore, and more than once it happened to us to fight the natives, as they would allow us to take nothing. We already wished to return to Spain, because it was nearly a year that we had been at sea, and we had slender provisions, and that little sufficiently damaged, owing to the great heat, as, since we had left the Cape de Verde Islands until now we had navi gated constantly in the torrid zone, and we had crossed the equinoctial line twice. As I have already stated, we were five degrees south of this, and we were under the 15 of north latitude. In the midst of these cares it pleased the Holy Spirit to give us a little repose after so many troubles. Understand that being in search of some sheltered port to repair our ships, we encountered a people who received us as good friends, and we were informed that they had a quantity of fine Oriental pearls. We re mained with them forty-seven days, and we bought one hundred and nineteen marcs of pearls for a mere trifle. At the expiration of the forty-seven days we took leave of THE SECOND VOYAGE. 199 these Indians, whose confidence we had gained ; we left for the necessity we were in for provisions, and we went to the Isle of the Antilles, discovered by Christopher Columbus several years before, where we obtained provi sions and stayed for two months and seventeen days, dur ing which time we suffered vexations and incurred perils from the Christians who were with him on this island, for envy, as I believe ; all of which I keep from recount ing for brevity. Leaving this place on the 22d of July, with a voyage of a month and a half, we re-entered the port of Cadiz" (1500). A significant fact deserves due weight in connec tion with this voyage. In Ojeda's report to the sovereigns he mentions having sighted English ves sels near Coquibacoa. The Spanish government is reputed to have been rendered suspicious and alarmed by the information, while no record has been found of the expedition in the archives of Henry VII. North America had already been discovered by John Cabot in 1497, and Newfound land visited. Who were the English of that day, reconnoitring strange coasts, yet giving no sign ? Presumably these doughty mariners belonged to the crews of the Cabots, at least. This clew possesses value in the tangled web of men's lives of those first navigators, comparable with Herrera, chronicler of the West Indies, copying data, and, believing that Vespucci had accompanied Ojeda in 1499 on a first voyage, changed dates, then, finding the accounts of the two men so different, accused Amerigo, the 200 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. foreigner, of imposture, and of having embroiled the recital. Alonzo da Ojeda is credited with reticence as to his own course in traversing the seas, striking the northern coast of Brazil first, owing to the rival claims of Portugal, as he had incurred the penalty of paying a heavy fine for infringement on national rights on a previous occasion, while Ves pucci's descriptions of the lands visited are frank and accurate. Was the acquaintance of the hold soldier Ojeda and the prudent pilot Amerigo Ves pucci, two mortals knit together by the bonds of common peril in making the same voyage, of a sym pathetic character ? Did they respect, like, or dis trust each other ? Who knows with certainty ? They had no open hostility of disagreement, apparently, or history might have left some record of such dis pute. The silence of Ojeda on certain points where Vespucci speaks, and vice versa, was reasonably cleared up by the deposition of Christobal Garcia of Palos, made in October, 1515, that, while he was at Hayti, Ojeda and Cosa arrived on board of a small vessel, having lost sight of some of the fleet, while others had purposely remained behind. Francesco Bartolozzi, in his critical and historical researches of the discoveries of Amerigo Vespucci, expresses a doubt if at this date he could have possessed the capacities requisite to command a fleet, or even to assume the responsibility of a first pilot, as a true son of the sea, following his natural trade ot mariner. No doubt Ojeda estimated the Florentine THE SECOND VOYAGE. 201 as a man of altogether secondary importance in the expedition. In the subsequent judicial deposition of Ojeda before the Probanza he stated that, first, he dis covered land toward the south, and skirted it for two hundred leagues as far as Paria; second, he quitted the Gulf of Paria by the mouth of the Dragon, passed the Island of Margarita, and visited the neighboring shores as far as the Isle of Giants ; third, he discovered the Gulf of Venecia (Mara- caibo), and the province of Guinquibacoa ; fourth, on the voyage he was accompanied by Juan de la Cosa, Amerigo Vespucci, and other pilots. The Cape Verde Archipelago awaited Vespucci with white cliffs, volcanic ridges, and masses of rock rising out of the sea, a group of palms blooming here and there, leafless acacias with long spines, trailing convolvulus, and gourds thriving in an arid soil. Water is still the great boon of existence in the Cape Verde group, where rain does not fall for a year sometimes, and the negresses pass all day to the wells, sheltered by low-pitched roofs, bearing heavy vessels poised on their heads, while the sup ply of grateful liquid dwindles in July and August, and vegetation shrivels to desert plants, dust-laden and wrinkled. The suggestion is picturesque of those early vessels halting at the ports of the Canaries and the Cape Verde for a supply of water before sailing away to unknown regions. Whether Ojeda's fleet on this occasion touched at Fire 202 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Island (Isle du Feu), as belonging to Spain, or at Iron Island (Isle de Fer), as claimed by Portugal, is of less importance than that the parched rocks yielded a little of their precious element to the mariners. Inland the kingfisher perched on the castor-oil shrub in the narrow valleys to catch lizards and grasshoppers. In the shallows below the cliffs the slug > with yellow body, purple-veined, fed delicately on sea- weeds, while the octopus lurked in the pools left by the retiring tide, or hid in crevices of the rocks, a greenish monster, chang ing hue to red or brown in the shock of any alarm, and prepared to protect escape by ejecting the opaque fluid of its ink-bag. Vespucci skirted, with out invading, the realm of animal life, and the tide flowed in once more, and the bird took flight to another bush. The coast of Brazil greeted the eye of Vespucci near Aracaty, the Kio Grande-do-Norte forming a vast embouchure, and a rain-flooded region extend ing southward, with deflections of shore toward Bahia-da-Traicao, a sterile land of dunes, brambles, the bars of shallow river mouths, matted shrubs, or stretches of mangroves, and occasional cocoa-nut trees, the white sands of Cape St. Eoque, the Gulf and Isle of Maranhao, and the low, marshy regions trending to the delta of the Amazon. No beacon light gleamed on reef, promontory, or shoal, a star at Carbo Frio, Rio Grande, or Para in that day. The equatorial current lay in wait for Vespucci, and THE SECOND VOYAGE. 203 drove him back in the direction of the low-lying inundated lands and savannas of Cape Orange and French Guiana. It was not for America's godfather, a pioneer in the sphere of discovery, to fathom the mystery of the wonderful system of ocean currents over which the wise men of many nations have since pondered, although he may have had his own the ories as to changes of density in the sea by means of evaporation, and degrees of temperature, for the rest of his life. The permanent winds blowing in one di rection where the water is the warmest sends the sur face volume in a constant stream to the west. This equatorial current, of which Ojeda's fleet was igno rant, impinging on the coast of South America about Cape St. Koque, splits in two, the northern branch flowing around the Gulf of Mexico, contracted and condensed by the Strait of Florida, known as the Gulf Stream, while the remainder becomes a gentler current outside of the islands, spreading over the great bight between North and South America, affecting Bermuda and the Azores. Later Vespucci was to make acquaintance with the other subdivi sion of the equatorial current, more complicated even than the East Australian tide, which passes down Brazil south of Cape St. Koque, parallel with the coast of South America. In its southern exten sion no barrier exists corresponding with that which circumscribes and moulds the northern arm, and gradually widening out it becomes less defined, at the same time acquiring a sufficient easterly deflec- 204 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. tion to keep it out from the land until it is finally almost merged in the great easterly drift-current which sweeps around the world, occupying a belt varying from six hundred to one thousand miles in breadth in the South Seas. Vespucci surmised little, as yet, of the great water hemispheres of the globe, the Arctic Ocean, North Pacific, South Pacific, and Antarctic Basin. The laws controlling the zone of barometric pressure in the southern hemisphere, in the condensation of vapours and the welling up from submarine depths of heavy and cold water, cannot have been realised by him. Neither had he dipped into the Guinea current, presumably, as it courses along the African coast as far as Benin and Biafra, a warm stream from two hundred and fifty to three hundred miles in width, with a rate of twenty or fifty miles a day, and its most concentrated force off Cape Palmas, where it meets the northern edge of the equatorial current. A human straw was Vespucci, caught in the rapid flow of counter tides, the zone of calms, and the reflex of northeast and southeast trades ; and he recognised the fact, for he wrote to Lorenzo de' Medici: "We encountered a tide of the sea, which was so large and flowed with such velocity that we were afraid, and incurred the risk of great peril. The current was such that those of Gibraltar and Messina resemble a pond in comparison." Thus impelled toward the west-northwest by the equatorial current and the east-southeast wind. THE SECOND VOYAGE. 205 the ships were swept away from Cape St. Boque and Touros, and gained Port Cayenne, the vicinity of Paria and Dernarara. The muddy waters of the Orinoco greeted Vespucci, bringing down the allu vial deposit of the mountains in a tawny flood to stain the blue sea, but told him nothing of the turtle mothers on the upper branches of the stream that deposit their eggs on sandy beaches in Febru ary and March, a harvest for the Indians and prized, in time, by the. missionaries, as making turtle-butter; such liliputian offspring as escape destruction and scramble back to the river incurring the additional risk of being snapped up by attendant baby alliga tors, alert for a first meal. The tonca bean did not perfume the air for Vespucci with delicate vanilla odors, destined to become dear to succeeding gene rations of great gentlemen for scenting their snuff, but hid in safe retreats of storm-riven, rocky ravines and forest nooks, where the arborescent ferns thrive, the arums and myrtles cluster, the green dracon- tium, and the serrated leaves of the rothos mingle with ranks of tree columns, draped with masses of bigonise, dendrobia, and paullinse. In such leafy haunts, still sacred from the ruthless intrusion of the foreigner, the native wove the heliconias into a roof above his hammock for a noon siesta when he strove to forget the torments of mosquitoes and jeujeus by day, and the zancudos of night, or brought down to the coast honey, vegetable dyes, and sarsaparilla roots, dried and pressed in bundles. 206 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Some profound conviction of the mighty artery of the South American continent, the Orinoco, and its inland resources, in contemplating the mass of turbid waters sent forth into the sea, must have occurred to the mind of Columbus when he described it as flowing from the eastern Paradise. Trinidad awaited Vespucci, southernmost of the West Indian Islands, lying across the delta of the Orinoco, nearly reaching to the main land of Vene zuela, and thus forming the Gulf of Paria. Blooming with a wealth of palms, jasmine, oranges, Bourgain- vilias, and crotons, purple, gold, and russet, is Trinidad to this day. The acalyphia, the geographi cal tree, with the green leaves marked with white, like a map, may have then given him a lesson. The little American ants were surely too busy to notice his advent, unless he came in their way, the black ant making nests at the roots of plants ; the red ant, of military instincts, always in a great hurry, whether dragging along a dead cockroach, or gather ing in a tiny, valiant army to attack a big, helpless worm ; the merciless hunter ant raiding in tribes on mice, birds, and crickets ; and the parasol ant mak ing selection of tender leaves from the young cacao, orange-trees, and yam, wherewith to line the nursery. The inhabitants of the Island of Margarita, fifteen leagues from the coast, strove to detain America's godfather in the realm of tropical beauties by siren spells of dreaming over sea depths, where pearls of fabulous size, the dew of heaven fallen between the THE SECOND VOYAGE. 207 shells of the oyster and solidified, according to Pliny's theory, might be found, and wove the meshes of cotton-hammocks in which the Spanish American would be content to idle away existence with a banana, a store of dried meat, and a ciga rette. Vespucci passed on to admire the fine type of the natives of the Island of Curacoa, now associ ated with the liqueur made by the Dutch, known as the Isle des Geants, where every man was an An taeus, and every woman a Penthesilea, to him, as a classical scholar, to note the dwellings of the Caribs of Paria, thatched with palm-leaves, containing mats, and rudely fashioned furniture, and hold intercourse, hostile or friendly, with the peoples of Coquibacoa, Maracaibo, the western shore of the Gulf of Vene zuela, and unknown lands to the headland of Cape de la Vela. Instead of forming romantic attachments to the beautiful Indian maidens, decked with bracelets and necklaces of pearls, and plates of gold, and the silken plumage of tropical birds, after the fashion of most of the early adventurers, Vespucci made practical observation that manioc formed the bread of the aborigines on the side of Paria. He stated to Lo renzo de' Medici: "The natives are unacquainted with our wheat and farinaceous grains ; they derive their principal nourishment from a root which they reduce to flour, and which they call inch a, others chambi, and others igname." The word "yucca" has been discerned in incha, while igname designates 208 the root of the Dioscorea alata, described by Colum bus under the name of ages, much as the enigma attributed to Vespucci of the title of lariab has been finally solved as meaning Paria. The three JSocas, the narrow channel between Trinidad and the coast known as the Boca del Ser- piente, and the Boca del Drago, the northern entrance of the gulf of Paria, subdivided into the Monkey's Passage, those of the Ship, the Egg, and the Boca Grande, welcomed Vespucci, as well as the clear, blue, and green waters of the Venezuelan port of La Guayra, where the Indians in canoes utilised the services of the sucking fish (Echineis remora), to catch others, and the wide Caribbean Sea. It seems no slight matter that the Florentine gentleman, accustomed from infancy to see the day wane in pure tints of citron and beryl over his native Apennines, should have crossed the ocean on board of a clumsy vessel, in the fifteenth century, and witnessed the full effulgence of a West Indian sunset, with the chain of fairy isles bathed in the glory of a deeper gold and crimson. In place of the cinque-cento carvings of the Medici palaces he found the ornamented clay vessels, the calabashes, and ingeniously wrought figures of wax, bone, or fibrous roots of a new world. In place of Toscanelli's gnomon of the Florence cathedral send ing an arrow of light through the dome down on the pavement, he found the primitive sun-dials of Indian villages. In place of the mazy dance of the THE SECOND VOYAGE. 209 fire-flies about the shadowy terraces of Tuscan gar dens, on June evenings, he found the living jewels of phosphorescent insects amidst the tamarinds, ceiba, light foliage of the jobo-tree, and flowers of Cuba. It will be remembered that Cuba, with a chain of mountains stretching from east to west, nu merous rivers, savannas, and forests, lying opposite Hayti, and extending in the length of seven hun dred miles to the Gulf of Mexico and the Straits of Florida northward, is described as an island on the famous map of Juan de la Cosa in 1500, when on the 12th of June, 1494, Columbus had provoked a sort of judicial trial, in which several pilots, mas ters, and sailors, swore that they believed it to be a continent (tierra firme). The portrait of Vespucci recurs to the mind of the writer in the quaint engraving of the old book, discovered on the shelves of the musty shop in the street of the Watermelon at Florence several years ago, with the Italian astronomer watching the stars, while his companions sleep at his feet. Nautical charts, papers, possibly log-books, containing the entry of distances from one place to another, of the tides, and dangers to avoid on entering ports, and instruments are scattered around. If Columbus trusted to the guidance of the magnetic needle and his own courage, while the Cabots attempted to utilise the isogonic lines of the surface of the globe, believing them to be invariable, Vespucci sought a method of calculation in the occultation of the stars 14 210 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. and their lunar distance. The measures of deter mining longitude have remained very imperfect, almost to our time. " Amerigo Vespucci showed the superiority and perspi cacity of his talent," says Bartolozzi, " above all in taking the longitude of the country, when he was in America on his second voyage, hy a quite new astronomical method, which has on many points great originality, especially considering that he had few of the means necessary to the practice of this most difficult science, then in its infancy." In his letter to Lorenzo de* Medici, Vespucci explains very concisely the method invented by him, and adopted in his search for longitude, but the pursuit cost him dear: "As for the longitude, I say that I experienced so many difficulties in finding it that I had great travail to know certainly the progress I had made ; and the more I laboured, I found no better way than to study at night the opposition (or antagonization) of one planet to another, while the moon moves with the other planets, because the planet of the moon moves more swiftly than any other ; and I compared the almanac of Montereggio, which was composed by the meridian of Ferrara, making it agree with the tables of King Don Alfonso. Afterward, for many nights when I made calculations, one night, among others, being the 23d of August, 1499, when the moon was in conjunction with Mars, which (according to the almanac) should be at midnight, or a half hour before, I observed that when the moon rose on our horizon, which THE SECOND VOYAGE. 211 was one hour and a half after the sun had inclined, she had moved toward the east. I repeat, the moon was about a degree more to the east than Mars, and a few minutes later, and at midnight, she was five degrees and a half toward the east, more or less ; from which I made the calculation, if 24 equalled 360 degrees, which would come to five and half hours, I found it would give me 82 degrees, and so much as I found of longitude from the meridian of Cadiz, allowing sixteen leagues and two-thirds to every degree, equalling 15,466 miles; the reason why I gave sixteen and two-thirds leagues for every degree was because, according to Ptolemy and Alfagrano, the earth revolves 24,000 miles, equalling 6,000 leagues, which, dividing by 360 degrees, allots to each degree 16| leagues ; and this estimate I have verified many times with the pilot's point ; I have found it true and good." Francesco Bartolozzi continues : "In his letter, Amerigo recounts the many attempts he had made in vain to find the longitude, until the night of the 23d of August, that is, two months after he had landed on the coast, where he never remained quiet, scouring the country on all sides, and therefore was uncer tain where he was in regard to latitude, until he invented the system described. Having sailed between the 6 of latitude A, and the 12 B, one may suppose he was some where about the 3 B, which combines fairly well with his calculations. On the day mentioned (August 23, 1499), in that latitude, the sun must have set about six o'clock and four minutes ; consequently, the first observation made by Vespucci was when the moon was on the horizon, one and a half hours after sunset, at seven o'clock and 212 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. thirty-four minutes, and there lacked about four hours twenty-six minutes to midnight, a fact which Vespucci did not remark at the second observation ; and which it is necessary to know in order to follow him in such an experiment, and about which he is very concise. He says he found the moon more to the west than Mars by a degree and some minutes at his first observation ; and at midnight five hours and a half more westerly, which would give a false movement of separation, and absolutely impossible to be accomplished in this given time. Vespucci erred most in the measure he took ; and this was inevi table, owing to the circumstances. But what causes the greatest marvel is that on his fourth voyage he meas ured the longitude without mistake, which proves that he had become a skilful observer, and had perfected his method. Only the astronomer, learned in the science and its slow progress, can estimate the true value of Amerigo's inventions and discovery. Passing entire nights observing the heavens as he did, he realised that he could not rely on the imperfect tables of the date. He interrogated Nature to learn with what velocity the moon detached herself from the planet Mars. From this known law (or rule), he laboriously extracted the method to find at what precise moment of his reckoning the conjunction of the two planets might occur, as below his horizon and invisible to him. He compared the time and space interposed between the two observations, and from this comparison extracted the equivalent to the space ; and summing up the time measured with the time deducted, he found the measure of that portion of the arch of the equator intercepted between the two meridians and that point of the heavens where the celestial phenomenon took place. Thus he first THE SECOND VOYAGE. 213 introduced the measurement of time in astronomy in com paring celestial distances. The author of the " History of Astronomy " (Jean Sylvain Bailly), ignoring what Vespucci had done, attributes this fact to William, fourth landgrave of Hesse, which, perfected, was to become the basis of modern astronomy, and was due to the inventive genius of Vespucci." The sort of clock used by Vespucci is unknown. He does not mention any time-piece, but it is in ferred that he must have had more system in observ ing the sky at night, to note the instant of midnight, as the noonday, than Montereggio, and to have relied rather on the moment when the equator was in its meridian for observations than such instruments as the watch of Archdeacon Pacifico of Verona, regu lated by a balance, in the ninth century, or the toothed wheels moved by a weight. The moon shone on Vespucci in the tropics, with a splendour capable of poisoning fish, as it had so often illuminated the towers and squares of Florence. America's godfather studying the stars, as depicted in the engraving of the old book, appears in an aspect of marked intellectual superiority to his com panions, for a clearness and quickness of thought, while not a thorough astronomer. The meagre results of the second voyage are well known. Ojeda, with all expenses deducted, had five hundred ducats to divide among fifty-five adven turers. Bandini states : 214 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. "Vespucci again reached Cadiz in June of the year 1500, after thirteen months voyaging. He was warmly received in this port, and especially by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, to whom he brought beautiful jewels, pearls, precious stones, and rare animals. The fame of the felicitous discoveries of our illustrious fellow-citizen having spread through Europe the Signoria of the Flor entine republic immediately decided to make a public demonstration of satisfaction and of rejoicing over so great a son, and sent to his house the lamps which were kept lighted for three days and nights consecutively, reputing this as a great honour, conceded by means of solemn voting, and by a decree of the Fathers, to worthy countrymen." Vespucci was destined never to return to reap other recognition of his fellow-citizens. Like Dante, he finished his span in exile, although his thoughts must have yearned toward "the fairest and most famous daughter of Kome, Florence ... in which I was born, and nourished even to the summit of my life." CHAPTER XL THE THIRD VOYAGE. THE warmth of Vespucci's reception on his return to Spain after the second voyage, according to Ban- dini, is doubtful. It occurred at a time when the riches brought by all early navigators, including Columbus, were eclipsed by the return of Vasco di Gama to Lisbon from the East, in 1500, freighted with gems, spices, and drugs. Bandini continues : " Emmanuel the Great, who reigned in Portugal, a prince of vast and noble gifts and elevated thoughts, astonished at the accounts of the achievements of Amerigo, wished to have in his dominions so eminent a man, and invited him with the offer of titles and honours to make fresh discov eries in his service, and therefore sent a special legate to solicit that he would come to Lisbon, where the sovereign eagerly awaited him. Amerigo, who saw himself re spected and beloved in the court of Spain, wishing neither to affront these sovereigns, nor the Portuguese monarch, feigned illness, making the usual excuses in similar cases ; but the urgent entreaties of Bartolomeo Giocondo, a Flor entine friend, moved him to relent, and, not to incur the displeasure of the King of Spain, he departed secretly." This view of the matter may have been gratify ing to a fellow-countryman, but the truth was that 216 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Spain witnessed the withdrawal of Vespucci to enlist under a rival state with the utmost indiffer ence, acknowledging his capacity as a skilful pilot, and receiving him back, subsequently, at the court of Ferdinand, without especial rancour. Whether he went, or came, as a foreigner, no wrathful king struck his name from the roll of the nobility of the land, or effaced the scutcheon of the family mansion in the province, as was the fate of the Portuguese Magellan, so that the ominous words might be read at Sabrosa by future generations: Easadas por ordem de El Rey. Little Portugal, in her rich and marvellous history, furnishes a companion volume of equal interest to that of mediaeval Spain, the pages glowing with valiant deeds of warfare, conquest, and discovery. Here we find the mythical Enriques, founding a kingdom, like that of Leon and Castile, by the might of his sword ; King Sancho, the city builder embellishing his domain, and improving agriculture ; John I., head of the house of Avis, scheming to reach India by sea, sailing around the continent of Africa, possibly finding a route to Cathay in Europe in a northeasterly direction, and sending Martin Lopez, accordingly, to pass the North Cape, and enter an unexplored region with the discovery of a large island north of Kussia, which still bears the name he gave it of Nova-Zembla ; or that sovereign who in 1513 sent the Pope a gift of twelve cardinals, life size, in sugar, three hundred sticks of candy of THE THIRD VOYAGE. 217 three bracelet, length each, one hundred boxes of sugar with cinnamon, cloves, and perfumes, and a live Moor of Calicut, four feet tall, with jewels in his ears. (Let us hope that Leo X. was as fond of sweets as a Turk.) There the leaf records that Albuquerque established a province at Pernambuco and fought the Dutch to retain it; Diego Cam sighted the Congo in 1484; Bartolomeo Diaz reached Algoa Bay and doubled the Cabo Tormentoso, Cape of Good Hope, in 1486 ; or Camoens mused over his epic in the cavern of Macao near Canton. Two pictures of the book of Portuguese history furnish a frontispiece. The first is Don Henry, the . naviga tor, a man of robust frame, white complexion, severe countenance, self-control of a violent temper, patient, circumspect in speech, and simple in dress, in his retreat of Sagres, surrounding himself with math ematicians and astronomers. The sea must have murmured wonderful tales of unknown lands in the ear of Prince Henry, like a shell, and even a refrain of the deeds of future years of Portuguese mariners to whom he would impart an impulse of seeking new routes : Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovering Brazil in 1500, Gaspar Corte Real, Labrador in 1501 ; Joao da Nova Castilla sighting St. Helena and Ascension in 1506 ; Tristao da Cunha, the island of the same name ; Ruy Pereira Continho exploring Madagascar and Mauritius in 1507 ; Lorenzo de Almeida touch ing at the Maldive Isles in the same year ; Diego Lopez de Segueira visiting Malacca and Sumatra in 218 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. 1512 ; Francesco Ferrao, the Moluccas in 1513 ; while Pedro de Mascaremhas reached the Isle of Bourbon in 1516. Duarti Coelho coasted Siam and Cochin China in 1517 ; and Fernao Perez de Andrade estab lished himself at Canton, and visited Pekin about the same date. Madeira was Prince Henry's garden, sought by Juan Gonzales and Tristan Vaz in his ser vice, who found the fields covered with fennel (fun- chai), and setting the woods on fire, to render the ground fit for cultivation, caused flames reputed to have burned for seven years. Prince Henry drew hence stores of cedar, and rose-colored yew, to be used in building edifices in Portugal, bows, and the wood of guns, and sent sugar-cane from Sicily to be planted for the new colonies. Lisbon is the second picture, not as it charms every traveller, a city built on an amphitheatre of hills, with palaces, convents, and gardens extending to a countryside which blooms afresh with violets, narcissus, and saffron after autumn rains, the rocks of Cintra in the distance, and Belem with its park, and Gothic cathedral, while narrow streets lead down to the Port, abode of silversmiths, artisans, sailors, and women selling oranges and chestnuts from Colares, and below is the Tagus and shipping, but as it ap peared on that memorable morning of All-Saints, November 1, 1755, at eight o'clock, when the sky grew pale and wan, the earth trembled, walls rocked, fissures in the soil yawned, and the river rose, so that the end of the world seemed at hand. The shock Statue of Lomi{o de Medici. THE THIRD VOYAGE. 219 was felt in the Alps, Thuringia, Sweden ; the hot springs of Toplitz were dried up, and flowed back tinged with iron ochre ; the Antilles, the Canadian lakes ; and the sea rose at Cadiz, in a wave sixty- four feet high, and of an awful blackness. Amerigo Vespucci entered the port between these two periods. Don Henry, the navigator, was dead, and the great earthquake did not occur for centuries. The beautiful city, glowing with southern color and ornate architecture, embowered in myrtle, citron, and orange-trees, smiled on the Florentine, verifying the boast: Que ndo tern visto Lisboa ndo tern visto cousa boa. Vespucci found himself in the land of a vigorous and intelligent race, with crinkly hair, large-featured, thick-set, and lacking Spanish grace. King John II., who had refused the services of Columbus, died in 1495. Emmanuel the Fortunate succeeded, and desirous of pursuing the policy of his ancestors, of seeking the riches of India by a western course, the Turkish invasion of the east ern Mediterranean having blocked earlier routes, Vespucci was well received, three vessels fitted out, and full justice accorded to his experience ; for the name of the Portuguese commander has remained obscure, although he is supposed to have been a certain Don Nuno Manuel. The letter to Lorenzo de' Medici of the year 1502 reveals the character of Vespucci, as an enlightened observer of nature in her manifold aspects, in such a fine phase that it does not seem superfluous to insert it here : 220 " The last writing to your Magnificence was from the coast of Guinea, from a place called the Green Cape (Capo Verde), from which you already know the early part of my voyage, and for the present, therefore, I shall briefly relate the half, or latter part, up to the present. We left the said Cape Verde at first without difficulty, and had ready everything necessary, such as water and wood, and other stores to sail into the gulf of the sea in search of new lands; and we sailed so well with the southwest wind (libeccio) that in sixty-four days I reached a new land which we found to be terra firma, for many reasons that I will relate in proceeding. We sailed along this land (the coast) about eight hundred leagues, all the time at a J to libeccio toward the west, and found it to be full of inhabitants, where I noted very marvellous works of God and nature, which I determined to make known to your Magnificence, as I have always done on my former voyages. We sailed so far in these seas that we entered the Torrid Zone, and passed the equinoctial line from the part of the Austral, and the Tropic of Capricorn, so far that the South Pole was fifty degrees high on my horizon, and as much with my latitude from the equinoctial line, and we navigated for four months and twenty-seven days, but never saw the Arctic Pole, or the Great and Little Bear, although I discovered toward the South many bodies of very clear stars which are always invisible for those of the North, and noted the wonderful complication of their movements and size, taking the diameters of their circles, and figuring them with geometric reckoning, and other motions in the known heavens, which would be peril ous things to write about ; but of the most notable matters I observed on this voyage I have gathered together in a little THE THIRD VOYAGE. 221 work (operetta) of mine, that when I have leisure and repose I may occupy myself with them in order to leave some fame behind me after death. I was on the verge of sending you an extract from it, but this exalted sovereign holds me back ; when I return I will do so. In conclu sion, I reached the Antipodes, which by my calculation forms a fourth part of the world. My zenith made a spherical right angle for the inhabitants of this region, which is in latitude 40. " Let us come to the description of the country, of its inhabitants, and the animals and plants, and of other matters which we found in those places of human life. This land is very pleasing, and filled with an infinity of green trees, large, and which never lose their leaves, and all the year give forth most delightful and aromatic per fumes, producing fruits many of them good to the taste, and salutary for the body, and fields producing much grass and flowers, and roots very agreeable, so that some times I have wondered at the sweet odours, and the flavour of the fruits and roots, thinking I must be near the Earthly Paradise. What could be said as to the numbers of birds and their plumage, colours, songs, and the many varieties of forms and kinds 1 I do not wish to enlarge on this, because, no doubt, I should not be credited. Who could enumerate the sylvan animals, so many pairs of lions and panthers, and cats, not of Spain but the Antipodes, lynxes, baboons, and marmosets (or apes) of such diversity, as well as other creatures we saw, that I believe the different species could not have entered Noah's Ark ; and numerous wild hogs, goats, stags, deer, hare, and rabbits ; but of domestic brutes we did not notice one. Let us come to the reasoning animals. We found the 222 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. land inhabited by people entirely naked, both men and women, without any sense of shame. They are well made and proportioned, white in colour, with black hair, and little or no beard. I laboured hard to understand their life and customs; therefore for twenty-seven days I ate and slept among them, and all that I learned is the fol lowing: they had no laws or faith whatever, and live according to nature. They are ignorant of the immortal ity of the soul, hold no property of their own because all is in common ; they have no kingdoms or provinces ; have no king, obey no one, each is lord of himself; have no friendship, no kindness, which would be unnecessary be cause not in their code. They live in common in houses made like huts, very large ; and for people who have no iron, or any other metal, one may say that their habita tions are truly admirable, because I have seen buildings two hundred and fifty feet long and thirty feet wide, most skilfully constructed, and in one of these abodes dwelt five or six hundred souls. They use nets woven of cotton, and go to sleep in the air without any other cover ing; they eat seated on the ground, their food consisting of roots of herbs, and very good fruits, much fish, abun dance of cherries, and crabs, oysters, lobsters, and shrimps, and many other articles produced by the sea. The meat they eat is mostly human flesh in a fashion to be told. When they can procure other meat, of animals and birds, they eat it, but they have little because they have no dogs, and the forests are dense, and full of cruel wild beasts, and for this reason they avoid the woods except in large companies. The men have the habit of piercing the lips and cheeks, and inserting bones and stones in these holes, and the apertures are not small, for the greater part THE THIRD VOYAGE. 223 of the men have at least three holes, and some seven, and even nine, in which they place stones of green alabaster and white which are half a palm long, and as large as a Catalan plum, which appears very unnatural. They say this is done to appear more haughty and savage ; in fact, it is an ugly custom. They are a prolific race. . . . They live long because we have known many who were surrounded by four generations of descendants. They do not know how to count the days or the months and year, save that they tell the time by the lunar months, and when they wish to take any reckoning they place a stone for every moon. One of the most aged men signed to me with stones that he had lived seventeen hundred moons, which, it appears to me, would make one hundred and thirty-two years, counting thirteen moons to the year. They are a belli cose and cruel people, and all their arms are, as Petrarch says, "commessi al vento," arrows, darts, and stones ; and they use no defence for their bodies, being naked as they were born, neither do they hold any order in their warfare save to follow the counsel of the aged men ; and when they fight they kill each other brutally and those left masters of the field bury the fallen of their own band, and split up and eat their enemies ; and some they take for slaves to their houses. . . . We bought of them ten slaves who were appointed for sacrifice. "We took away many from them. I know not if they corrected or amended the evil ; and what astonished me most was the cause of their mak ing war one on another, as they have no property, or empire, or kingdom, and know nothing of the greed of acquiring or reigning, which seem to me the usual cause of wars, and of every disordered act. When we asked them the reason they could give no other explanation than that they had exchanged insults. 224 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. " In conclusion it is surely a bestial thing, and one man confessed he had eaten more than two hundred bodies. The land is temperate and healthful ; because during all the time we were there, which was ten months, not one of us died, and very few fell ill. As I said of the natives, they are long-lived, and feel no infirmities or pes tilence of corruption of air; the doctors would have a bad time in this place. But we were only sent with the aim of discovery. . . . The natives esteem nothing, save orna ments of feathers and bones ; and I hope the king, before many years have elapsed, will again send to visit the land, which would bring great profit to Portugal. We found a vast quantity of Brazil wood, many trees all ready to load such ships as are to-day in the sea without any expense whatever, and the same amount of cassia. We saw crys tal, and there were an infinite variety of flavours and odours of spices and perfumes, although I do not know them. The men of the country tell miraculous tales as to gold, metals, and drugs ; but I am one of those, like St. Thomas, who believe slowly ; time will do all. The sky was clear for the most part, and adorned with many bright stars, and all of them I have observed, and noted their orbits. All this is very brief, and only the resume (capita rerum] of the wonders I have beheld in this region. I leave many other matters which are worthy of description, not to be prolix, and because all the details of my voyage you will find in miniature. For the present I am still at Lis bon waiting what the king decides to do with me. May it please God that what follows shall be for His holy service and the help of my soul." The Florentine gentleman reveals several curious traits in this letter to a friend. His hint that it would THE THIKD VOYAGE. 225 be dangerous to say too much about the movement of celestial bodies, which a Medici might readily understand, is worthy of a precursor of Galileo. He does not express himself with the religious fervour of the sailor Columbus, or the bigoted Spanish knight Ojeda, invoking the aid of the Madonna, yet his allusions to the Supreme Being are reverent and dignified. The sly mention of Brazil as a poor -field for the doctors might be made by a modern traveller. Proclaiming himself a doubting St. Thomas explains much in his career. The third voyage had other importance. To once more quote Varnhagen : " Vespucci made his third voyage across the seas in the service of Portugal, when he decided to return to the land of pearls (Paria). The three caravels left Lisbon on the 14th of May, 1501 (in the letter of Soderini the 10), and took their course toward the Canaries, without touch ing there, steering for the shoals of Pargos, which are near the coast of Africa, where they took on board a pro vision of fish, according to the custom of the Portuguese ships when they started on voyages of discovery. After three days the caravels continued their route, making first the port of Bezequiche, or Beseneque, a little to the south east of the Cape de Verde, where the French colony of Gorea is founded, to take on board water, and wood to burn, of which they had need. They left this port of Beseneque and took a direction southwest, and after sail ing for sixty-seven days, during forty-four of which they experienced very bad weather, they finally found land in latitude five degrees to the south of the equinoctial 15 226 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. line. They cast anchor on the 17th of August, having sighted land on the previous day, the fte of Saint Roch, whose name was given to the cape, which it still keeps in our time. The caravels cast anchor near Cape Saint Roch on the 17th of August (one reads erroneously the 7th in the letter to Lorenzo), and took possession of the country, which was fertile, in the name of the king. It appeared to be inhabited. The next day (August 18) they again disembarked to renew their provision of water. They saw the natives gathered in great numbers on the summit of a hill, from whence they dared not descend. As it was already late they contented themselves with leaving on the beach bells and little mirrors, and withdrawing on board ; immediately they perceived the Indians approach and take the trinkets, with much admiration. The next morning (Aug. 19) they observed on the coast much smoke, rising in different places. The mariners believed they were called by these signals, and saw the Indians, but the latter still held aloof. Then two of the fleet vol unteered to go among the natives with little articles of commerce. The captain consented on condition that they should return in five days. But seven days passed with out their coming back. The Indians rarely showed them selves on the strand, and then had a suspicious and sinister aspect. Finally, on the seventh day (Aug. 26) they took the resolution to once more disembark, and the Indians sent their women among the sailors. One of the latter ventured to mingle with them when the women surrounded him, and one of the number advanced, armed with a large stick, with a single blow of which she frac tured his skull, and laid him dead. The others then seized and dragged him toward the mountain, whence THE THIRD VOYAGE. 227 the Indians begun to flock, shooting arrows at the other sailors. The latter, in the midst of so much confusion, had sufficient difficulty in regaining their barks and keep ing their weapons. Happily they were able to fire four rounds of cannon, which frightened the natives and made them retire. But these withdrew to the mountain and began to cut up the body of their Christian victim, to show the fragments, and to roast them. From this the fate of the first two mariners was fully realised. The crew demanded vengeance for these acts of barbarity, but the chief of the fleet believing that no good would result, pursued his voyage. They skirted the coast east-south east, that is to say, in the direction of the Cape Saint Augus tine, to which they gave its name, to celebrate the day of discovery (Aug. 28). " Having doubled Cape Santo Augostino, the little fleet followed the shore southwest, landing frequently, and com municating with many of the inhabitants. Assuredly they discovered the mouth of the San Francisco River on the 4th of October, and the port of Bahia (of All Saints) on the 1st of November. Vespucci says, ' In sailing we dis cerned the people on the shore, who gazed at our vessels with wonder. We approached, and, after casting anchor in a convenient place, we went ashore, and we found the natives of better condition than the last. . . . We remained five days. . . . We proposed to take two men with us as interpreters, and three offered to go very willingly/ " The fleet followed the coast in a southerly direction, and probably discovered the Cape of St. Thom^, on the 21st of December, the port of Rio Janeiro January 1, then the port of the Bay of Kings (Angra dos Reis) on the 6th, the Isle of St. Sebastian on the 20th, and the vicinity of 228 St. Vincent on the 22d of the same month. In sailing still southward the vessels paused at the port of Cananea, where they left a Portuguese exile, who was alive in these regions thirty years later. They still followed the shore, and sought repose in another southern port, where the Great Bear was visible, very low on the horizon. The three caravels left this port on the 15th of February, 1502, and went southeast at a venture, by the advice of Vespucci, whose words we copy : " ' We had sailed far in this direction, when on April 3d we found ourselves already under a high latitude, about 52 degrees south, and a distance of five hundred leagues to the southeast of the port we had left. That day there burst a tempest, and the sea was so high we were obliged to furl all our sails, and to run with bare masts, with a very strong wind southwest, and a fearful surge of billows ; such was the storm that we were in great terror. The nights became very long ; that of April 7 was fifteen hours. . . . The same day in the midst of the gale we sighted a new land. We skirted the coast about twenty leagues, and we found it very savage. We saw no inhabitants, and could descry no port, and that, as I believe, because the cold was so great we could not sup port it. In the presence of this imminent peril, and with the density of the fog such that from our ship we were scarcely able to distinguish the others, we resolved to make a signal to the fleet to sail with the wind, and return to Portugal. And the decision was a wise one, for had we remained longer, no doubt we should have all been lost. That night and the ensuing day the storm was so terrible that we thought it would finish us. We made vows of undertaking pilgrimages, and other ceremonies, after the custom of sailors under similar circumstances.' THE THIRD VOYAGE. 229 "Quitting these inhospitable regions, where the fog made the day of April 7 appear longer than our astro nomical calculations, the three caravels pursued a course northeast. They sailed toward the port of Serra Leoa (Sierra Leone), where they arrived on May 10th. One of the caravels caught fire, and became useless ; and after a delay of fifteen days they departed for the Azores. They reached that point toward the end of July, and rested fifteen days, when they made sail for Lisbon, which they gained on September 7th (1502), after an absence of six teen months (we read fifteen months in the two letters of Vespucci), having sailed for fifteen days, in the high southern latitudes, without sighting the polar star, nor any other of the Great or Little Bear." The Cape Verde Islands again received Vespucci, where the highly picturesque meeting with Cabral took place, America's godfather going forth empty- handed, and the Portuguese commander returning from Hindustan with a cargo of gems, myrrh, cam phor, amber, mastic, porcelain, and other valuable commodities. Brazil awaited Vespucci, a sea-border blooming with the purple flowers, thick milky leaves, and long branches, like knotted black cords of the ipomcea, a marshy region, realm of the jatrophia armed with spines, the aninga, cowslips, violet- tinted blossoms of bushes of clitoria, frutescenti, and yellow Alamanda cathartica, lagunes fringed by Sophora lottorales, with a carpet of Cyprus and hedy- otis on the wet soil ; hot plains, a belt of grasses 230 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. stretching up to hill-slopes, where the llama feeds, such was the new land. The forest defied Vespucci to penetrate its secrets, with walls of verdure and serried ranks of lofty trees, towering into domes of green, countless parasite plants of the cactus and orchid tribes taking root on trunk and branch, and vines forming cables across the lower spaces, re splendent with the gold and snowy hues of flowers clustering in tufts, pendent plumes, pyramidal masses, and arches exhaling heavy fragrance. The wild creatures peered at Vespucci through the curtain of leaves, the jaguar sharpening his claws on the bark of a tree, true cat-fashion, before pursuing the little peccaries in a herd at midnight, as they rushed through the underbrush, or sent the tapir floundering into the river to tell his fish- friends, the alambari (sprats), the dour ados, the Brazilian salmon, in armour of black and gold at the foot of cataracts, and the otters, of his latest narrow escape. The monkeys assuredly mocked at the Florentine gentleman, the black and white saki, the guariba (a bearded old oracle), capuchin, sapajou, and titi chattering sociably over jatahy beans and capad nuts. The great ant-eater slowly pursued his way. The boa- constrictor watched for prey, while his cousin the sucurin lurked in pools ten metres long ; the cobra cascaval climbed obsta cles with the terrific velocity of flight, and the coral snake coiled its body ready to spring on foes. The birds flitted on their own affairs, those THE THIKD VOYAGE. 231 model parents the parrots, having hatched their eggs in the crevices of rocks and branches, teaching their offspring to feed on bananas and the kernel of guavas and palm-nuts ; the momots, very reserved, and dwelling in the depths of the woods ; those living rainbows of plumage, the macaws, trogons, orioles, and toucans, flying from tree to tree ; and the duck-tribe, spreading metallic feathers of purple and green lustre over nests built near the water courses. A swift revelation of the teeming life of this new world dazzled Vespucci, as he evinced in his letters, some intuition of the perpetual warfare waged on one another in the struggle of existence, and the mimicry of nature to evade extinction in caterpil lars resembling dry twigs, moths like bark or veined leaves, cassidte with the semblance of burnished drops of dew on foliage, pearly gold in tint, and the villanous hunting spider motionless on plants, feigning to be only a flower bud ; such kindred as demons with shells and spiny tibia spinning a ribboned web on the agave to catch wasps and grasshoppers, and weaving orange-colored silken meshes across paths. Gorgeous beetles must have trotted along his route, and butterflies of every shade fluttered about his head. The humming-birds darted into the open, the gems known as nature's caprice in jewelry, emerald, topaz, and ruby, called picaflores by the Spaniards, chupaflores by the Brazilians, frous-frous by the Creoles of the Antilles, 232 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. and " rays of sunshine " by the Indians, their plu mage serving women for necklaces, weaving mantles for the Peruvians and Mexicans, and made into little pictures of saints by the early missionaries. They failed to show Vespucci the nest, the size of half an apricot, lined with down, and attached to a bough like a tuft of moss, containing two eggs the size of peas. The prodigal wealth of vegetation breathed a subtle meaning to Vespucci of hidden stores of balsams, gums, medicinal barks and herbs ; the manioc to furnish the farinha of future colo nists, the cacaoyer, the palms from the cocoanut, gift of the gods, the royal palm, with its edible fruit, useful fibre, and wine-yielding stem ; and the ayri-assu, eight metres high, with hard wood, util ised for making bows by the natives, to the stumpy aricuri, capable of hat and basket fashioning, and the gurirei of sandy wastes, lowly and bent, with orange-red leaves used for brooms, a humble brother of the Euterpe andicola, flourishing on abrupt acclivities, or the Euterpe precatoria clinging to warm plains, even when inundated. When sudden darkness fell the little frog Hyla, sitting on a blade of grass began to croak, crickets chirped, and the forest took up the nocturnal chorus in the moaning of monkeys, the clamour of birds, and the howling of animals prolonged to those weird echoes that made the Indians whisper of the voices of demons and spirits. Vespucci took ship, braving the equatorial cur- THE THIRD VOYAGE. 233 rents, and steered southward along this coast, with such changes of course as were evidently agreed upon by his companions in order not to infringe on the claims of Spain. The most remarkable feature of these early voyages was the sea luring the men forth in cockle-shells, with siren wiles of caressing breezes, to find Asia in the faith of Columbus' creed that the world is small, and then as doubt and amazement perplexed their intelligence at the vast realm stretching before them, thwarting their pro gress by tempests and counter currents as the Spirit of the Cape of Good Hope resented the intru sion of adventurous mariners on savage solitudes in Camoens' poem. Wrecked, buffeted, and impover ished, they gained a knowledge of the globe when they appeared to have lost all. The storm assailed Vespucci, the nights were long, the waves ran high, and the crew fulfilled the words of the Psalmist, believing their hour had come; for the cold sleet froze the blood, and America's godfather had sailed nearer to the Antarctic Pole than any European, at least, except Bartolomeo Diaz. Through the gusts of snow and low-drifting fog South Georgia Island loomed on the anxious gaze of Vespucci, ninety-six miles in length, and ten miles wide, with ice-mantled crags, and hollows where moss, grass, and the wild burnet grow, and a single land-bird, the Anthus correndera, has a lonely existenca Is it a trifling evidence of courage that Vespucci, 234 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. taking the lead, crossed four thousand miles of ocean to Sierra Leone without error of calculation ? He attains a true grandeur of heroism in the achieve ment. Here one of the battered little vessels had to be abandoned and burned. Lisbon, on her amphitheatre of hills, with the Tagus flowing below, received him back without enthusiasm. A few days later two caravels entered the port of Lisbon laden with a rich cargo of spices from the Cape of Good Hope and India, commanded by Jo&o da Nova. Pope Alexander VI. in the year 1493 had issued a bull conceding to Spain all territory discovered in the West from 180, beginning from one hundred leagues from the Azores, and to Portugal all lands to the east of 180. These limits were modified at a later date. The Pontiff thus rendered aid to nau tical astronomy and terrestrial magnetism by the human presumption of reaching forth his spiritual sceptre into the unknown regions of the earth, and dividing portions between two rival States. CHAPTER XII. THE FOURTH VOYAGE. KING EMMANUEL of Portugal employed Amerigo Vespucci on a second expedition. History recounts the acts of princes rather than their motives and personal opinions. Whatever the true estimate may have been in which the Portuguese monarch held Vespucci, he decided to use the services of the for eigner as a pawn on his chess-board in the fresh enterprise of one of the two fleets fitted out by Por tugal in 1503 to seek a passage to the East by way of the Brazilian coast. The first fleet was commanded by Gonzales Coelho, and the other by Cristoval Jaques. Vespucci was given charge of one of the six vessels under Coelho. The Varnhagen narrative is as follows : "Vespucci states that the day of departure was May 10, 1503, but if attention is paid to the events which trans pired subsequently at the Island of Fernan de Noronha on August 10th, it may be more readily believed that the date of sailing was June 10th. Gonzalo Coelho com manded the fleet. After a delay of thirteen days at one of the Cape de Verde group, the chief of the squadron made a southeasterly course, seeking to sight the coast of Sierra Leone, probably to make sure of being able to gain 236 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. the Cape of San Agostino, as many pilots have done later in the passage to Brazil, and not, as Vespucci suspected, with the intention of visiting a miserable place and dis playing six ships. However, the chief wished to pause here, but after four days of beating about he failed to dis cern the land, and continued his route toward the south west. They crossed the line, and on August 10th, when they found themselves at three degrees of south latitude (they must have sailed at least five hundred leagues, and not three hundred, as we read, by mistake no doubt, in the communications to Soderini), they saw distinctly on the horizon an island which can have been no other than that of Fernando de Noronha. The leading ship, of three hundred tons, struck on a reef, but was fortunately saved. Vespucci was at a distance of four leagues from the isle, and he received orders to go with his vessel in search of a port. He obeyed, and speedily lost sight of the other caravels. He did not discern a sail on the sea for eight days, and then he resolved to go and meet it, in the dread of not being noticed, in turn. The two ships returned to the isle, took on board a supply of fresh water, and decided to seek the port of Bahia, already discovered on the previous voyage, and where, according to their instruc tions, they were to reunite in case of separation. They reached Bahia together, after a voyage of seventeen days. They stayed here for two months and four days, awaiting, in vain, the three other vessels. Weary of such delay, Vespucci and the other commander concluded to follow the coast further ; and continuing southward, after having held intercourse with the natives on several occasions, they paused at a port which must have been Cape Frio. They found in this place an abundance of dye-wood THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 237 (brtsil), with which they loaded the two vessels, and where they remained five months. Before departing, Vespucci and his colleague agreed to establish here a little factory, with twenty-four armed men in charge, in a for tress furnished with twelve cannon. After a passage of seventy-seven days the two ships arrived at Lisbon on June 18th, 1504. They had not the slightest trace of the others. These last did not return until September, when Vespucci believed they must have been all lost." The reefs of the island of Fernando Noronha awaited the leading ship, a conical hill verdant with laurel-like trees, redolent of pink flowers. Here, while the craft was being eased off the rocks, Ves pucci noted the tameness of the birds as readily caught in the hand, a fact mentioned by later naturalists. The bay of All Saints (Bahia) again received the Florentine gentleman, blooming with geranium and wood-sorrel inland, the sea-pen bend ing on its elastic axis at low tide along muddy shores, while the brown lizard of the sands feigned death if molested, or hibernated in safe nooks like the toads and snails, drought being the equivalent of cold in such latitudes. The trees of bre'sil-wood grew at Cape Frio to furnish cargoes for Vespucci's little vessel ; the best quality, mir.in, valued for the red bark, and blossom ing with white flowers, the second, the assti, hav ing a rose-tinted trunk, straight and tall, and the brasileto producing an inferior dye. Vespucci tar ried five months in this port, scanning the horizon 238 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. for the missing companion ships scattered by storms, and organising the factory, which lasted until 1511. One wonders what messages the land whispered into his attentive ear of the jaca, the caoutchouc sap, the pine -apple, resins, astringent leaves, and the mate congouha of South Brazil, destined to solace future settlers by the tea brewed from the foliage of the top branches. The condor may have swept across his range of vision, teaching the young birds hatched out of the two large, white eggs laid on the shelf of rock, to attain the flight of their species after a year of growth as fledglings, ranging from the Straits of Magellan, the precipices of Port Desire, and the cliffs of the Kio Negro as far as eight degrees north of the equator, and retir ing to the Cordilleras in summer heat. Sea-fowl haunted every inlet, but the wild turkey, the seriema of the sandy plains, must have been beyond his ken, as the guanaco roaming to Cape Horn, and the stealthy puma tracking prey. Did he make acquaintance with the armadillo and the copliia, a reptile with the combined qualities of rattlesnake and viper ? Far away extended Patagonia, basalt, lava, and deposits of gigantic shells bespeaking a date when South America had monsters since dwindled to monkeys and gnawers, and small rodents swarmed as in Syria. The tiny mice people dwelling in the thickets of the valleys, and drinking dew, knew nothing of the arrival of Amerigo Vespucci ; neither did the little foxes that subsist on a mouse diet. THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 239 In moist ravines grew that mysterious link in the vegetable kingdom, the banana, with its rapid-spring ing stalk, wide-spreading leaves, and beneficent fruit of the sages and of Paradise, also compared to sweet shaving-soap in flavor, by a modern English author. Whence came this gift to man, the genus Musa, placed at the head of nutritive plants by Amarasinha, and forbidden to his soldiers by Alex ander the Great, as growing on the borders of the Hyphasus ? Asia has five varieties, and the Indian Archipelago sixteen. Energetic travellers in the tropics would fain conquer the indolence of man by the destruction of the banana of centuries, as afford ing such ample food, both cooked and raw. Was the first banana of the land a truly indigenous American plant, as the domesticated horse was found among the Indians west of the Missouri before the Clark expedition ? Was it brought to America from the Canary Islands, as is suggested by some botanists, in the same way that the cassava was introduced from Africa for the nourishment of the negro slaves, and the Spanish lady Maria d' Escobo, wife of Diego de Chaves, carried some grains of wheat to Lima, and distributed a portion, after three years harvesting, to the colonists ? In 1513 Oviedo mentions the banana as of very ancient culture among the Indians ; but one of the most curious facts of the time is that Columbus, Vespucci, Pinzon, Alonzo Negro, and Cortez do not speak of this valuable fruit, yet describe maize, the 240 agave, papaw, jatropha, and manioc. Garcilasso de la Vega stated that the food of the Incas consisted of potatoes, maize, and the banana. Perhaps the wonderful product of nature flourished in the virgin soil as the wild cherry in the forests of France and Germany, and the oak and linden tree, from remote antiquity, or was a great plant traveller in those remote days when the giant trees of Mariposa throve as the European Sequoia, and the camel of Bactria and Arabia originated in America. Eather would we believe that the west wind wafted a winged seed from the garden of Eden, like the ash and sycamore trees, or the thistle and dandelion families, sown by the rain drops in forest recesses of the Amazon tributaries, with the myrtles, cassia, mimosa, and bigonias, with golden flowers, as foster- mothers and sisters of the young shoot, until the first Indian stretched forth his hand, and, gathering the delicious ripened fruit, found it was good. Vespucci lifted his gaze in sleepless wonder to an unknown firmament, losing sight of familiar con stellations sinking below the horizon, searching new zones of nebulous masses, the glittering star-dust of the Milky Way, sweeping between Scorpion, Centaur, and the Cross, realising, however dimly, the tracks of intense, contrasting blackness and the phospho rescent Magellanic clouds circling around the desert, starless pole of the south. The memory of Ves pucci acquires a dignity of which all the petty detractions of posterity cannot rob him, in his THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 241 researches of the ancient science of astronomy in novel aspects during his voyages. He stands on board of his vessel, unaided by the modern telescope, himself only Pascal's feeble reed trembling in the midst of creation, but endowed with the power of thought, comprehending the vastness and durability of the stellar systems, and tracing out the relations of these bright luminaries of the heavens. Did Vespucci meditate on the utility of the log in that transit of four thousand miles across the ocean from South Georgia Island to Sierra Leone ? The log-line (la cantena a poppa) is attributed to the voyages of Magellan, as noting the speed of a ship by means of the eye, while Xavarette places it on English vessels in 1577. The perfected equip ment is supposed to have been devised in the six teenth century. On the other hand, Vespucci may have pondered on the contrivance used by measurers of ships employed by the Eoman republic; which consisted of wheels four feet high, with paddles, out side of galleys ; and Vetruvius explains a method of dropping stones through a toothed wheel as indicat ing progress. These four threads, the known voyages of Ves pucci, stretched from Spain and Portugal to America. He is supposed to have made a fifth, and even a sixth, transit, exploring the vicinity of Darien. Lost in the mists of obscurity the ship of Vespucci hovers like a phantom craft near that narrow road of isth mus as yet untrodden by the trains of mules bring- 16 242 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. ing loads of copper from Chili, ginger of Peru, and cacao of Guayaquil, for transport by sea, Cape Horn not having been doubled. Later, when forests were cut down, English whalers and corsairs frequented these waters, and tempting visions of establishing a trade with China began to haunt the mind of men, the monk Cure*, of the village of Novita. schemed in 1789 to make a tiny canal whereby the canoes loaded with his harvest of cacao, the money cur rency of Aztec kings, the beverage of a Montezuma, known as chocolate, when ground and mingled with maize and vanilla, should traverse the ravine of the Kaspadura to unite with the Eio San Juan, in the interior of the province of Choco. Did Vespucci make these last, even problematical voyages, in the interests of Spain, or of Portugal ? The phantoms of the two Indians whose corpses were cast up on the shore of the Azores hover in the sea mists of that remote time. The leader for every man is a leader in his sphere, or is led by the majority niay have been the first American setting forth to discover Europe. The dreams and projects of that Indian Columbus, or Vespucci, will never be known to us ; only his tragic fate of being washed up on the strand is clear. That he had ventured far in some frail craft, inspired by the bold ambition and ardent curiosity of the men of the century of other continents, is evident from the fact of his body's gaining a safe haven, unharmed by the buffeting of the waves, or the hunger of marine THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 243 monsters. We may readily imagine him to have been a young man, courageous and alert above his fellows, smooth-limbed, well-proportioned, with a bronze-tinted skin, a beardless cheek, and long eyes, imbuing his companion with his own ardent schemes of seeking a land beyond the seas, where all the con ditions of existence were delightful, the feathers and bone ornaments more plentiful, and seasons of famine never drove the inhabitants to subsist on the pith of trees, or to make and swallow clay-balls to appease hunger ; where, in fact, the harvest of gather ing the brazil-nuts was prolonged, with attendant feasting on roasted monkey and palm-wine. The brother, or friend, doubtless listened, and agreed to accompany him, marvelling where the young poet and hero had got his ideas of the world. Dim traditions of ancient America surely de scended to this son in some vague image of the white race as sons of the heaven, inspired by reli gious symbolism. The waves of successive migra tions came down to him, from the prehistoric inhabi tant of the inter-glacial period, the cave-dweller, who was ever an artist in his way, served by the reindeer and Arctic fox, those early settlers who crossed the Behring Straits on shallow ridges from Siberia, to the highly civilised Aztecs, Mayas, and Peruvians, and the restless Carib populations. The Indian has been pronounced culpably indif ferent to all feminine charms by Europe, but the native woman may have fired his imagination, as 244 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. the discoverer swung in his cotton hammock and smoked his cigar, by her graceful and mystical tra ditional lore. If the maidens did not soothe his reveries by songs learned from their grandmothers about the land to the east, as they strung necklaces of the plumage of the humming-bird, such as the beautiful Anacoana, the cacique's widow, composed^ the wise crones, nurses, and sorceresses, must have bewitched him by their flatteries of future greatness as they brewed subtle poisons from the juice of the plants in the gloaming. Courage was not lacking to undertake a long voyage, if necessary. The raft, called a jaugadas, which consists of seven pieces of light wood, eight metres in length, with a seat for the helmsman, lateen sails, and fishing-nets of cocoanut fibre, ven tures far on the waves. The pirogue of coast and river, drawn up in the rancho for safety, belongs to every household in Brazil. Instead of Vespucci's caravel the Indian explorer probably set forth in one of those large canoes of Yucatan, covered with a thatch of palm-leaves, with a store of plantains and bananas for provisions, and a few cocoa grains, as ready money. Had he a primitive astrolabe, an hour-glass, or any sort of almanac ? No doubt he esteemed the world as small, like Columbus, and reasoned that a chain of islands might extend from San Fernando Noronha, and the rocks of St. Paul to a vast continent. Had he succeeded in his enter prise and first-established relations from west to Fresco by Fra Angelica, in the Uffi{i Gallery. THE FOURTH VOYAGE. 245 east, disclosing himself to the old world as one of " the children of the leaves," he would have a place in history. He failed, sport of the storms of mid- ocean, was cast on the strand like an empty shell, and is forgotten. Did he sight the Azores, that group, crowned by the Peak of Pico, with Corvo and Flores lying to the north, Fayal, St. George, and Graciosa beyond, and St. Michael to the south, composed of volcanic cliffs, and valleys worn by torrents, where the kite that gave its Portuguese name Acor still soars high, and the Myrica fay a clothes the soil ? Was his boat capsized by the southeast trades of summer, or the heavy winter gales from the south-west ? The In dian was a message from America, mute amidst the wrack of the tide that brought pine-trees, gigantic rushes, and bits of carved wood. Let us hope the people of the Isle of Flores gave him Christian burial. His phantom shape haunts the mists of that period of early voyages. CHAPTEE XIII. A FOREIGNER. IN the year 1507 a group of men famous in history were gathered in the city of Burgos. These were King Ferdinand, the Catholic, and Amerigo Vespucci, Solis, and Pinzon, invited to court to form a board of navigation, construct charts, and trace new routes for projected voyages. King Ferdinand, from a worldly standpoint, had developed rare qualities of astuteness, his very cold ness, craftiness, and unscrupulousness in ambition serving the end of extending and strengthening the Spanish rule for his immediate descendants. Queen Isabella died in 1504, and he had been appointed regent of Castile, owing to the alleged incapacity of his daughter Joanna, as heiress of the throne. In 1500 he had made the treaty with Louis XII. of France by means of which the two sovereigns divided the kingdom of Naples. The great Captain Gonsalvo had previously sailed to Italy with a pow erful army, and, disputes speedily arising between the invaders, a war of four years' duration termi nated in the overthrow of the French, and the firm establishment of Spanish authority in the kingdom A FOREIGNER. 247 of Naples. The Treaty of Cambray was not signed until 1508. Physical infirmities and bereavements smote the monarch heavily. His son, Prince Juan, married to Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Max imilian, had died in 1497, the Princess of Portugal, two years later, and the loss of Queen Isabella fol lowed in due course of time. Gout, the terrible inheritance of his grandson, Charles V., rendered Ferdinand morbid and gloomy. He espoused Ger- maine de Foix, granddaughter of Queen Leonora of Navarre, and death speedily robbed him of an infant son. We behold King Ferdinand as a morose per sonality, discovering the vanity of human pride in all things, holding his court in the wind-swept, ancient town of Burgos, where memories of the Cid were still fresh, and the spires of the Cathedral then pointed to the stars. His humour was scarcely enliv ened by the volatile French bride, who flashes across our range of vision for a moment, as she landed at Savona in June weather from the Aragonese fleet, when the state galleys had carpets spread, and red and yellow awnings, and Louis XII., rendered amia ble by the payment of one million gold ducats in consideration of Germaine's receiving undisputed dowry of Naples, took the gay dame on a pillion behind him, great feasting on game and the wines of Corsica, Languedoc, and Provence resulting. Amerigo Vespucci had returned from his Portu guese service to Andalusia, and is believed to have married the Spanish lady, Maria Cerezo, about this 248 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. date. He was fifty-three years of age, and poor. Varnhagen's summary is just: "The man who had claimed the notice of two kings, who had been at the head of a large house of commerce, and asso ciated in the maritime enterprises of two superiors, furnishing a fleet with its armament, was only hon ored by his own indigence, as were most of the early navigators." The court was at Toros in 1505, where the Cortes of Castile had been convoked. Vespucci seems to have had a share in a plan of sending three ships to the land of spices in Asia, which was not carried into execution. A second project of building or refitting vessels in the Bay of Biscay was also without result. He may have accompanied Juan de la Cosa to the Gulf of Darien, which would explain his fifth voyage as under Spanish colors. The most active spirit of enterprise had awakened in Seville during the years since the clock of the Giralda had marked the hour when Vespucci's ambition to visit unknown lands was first aroused. In 1503 colonial affairs were regu lated here with a board of functionaries established, bearing the titles of factor, treasurer, and comp troller. A permanent residence was opened in the old Alcazar, where the members met daily to transact business. The council was expected to be acquainted with all matters of moment to the welfare of the colonies, and afford the government information respecting commercial prospects. Power to grant licenses under regular conditions, provide A FOREIGNER. 249 the equipment of fleets, determine the destination of ships, and furnish a code of instructions on sailing was accorded. All merchandise ready for exporta tion was deposited in the Alcazar, where return car goes were received, and contracts made on sales. Similar authority was conceded over the Barbary coast, and the Canary Isles, and a supervision over all vessels of Cadiz as well as of Seville, with other judicial powers arising out of prolonged voyages, and colonial trade in general. In furtherance of the latter aim two jurists were paid a government salary. Such were the rights of the famous House of Trade, Casa de Contratacion, circumscribed a trifle by the superior jurisdiction of the Council of the Indies. Seville became the mart of European traffic, as a port, and was the chief resort of the merchants of Flanders after the marriage of Joanna with the Duke of Burgundy. The tide of wealth flowed from Spanish America until the entry of 1802 reached 81,838,847 piastres of precious metals. Vespucci was one of the tools utilised by this vast and powerful system of commerce. Peter Martyr might well exclaim: "Amidst the storms and troubles of Italy, Spain every day stretched her wings over a wider sweep of empire, and extended the glory of her name to the far Antipodes." Also, the worthy man wrote : " I would wish never to quit Spain since I am here at the fountain head of tidings of the newly discovered lands, and where I may hope, as the historian of such great events, 250 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. to acquire for my name some renown with pos terity." The court removed to Burgos. Vespucci followed, bearing a letter of introduction from Columbus to his son Diego. This letter sheds a clear light on the character of Vespucci as held in esteem by his contemporaries. The silence, and even the gaps and discrepancies, in current history concerning a man prove little to his condemnation, but the sympa thy for his fellow-countryman expressed by Colum bus, and the lack of all resentment to Vespucci, subsequently manifested by Ferdinand Columbus, so jealous of the fame of his illustrious father after death, plainly reveal that neither the Genoese nor the Florentine meditated the usurpation of christen ing America on the part of the latter, as eventually transpired. It will be remembered that Columbus had fallen on evil times of disaster, failure, and sorrow, being required " to make head against a sea of trouble." He remained ill and infirm at Seville, and had sent his son Diego to court, awaiting couriers hour by hour, to bring news. He wrote : "Diego Mendez departed hence on Monday, the third of this month. After his departure I conversed with Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer of this, who goes there (to court), summoned on affairs of navigation. Fortune has been adverse to him, as to many others. His labours have not profited him so much as they reasonably should have done. He goes on my account, and with much desire to A FOREIGNER. 251 do something that may result to my advantage, if within his power. I cannot ascertain here in what I can employ him that will be serviceable to me, for I do not know what raay be there required. He goes with the determination to do all that is possible for me. See in what he may be of advantage, and co-operate with him ; that he may say and do everything to put his plan in operation ; and let all be done secretly, that he may not be suspected. I have said everything to him touching the business ; and I have informed him of the pay I receive." Vespucci, at the court of King Ferdinand in the closing years of his life, presents the most interest ing phase of his career. If he had been insufficiently recompensed for his services, his merits were evi dently appreciated in Spain. He was appointed pilot-major of the kingdom by a royal decree on March 22, 1508. In addition to holding this office he was assigned an annual pension at the same date. Cosa was nominated mayor of Urabk and the gold mines of that district at the time. The royal letter addressed to Vespucci (called Despuchi), was written at Valladolid on August 6. The important missive was ordered to be publicly read in all towns, vil lages, and hamlets of Spain, as charging Vespucci to examine pilots on the uses of the astrolabe, and the quarter-of-a-circle, to ascertain if they thoroughly united theory with practice, and to make out their certificates. He was further enjoined to perfect a chart on the model of that known as the Koyal Patent, subject to successive corrections and improve- 252 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. ments from information which all pilots returning from the Indies were expected to furnish the Casa de Contratacion at Seville. Vespucci was beginning to acquire a European reputation from the work of Hylacomylus, issued in 1507, and of which some copies must have reached Spain. He held the post of pilot-major for five years, and the distinction alone refutes calumny. The accusation that King Ferdinand did not encourage colonial enterprise as Queen Isabella had done, seems unjust if he maintained a board of pilots at Burgos, and the House of Trade at Seville. Amerigo Vespucci studied the maps of the globe as then known, and meditated on his own travels as confirming, or dispelling established theories. Chart making was estimated as an honourable calling, whether pursued by Christopher and Bartholomew Columbus, or Vespucci. The latter had ever been an eager student and collector of maps and globes. He is known to have paid one hundred and thirty ducats for a map of sea and land, made at Majorca in 1439 by Gabriel de Valsequa. He forged a link of the chain of geographical knowledge extending from remote antiquity when Egypt drew landscapes on rolls of papyrus, the Hindoos designated Thibet, Bokhara, and Persia as the sole countries of the earth, the Greeks made of cosmography a picture, the Eomans a tablet, and thence, aided by printing and engraving on wood and copper, to the slow evo lution of the modern map as projected by the latest A FOREIGNER. 253 International Congress, with three or four thousand sheets, on the scale of sixteen miles to an inch, and at a cost of 100,000. The rnappa-mundi spread out before the eyes of Vespucci, embracing the theory of a world disk, sur rounded by ocean, of Anaximander of Thales, 560 B. c., the first sphere invented four centuries later with a division of land and water, accepted down to the Middle Ages, the labours of the Arab geogra phers, Ebn Hankal in the tenth century, Edrisi in the twelfth, and all those quaint designs of a tiny world, with monsters and terrible shapes on the limits of Ultima Thule, still held ground. None would gainsay of King Ferdinand's pilots the fiat of Solon, read by the elder Pinzon among the manu scripts of the Vatican when he visited Eome under Innocent VIII. : " Navigate the Mediterranean Sea to the end of Spain in the direction north and south until 95 degrees of distance are reached when the land of Cipango will he found, fertile and abundant, in greatness equal to Africa and Europe." In the past, Strabo, Hipparchus, Polybius, Pompo- nius Mela, or Ptolemy, sending forth geography as a winged shape, with a torch in her hand, formed the first segments of the chain, with Martin Behain and Cosa near Vespucci. The forging of the links went on beyond his day, presiding at the council of the court of Burgos. The celebrated young men Walter Lud, Matthias Ringmann, and Waldseemuller, 254 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. dwelling at the town of St. Die* in the Vosges, took up their share of the work with unforeseen results. They studied to amend the work of Ptolemy under the patronage of Ke*ne* II. of Lorraine, at the same time that others at Vienna sought to improve the map of Mela, after reading the pamphlet of Ves pucci's second letter to Soderini, printed by the pub lisher Pacini of Florence, 1506, speedily translated into French, and propounded the idea : "But now these parts have been more extensively explored, and another fourth part has been discovered by Amerieus Vespucius (as will appear in what follows) : wherefore I do not see what is rightly to hinder us from calling it Amerige or America, that is, the land of Ameri eus, after its discoverer Amerieus, a man of sagacious mind, since both Europe and Asia have got their names from women." The name of the godfather was by no means thus hastily bestowed on a new world by Waldseemuller. A crowd of workers of the future pressed near Vespucci at Burgos, each lifting the veil of ob scurity a little, giving South America to the Flor entine ; according the lands of the King of Spain to Columbus ; finding a quarta pars of the globe con venient ; Schoner pondering over Terra Novis ; or the papal meridian dividing Brazil; until in 1541 the western hemisphere, by a sequence of events, became America. We find the place in history filled by Vespucci in sharp relief of contrast to his contemporaries, if Statue of Christopher Columbus. LRISTOFORO COLOMB A FOREIGNER. 255 detached from those immediate surroundings which are supposed to render a man the creature of circum stance. Columbus struggled with the daily tide of material events, sought to plant colonies on the shores of an unexplored continent without realising its extent, defended his family rights to enjoy titles, and exacted emoluments. Vespucci studied the stars and maps, holding aloof from the jealous con tention of colonists. He was not lacking in courage, as is evinced by his voyages, and dwelling and sleeping on shore with the Indians of Brazil in order to study their habits ; yet he was not the first comer, slain and eaten by the savages at Cape St. Koque ; nor did he perish of poisoned arrows in the forest, like the rash Ojeda and the veteran Cosa. If he did not enrich himself by exclusive trading for pearls and gold on the cost of Paria, neither was he disgraced by imprisonment on his return, on the suspicion of concealing some gems, as fell to the lot of other navigators. He was not an idle dreamer, roaming about the world, like the Venetian astrol oger Micer Codro, drawing evil auguries from the planets, and seeking the shapes of sorcery in Mela's antipodal realm, and dying on the shores of the new continent. He must have been prudent, sagacious, and temperate in his dealings with his fellow-men, and displayed the tact of good breeding. Amidst all the cloudy, unsatisfactory explanations of certain portions of his career, such as his latest expedi tions to Brazil and Darien, modern historians are 256 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. not lacking to suggest that because Columbus died in the conviction of having reached the Indies, it does not follow that Vespucci, who survived to 1512 held the same faith respecting the lands belonging to Asia, when in 1507 it was known otherwise to Hylacomilus, who called it a new world, and a fourth part of the earth. Varnhagen states : "Without detraction from the glory of Columbus, it would not be unfitting to justify still further the name of America, owing to these facts, if it could be proved that Vespucci was the first to recognise and sustain that the country discovered did not belong to ancient Asia." In one of his letters he alludes to the compilation of a work, which he intends to write, or has written, as a sort of diary or commonplace book, uno zibal- done, that " I entitle the ' Four Voyages,' in which I have related most of the things I have seen, . . . and I have reduced this into the form of a volume of geography." He also speaks of eventually retir ing to Florence, and dedicating his declining years to writing out his experiences. Had he done so he would have assuredly received a hearing from an enlightened world. Where is the manuscript of Amerigo Vespucci ? Probably irretrievably lost. It may belong to the category of projected tasks and half-matured schemes, of which men dream in this life, and which they never execute. A recording angel may note on his tablets such aspirations to fill the blessed repose of leisure, and a clearer insight of -A FOREIGNER. 257 thought in the spheres of eternity. The idea is attractive that some seeker will yet come upon the diary of Vespucci in the archives of the Castle of Simancas or Seville, jealously withheld by the King of Portugal, and still hidden in the Torre do Tombo at Lisbon, undestroyed by earthquake, or slumber ing forgotten on the shelves of a Florence library. Hope points to the Pandects of Justinian, unearthed at Amalfi ; to the treatise on the Government of Athens of Aristotle, discovered after two thousand years ; to the documents and maps of Carlo Zeno, found by his descendant Niccolo a century after his death. The Complutensian Polyglot Bible Cardinal Ximenes' work, aided by nine scholars skilled in ancient tongues, enriched by the treasures of the Vatican loaned by Leo X., and completed when printing was in its infancy left Molden- hauer to seek the original manuscript in 1784, and find that the librarian had just sold the precious sheets to a rocket-maker. How charming is the possibility that a woman may grasp the leaves of Vespucci's journal, if only in acknowledgment of the feminine christening of Asia, Europe, and America, even as the Duchess d' Abrantes noticed the vol ume bound in green parchment, attached by a red ribbon, bought by her maid in Italy for curl-papers, which proved to be the "Herbier " of Jean Jacques Eousseau, begun in the valley of Montmorency, with blank pages similar to those of Linnaeus for reflections. 17 258 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. " In a certain senso all men are historians, if only in the love of narrative, prophecy, and even the pouring forth of personal impressions and aspirations." Amerigo Vespucci died at Seville on the 22d of February, 1512, at the age of sixty-one years. His widow had a slender pension of ten thousand maravedis, which was paid by Solis, as the successor of Vespucci in office, from 1512 to 1516, and by Sebastian Cabot from 1518 to November 16, 1523. Dona Maria Cerezo died in 1524. Vespucci made a will at Seville, with Manuel Catano, canon, as testamentary executor. No trace of this document can be found in the archives. His nephew, Gio vanni Vespucci, pilot, son of his eldest brother, Antonio Vespucci, inherited his charts and papers. Vespucci was the foreigner, treated fairly, on the whole, but reaping the full tide of unchecked enmity after death, chiefly from succeeding generations. The echo of the lament of Abd-er-Eahman, in his poem to the palm-tree, might have sighed through the marble courts of the Alcazar at Seville, and swept over the tomb of the Florentine, as well : "Like me, thou art separated from relations and friends ; thou didst grow in a different soil, and now thou art far from the land of thy birth." CHAPTEE XIV. FOES AND FRIENDS. AMERIGO VESPUCCI had so many more foes than friends that the former naturally take precedence in any further consideration of his character. First ranks Las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa. This zealous missionary, born at Seville in 1474, presents to our contemplation, in his career, the strange phase of the complex and pliable human conscience of striving to befriend the Indian, and, at the same time, countenancing the introduction of African slaves into the colonies. His great work, Cronica de las Indias Occidentales contained too much infor mation offensive to the Spanish government for pub lication. As all the world of that date was made aware, in pious language, the indisputable rights of Spain to America were ten, as a concession clearly confirmed by God in many miracles, occupation by reason of the barbarous customs of the natives, their sins, the need of preaching and propagating Chris tianity, the obligation of obeying the dictation of Faith, the duty of disarming all infidels, and the donation of the Pope, whereby the sovereign Pontiff divided unknown lands with many notable results 260 AMERICA'S GODFATHEK. in the bull of the new meridian lines accorded to rival countries. Tale-bearing from those coral isl ands of the West about extortion, wrong, and brutal excesses on the part of paid servants of the Crown was to be promptly repressed. There was no free dom of the press in the day of Las Casas. Sad mischief was wrought by the good man with the fame of Vespucci ; nevertheless fruit of that ready- tongued murder of the reputation of those almost unknown and indifferent to us which we are told is so rife now as to disfigure the brotherly kind ness of Christian communities in a truly fratricidal spirit. Las Casas was irritated, on his return to Spain to find the name of America so frequently used in Europe, by Vadianus in his edition of Pomponius Mela, printed at Vienna, 1518, Schoner, Fries, Peter Bienewitz, and Sebastian Miinster, written in Latin and subsequently rendered into German, English, French, and Spanish. Sir Thomas More in his Utopia mentions Vespucci's voyages as in every man's hand. Las Casas deemed such renown a slight on the rights of Columbus which his son Ferdinand should have resented. The manuscript of Las Casas remained neglected and unpublished, until such authorities as Eamusio and Benzoni, both of whom might have shed some light of information on the matter, were dead. Then the Spanish his torian Herrera, utilising the materials of the work of the Indias Occident ales, made the first accusation FOES AND FRIENDS. 261 against Amerigo Vespucci's integrity by affirming that he had antedated his second voyage, under taken with Ojeda to Paria in 1499, in order to sup plant Columbus in the discovery of Terra Firma. Antonio Herrera y Fordesillas, born at Cuellar in 1549, was given the title of first historian of the Indies and of Castile by Philip II. In 1601 he published his " History of the Acts of the Castilians on the islands and Terra Firma of the ocean from 1492 to 1554." Dr. Eobertson praises his work for accuracy and candour, and it has served as a guide for later historians in treating of that period. Assuredly modern humanity may well learn the modesty of self-distrust from such warning exam ples ! The possibility of Herrera's being in error, careless in research, or influenced by relationship with the family of the descendants of Columbus, does not seem to have occurred to the Anglo-Saxon mind, at least, down to our day, for a moment of doubt. Did worthy Dr. Eobertson, commending the Spanish historian Herrera, and condemning the Florentine gentleman Vespucci, seek original arch ives in Spain to verify dates and facts, as Mr. Froude and Mr. Freeman would have done ? Herrera, with access to the national documents, and the various trials in the affairs of the Indies, as the fountain source of information sought by subsequent authors on the subject of America, launched his arrow of accusation at the memory of Vespucci as a fine rascal, who usurped the glory of another for the 262 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. benefit of the Portuguese. He affirmed that when Vespucci voyaged with Ojeda the treacherous Flor entine was actually in the service of Portugal. Dis crediting dates, Herrera found discrepancies in the name of Lariab as meaning the coast of Paria, a topic for endless dispute with posterity. Incredulity of all merits speedily ensued. For two centuries and a half mankind accepted the state- merits of Herrera, and taught their children that Vespucci had artfully cheated Columbus, and got his own name imposed on the western hemisphere by unfair means. Francesco Lopez de Gomara is reproached with ignoring the very existence of Amerigo Vespucci, passing over the discoveries of Columbus as a con temporary, making mention of Ojeda only as a sol dier who fought against the Cacique Caonabo, while striving to count the hairs in the beard of Monte- zuma instead, and describing such miracles as the appearance of St. lago, in battle, for the Castilians, mounted on a fiery steed. Other writers of the period were equally obscure and unsatisfactory. Nava- rete was inimical to Vespucci to the extent of employing a facetious vein with reference to the description of the iguana as a mere idle travellers' tale. He states : " It is not easy to imagine what kind of serpent it can have been, as big as a kid, and with wings and feet, and may be only one of Vespucci's many absurdities (uno de los muchos absurdos de Vespucci en sus relaciones)." FOES AND FKIENDS. 263 Thus readily did the fame of Vespucci become a shuttlecock of the nations, tossed about by Spanish and Portuguese national jealousies in the main, pos sibly, followed by others. France polished the weapon of fine wits on his reputation, in ready and envious depreciation, without scruple. Charlevoix was condemnatory, not hesitating to pronounce Ves pucci a usurper, a liar, a stranger without character. He says : "Amerigo, on his return to Europe, published a state ment in which he had the audacity to advance that he, first of all, had discovered the continent of the new world, and his word had so much credit, although refuted by gen. eral knowledge, that his name was given to that fourth part of the earth which alone equalled, if it did not surpass, the three other portions in size and richness." Francesco Bartolozzi indignantly inquires where is the published relation which proves the calumni ous assertion. Antoine de Latour also wrote : " In 1499, on a little fleet equipped by a former com panion of Christopher Columbus, Don Alfonso de Ojeda, sailed in the capacity of simple merchant the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci, a skilful geographer, who, on the chart of the new world which he prepared, had the address to glide his own name into the place of Columbus. History has corrected the error in her annals, but the cruel wrong has remained on the map." Portugal has cast her stone at the Florentine in the Viscount de Santarem, who has attempted to 264 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. demolish all claims of Vespucci to consideration on the score of veracity, by admitting only the truth of the latter's ever having made his second voyage. Thence the shuttlecock was tossed to Italy many years ago. Genoese rivalry met Florentine pride of patriotism in one of those duels of little States, with partisans north and south readily taking sides, which ever rent the land. This was civil war of the poet and historian, the strife of Guelph and Ghibelline factions in the university, the forum, the club, rather than a struggle on a wider field. The Marchese Gino Capponi suggests : " They say the century of Leo X. ; why not rather that of Julius II. 1 America should have been named after Columbus instead of Vespucci, to whom was given, as to Leo,' a greater prize of fortune than ought to have been ap portioned either. Both merited the second honour, and ob tained the first ; two Florentines thus robbed two Genoese.'* The learned Capponi further mentions in his writings Cluverius, Hoffmann, Vossio, Spondano, Tuano, Genebrando, Bafio, Mellini, and Leandro Alberti, especially in nautical and astronomical science, as adverse to Vespucci. Napione must be added to the list. The erudite Tiraboschi has discussed the probity of Vespucci at great length. We endeavour to gather a few brief paragraphs from his deductions, which must have been so fatal in the public mind to America's godfather from the very reputation for justice of the author. FOES AND FRIENDS. 265 Girolamo Tiraboschi was born in 1731, became professor of Ehetoric at Milan, and in 1770 was appointed Librarian of the Duke of Modena. The eminent Jesuit reasons thus : " Here are offered to our examination two points very much involved, about which much has been written by many, but nothing has yet been ascertained in a mode to remove every doubt. I am very far from being an arbiter in these contests ; and even if I wished to be so, I should have no copy of documents which would make it of profit. I shall only present the reasons that each party brings forward, and say sincerely which of them appears to me to be the best founded, leaving each to his own judgment. " Singularly enough, the points on which the dispute rests are two. The first is : Was Amerigo the first to discover terra firma in America, or did Columbus forestall him 1 The second, If he was truly the chief and leader of the fleet which was sent to America, or merely a simple passenger who went on board spontaneously. But that Columbus had already discovered the continent, we have too many proofs to longer doubt. Passing over the testi mony of Ferdinand, his son, which might be suspected, and all the Spanish writers who attribute such glory to Columbus, let us bring forward two contemporary witnesses, to whom none can take exception. The first one is Peter Martyr Anghiera, who was then in Spain, and wrote of things as they successively occurred. He discusses the landing of Columbus on the shores of Paria in the month of July, 1498, and states that he believed it to be terra Jirmti, which, however, every one did not so believe. The other proof is the relation of the voyages of Columbus, 266 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. printed at the beginning of the following century, which affirms that Columbus with his companions arrived at a large extent of land. It is therefore certain that Colum bus had reached the land called Paria, afterward known surely to be the continent, which continent was entire America, and not an island. It remains to be seen, therefore, which of these two Italians arrived there first, Columbus or Vespucci. " Columbus, by the testimony of all, landed there in July, 1498. Vespucci, in his relation, states that he left Cadiz, May 10, 1497, and afterward, relating his arrival at the Canaries, adds : ' At the end of thirty-seven days, we were in possession of a land which we considered terra firma? (Life and Letters of Amerigo Vespucci, p. 6.) If these dates are true, it is evident that Vespucci reached land a year before Columbus. But all the Spanish writers, followed by many others, accuse Vespucci of falsehood, and say that he anticipated the period of his journey in order to claim the glory of such a discovery, and that he did not undertake his first voyage until May, 1499, at which time Vespucci himself recounts that he embarked for the second time toward the West Indies. If these accusations are true, it must be allowed that Vespucci may have entirely invented his first voyage, and there remains for him no subterfuge whatever, being merely an impostor, which he is called, indeed, by the above-mentioned writers. I should like to free him from such an odious accusation, but must confess that in this first voyage one meets with no slight difficulties. We have before observed that Columbus, in 1496, had returned to Spain, after his second voyage, to free himself before the king and queen of the crimes imputed to him by his enemies ; and he fortunately FOES AND FKIENDS. 267 succeeded in this, for with his mere appearance all accusa tions vanished, or melted away; and received at court with great honours, he began to prepare for a third voyage, which he afterward undertook in May, 1498. Columbus was therefore in Spain when Vespucci recounts that he had been sent by King Ferdinand to discover new lands in 1497; and he was welcomed at court, and accorded the privileges already conceded to viceroys and governor- generals of all the countries found. Now, while Colum bus was himself in that kingdom, and in such favourable circumstances, who can believe that if another was given charge of continuing the discoveries, that he would have tranquilly suffered such an injury, or not had power to hinder it 1 How did it happen that no one, save Vespucci himself, left any record of such a fact ? It may be said that the Spanish writers were jealous of the renown of a stranger, and preserved a malicious silence. But Colum bus was equally a foreigner to them, as well as Vespucci. I desire that such proofs might be found as would justify Vespucci fully, and cancel every suspicion in regard to his first voyage. . . . " Not less difficult to solve is the other question, as to whether Vespucci was chief of the fleet sent to America, or a simple passenger. The Spanish writers, after having proved that only in 1499 was Vespucci sent to the new world, recount that when the news of the discovery of the continent, made by Columbus on his third voyage, reached Spain, the bishop of Badajoz, then minister at the court of Ferdinand and an enemy of Columbus, seized this oppor tunity to injure him, and had sent to Alfonzo d* Ojeda letters-patent (signed only with his name, and not those of the two sovereigns, however), in which Ojeda was 268 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. appointed to go in search of the new continent and other countries ; in this mode seeking to diminish the authority of Columbus, who, being at San Domingo, could not know what was being plotted against him in Spain. The leadership of this fleet was attributed to Ojeda and La Cosa ; and to Vespucci they only allude as a simple pas senger, who later usurped the praise of the exploit. The defenders of Vespucci, on the contrary, give him all the credit. Vespucci himself, to tell the truth, only speaks of his part with moderation. In the account of his voyages he says : l The King, Don Ferdinand of Castile, wishing to send four ships to discover new lands toward the west, I was selected by his Highness to go with this fleet to aid in the discovery.' Therefore in this, as in the second voyage, he speaks in the plural, as 'we went/ 'we landed,' etc. . . In no place does Vespucci mention Ojeda, or La Cosa, as it seems a sincere writer should have done. " What ought we to think, then, of such opposing testimony 1 To me it appears probable that Vespucci was merely a simple passenger in this expedition, interested in the equipment and traffic, but that the knowledge he possessed of astronomy at that date not common rendered him useful to the captain and pilots, and that he was held in great esteem among them. This seems to me probable from the manner in which Peter Martyr alludes to him, not as among the discoverers of America, but as a man skilled in astronomy and cosmography. "In the second place, I reflect that in the year 1507 Vespucci was appointed to live at Seville, as related by the authors of the ' Storia dei Viaggi/ on the authority of Herrera, so as to designate the routes to be followed in navigation ; and that he had the honourable title of FOES AND FRIENDS. 269 chief pilot, with the right to call all pilots before him for examination, and an annual pension of 75,000 maravedis (small money of about seven denari Venetian), a title and pension sufficient for a man learned in the science of navigation, but very inferior to the merit of a leader and discoverer of the continent of the new world. But the employment given to Vespucci afforded him the opportu nity to render his name immortal by attaching it to the newly discovered provinces. As he designed the maps for navigation, he began by giving those countries his own name, America ; and this title, used by navigators and pilots, became universal. The Spaniards subsequently lamented this giving of his name, but the above-quoted writers state that 'their regrets did not hinder the new world from being called by this name ; and whether Amerigo had any right to it or not, it is now too late to combat the fact after such a long possession/ " There remains only to state briefly the relation that Vespucci has himself given of the period and end of his voyages. Besides others mentioned previously, we have only his account of the third voyage, undertaken by him in the year 1501, in the name of the King of Portugal. An abridgment was published, written by him, of all four of his voyages, which previous to that of Ramusio was given to the light by Simone Grineo in his 'Novus Orbis,' printed at Basle in 1537. Finally, the Canon Bandini, having found the Italian originals of all these accounts, presented them to the public. . . . They are the compila tion of his four voyages, written in a letter addressed to Pietro Soderini, although usually found premised with the name of Rene King of Jerusalem, and Duke of Lorraine. There followed the letter of Vespucci to Lorenzo Pier di 270 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Francesco de' Medici (not the Magnifico), in which he relates his second voyage in 1499. After this comes the account of the journey of Vasco da Gama to the East Indies, in 1497, already published several times, but with out knowing it was the work of Amerigo. . . . " What is most to be regretted is that usually Vespucci does not name the places he saw, save with the general name of port, or island, which renders these records of much less value to geography than would be the case had he more distinctly designated the places of the region. The two other voyages were undertaken for the King of Portugal. He recounts himself that, being in Seville, the King Emmanuel sent to invite him to his court. ... He narrates the successes of these voyages, made in May, 1501, the result of which (according to himself) was the dis covery of Brazil, a province which, although not named by him, is clearly indicated by its situation, five degrees from the equinoctial line toward the south. But here again new adversaries rise against Vespucci. The Spanish writers, especially Herrera, affirm that at the time Vespucci pretended to visit Brazil he was with Ojeda in the Gulf of Uraba, or Darien, and that it was on his second voyage on Spanish ships. On the other side, Portuguese writers contend that Brazil was first discovered by their own Pietro Alvarez de Cabral in 1500. That Vespucci sailed to South America by commission of the King of Portugal is certain from the testimony of Peter Martyr, a contemporary writer, and well versed in such matters. He alludes to navigating maps which he had seen. ... I wish that some day there might be found such indisputable proofs as would clear of all doubts the life of this celebrated Florentine, who perhaps has been too much praised by some, and too much blamed by others." FOES AND FRIENDS. 271 The image of the Professor of Ehetoric, Tiraboschi, rises before us, spectacles on nose (if he wore spec tacles), gravely deploring the lack of accuracy in the hastily written letters of Vespucci, which have been criticised by the world for centuries, and embellished and corrected by more than one hand. Probably in our day Vespucci would have sent a telegram to Soderini from the Canaries, announcing his safe arrival, or have employed the services of the type writer of the hotel, reserving his more valuable and accurate material for the book he intended to write. These poor letters have been transcribed, translated, and amended, from Fra Gioconda's Mundus Novus to the spurious missive relating to the second voyage of the Biblioteca Eiccardiana of Florence, proved not to be older than the seventeenth century by the paper and ink used, which deceived Humboldt, who examined it, as genuine, in his criticisms, as well as Bandini. The ability of the germ of these negli gent epistles charmed the public, arousing such an interest as possibly induced Pope Leo X. to sit up all night reading aloud the work of Peter Martyr's Oceana to his sister and the cardinals, an interest in the new world which may be said to have lasted ever since. As regards inaccuracies in any written record of the time, the original of Ferdinand Colum bus' History of the Admiral was lost, a translation into Italian having previously been made by Alonzo de Ulloa, and subsequently rendered again in Span ish full of errors in dates, distances, and proper 272 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. names, as it exists in Barcia's collection. What hand effaced the title of the great work of Don Fernando Columbus on his tomb in the Seville cathedral ? The British historian, Dr. Kobertson, thus con demns America's godfather: "Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine gentleman, accom panied Ojeda in this voyage. In what station he served is uncertain ; but as he was an experienced sailor, and eminently skilful in all the sciences subservient to naviga tion he seems to have acquired such authority among his companions that they willingly allowed him to have a chief share in directing their operations during the voyage. Soon after his return he transmitted an account of his adventures and discoveries to one of his countrymen, and labouring with the vanity of a traveller to magnify his own exploits, he had the address and confidence to frame his narrative so as to make it appear that he had the glory of having first discovered the continent of the new world. Amerigo's account was drawn up not only with art but with some elegance. It contained an amusing history of his voyage, and judicious observations upon the natural productions, the inhabitants, and customs of the countries which he visited. As it was the first description of any part of the new world that was published, a performance so well calculated to gratify the passion of mankind for what is new and marvellous circulated rapidly, and was read with admiration. The country of which Amerigo was supposed to be the discoverer came gradually to be called by his name. The caprice of mankind, often as unaccountable as unjust, has perpetuated this error. By the universal consent of nations America is the name FOES AND FRIENDS. 273 bestowed on this new quarter of the globe. The bold pretentions of a fortunate impostor have robbed the dis coverer of the new world of a distinction which belonged to him. The name of Amerigo has supplanted that of Columbus, and mankind may regret an act of injustice which, having received the sanction of time, it is now too late to redress." ("History of America," book ii. page 79.) A further argument against Vespucci of Dr. Eobertson adds : "It is remarkable that neither Gomara nor Oviedo, the earliest Spanish historians on America, attributes to Vespucci the discovery of the continent of America. Some pretend that these writers were silent designedly on his achievements, but Martyr and Benzoni (both Italians) cannot be accused of the same partiality." Such is the logical British condemnation. Wash ington Irving only drifted with the popular tide in this perplexing controversy, giving the usual version of the Ojeda expedition in the third volume of his "Life of Columbus": " Among the number was the celebrated Americo Vespucio, a Florentine merchant who was considered well acquainted with geography and navigation. . . . Such was the expedition which by a singular train of circum stances eventually gave the name of this Florentine mer chant, Americo Vespucio, to the whole of the new world." Also, in the appendix of the same work it is curious to note how readily Irving falls into the error of finding it impossible that Vespucci made a 18 274 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. first voyage in 1497, of accepting the letter pub lished in Latin at St. Die*, in 1507, as dedicated to King Ke'ne', a personage with whom Vespucci never came in contact, and dwells on the gross inaccura cies which have been judiciously corrected by the modern authors who have inserted these letters in their works. His summary is this : " It has been the endeavour of the author to examine this question dispassionately ; and after considering the state ments and arguments advanced on either side, he cannot resist a conviction that the voyage stated to have been made in 1497 did not take place, and that Vespucci has no title to the first discovery of the coast of Paria." One would infer that all things were possible in Spain, where a Madrid butcher sold meat wrapped up in Oviedo's first folio, and valuable documents are known to have been scattered and, lost. Not less strange have been the reticences of men. Columbus and his son are reputed to have made.no mention of Marco Polo, who led to the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, and Sir John Mandeville, while learning wisdom from the writings of Pope Pius II., and Cardinal d'Ailly. Emerson condemned Vespucci : " Strange that broad America must wear the name of a thief. Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle-dealer at Seville, who went out in 1499, a subaltern with Hojeda, and whose highest naval rank was boatswain's mate in an expedition that never sailed, managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus and baptise half the earth with FOES AND FRIENDS. 275 his own dishonest name." (John Fiske's " History of America," vol. ii. p. 162.) Why a pickle-dealer, when Vespucci was well known to have been an agent of the Medici, and to have fitted out ships ? If the philosopher who gave as the key-notes of life self-respect, self-control, and self-reliance, formed so hasty a judgment concerning a man worthy of his respect, inferior minds may well be pardoned for accepting the unreasoning pre judices of public opinion. Nothing is easier than to persuade the world that a man is culpable instead of a hero. Travellers are usually stigmatised as untruthful by the comforta ble home-staying element. Herodotus was deemed an early liar. Marco Polo was besought by friends and spiritual advisers, on a bed of illness, to recant some of the marvels he had told of far-famed Cathay, and not seek to enter heaven with a soul burdened by so many falsehoods. The Venetian stoutly main tained he had not told the half of his adventures. Possibly he took sufficient umbrage at the dulness of his kinsfolk on the occasion to refrain from all mention of the great wall of China, or tea. John Cabot was discredited by the men of Bristol as a foreigner. Fernao Mendez Pinto, who visited Japan, became a synonymous term for general mendacity on the strength of Congreve's lines in " Love for Love": "Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude." 276 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. We are familiar with the European scepticism re specting the gorilla, the half-mythical monster of African forest depths. How may we determine that in the near future the enterprising English explorer who listens to the talk of the monkey-folk may not resolve such seeming chatter into a language taught in the schools, and eternal disgrace fall to the por tion of a playful Navarette disposed to ridicule all iguanas as innovations ? The defence of Vespucci is conclusive. We like to place Alexander Von Humboldt as the great arbiter of the reinstatement of the Florentine gentle man, finding, indeed, many "unjustifiable supposi tions, at first," in his " Examen Critique," but readily welcoming the researches of a fresh mind in Varn- hagen, in old age, with the liberality of a fine nature. The first defender of Vespucci was Ferdinand Columbus. Not only did he refrain from blame of Vespucci, but he is known to have had amicable re lations with him and his nephew. His moderation has puzzled the most hostile accusers. He had a copy of the " Cosmographia Introductio " in his library for eighteen years, read and annotated the volume with care, without protest of the suggestion of Waldseemiiller to name Brazil America in honor of Vespucci, when he was ever ready to attack a rival of his father. His acquiescence proves that he knew all about the voyages, and interpreted them in the best light. FOES AND FRIENDS. 277 The florid praises of Bandini are well known, and the eulogy of Canovai. The latter gives some grace ful thoughts to his much abused compatriot : " The Spaniards, ever eager to enrich themselves, had no sensibility for the beauties of America, but are like the mammon of Milton, forgetting every other felicity of the sky, who remains with his eyes fixed on the golden pavement. . . . The thirst for gold awakened the thirst for blood, as cruel ones kill the innocent bee to possess the honey ; we see violence and murder together carrying in the hand the lightning and the knife, more fierce than wolves, more barbarous than tigers. . . . The conviction that they had found the Terrestrial Paradise in America was shared both by Columbus and Vespucci ; but Columbus speaks of it with a coarse fanaticism which inspires compassion, while Amerigo evinces a delicacy and a sobriety which do honour to his good sense. ... In Brazil Amerigo displayed the talents of a Theophrastus and a Pliny. Galileo and Ves pucci, to quote Averani, have proved that one cannot lift the gaze to the heavens, or lower it to the earth again without beholding the glory of Florentines." "The history of mankind is the history of its great men," says Carlyle. " To find out these, clear the dirt from them, and place them on their proper pedestal is the function of the historian. He cannot have a nobler one." Such has been notably the achievement of three keen and clear minds of our time, Varnhagen, John Fiske, and Harrisse. It must be a matter of national pride that the last two students were born 278 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. on American soil. These, laboriously seeking in formation at the source, and disentangling the skein of years, with a well-directed blow of inquiry at supposed authority have shattered the house of cards built on the sands by the foes of Vespucci. Doubtless public opinion, with the facility of a shallow river, will henceforth shift its channel and readily perceive how impossible it was that Ves pucci intended any deception as to the number of his voyages and the course pursued in them. M. Harrisse states in his " Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima " : "After a diligent study of all the original documents, we feel constrained to say that there is not a particle of evidence, direct or indirect, implicating Americus Ves- pucius in an attempt to foist his name on this continent." Oh, earthly fame ! What is it worth as the dust of centuries gathers on the tomb of a man wronged by his kind, in the endeavour to tarnish reputation, and falsely attribute to him deeds done after his death ? If we may think of Amerigo Vespucci in some shadowy sphere as a phantom musing apart on his own career, while another Dante passes by with pensive salutation of a Florentine, it is assur edly in the conviction of his rejoicing that the tardy laurel crown of a universal restitution has been proffered him by Americans. CHAPTEE XV. A SHRINE OF MEMORIES. THE brown tower of the Church of Ognissanti at Florence rises in slender and graceful outline on the blue sky. At dawn the bells rang out a greeting to the Easter day of the month of March, an early festival of a cloudless winter of smiting sunshine, highways deep in white dust, and a rainless year. Mute since the sepulchre was decked with flowers and the ivory-white sprays of vetch on Holy Thurs day, and the Miserere chanting of Good Friday in this faded old sanctuary, with its famous frescoes and tile pavement of humid bricks, the note of the bells is full and rich, marking with vibrating into nations the passage of time in the softly lapsing years. At six o'clock in the morning the first Mass of the day is celebrated, and no good citizen, rich or poor, of the Vespucci quarter of the town will fail to attend, if only to reap a benediction on his indi vidual career for the ensuing twelvemonth. A priest waits in the sacristy at this early hour to bless the harvest of eggs, boiled hard, and peeled of the shell, presented by the faithful. The function lasts until noon, and all the parish obeys the sum mons. The burly butcher brings his store to the 280 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. altar-steps, as does his neighbor the wine-merchant, and even the vegetable-dealer (the ortolano), who has a little den of a shop, stocked with salad, cab bages, artichokes, onions, and tomatoes further along the grimy length of street, fetches a platter of eggs to be sanctified with an eye to business, and for the benefit of religious-minded customers during the festa. Every one will partake of the Pascal lamb for dinner in celebration of the great anniversary of the springtime. How many hundreds of years ago Amerigo Ves pucci emerged from the family mansion of his race, now the hospital, in the early morning, in response to the peal of the bells from some sanctuary of the parish ! The church and monastery of the Mino rites of Ognissanti were not completed for another century. What huge baskets of eggs from the coun try property must have been carried by the servants of a large household on such an occasion ! Amerigo first arose for the Mass of six o'clock, as a child, led forth by his mother, delighted with the crowds, the bustle of preparation, the spectacle of the day in store, the feasting on the country produce. Later he walked with the men in a more desultory and perfunctory manner, having attained the dignity of adolescence, when one seeks furtively for the down of beard on lip and cheek, and renders one's voice as deep and gruff as possible, especially in speaking to the women and girls, disposed to pet one unduly. The fairies that wove their spells around the cradle A SHRINE OF MEMORIES. 281 of the infant Vespucci bore the gift of an Easter egg unparalleled in the rich and varied history of Florence and of Europe, containing the puppet America, dusky-hued, decked with beads, feathers, and gold ornaments, the like of which no man had yet seen. On the Easter morning of March the church and the Vespucci quarter are full of memories. The festival and the worshippers are alike unchanged. The old gentleman, whose boast it is that the blood of the Vespucci flows in his veins, is punctilious in attendance on the Mass of six o'clock. He is ac companied by his servant carrying a discreetly small covered basket of the blessed eggs. Neither master nor man is especially devout, each holding many modern sceptical ideas, but they do not fail in observ ance of this custom of celebrating the symbolical rites of the egg with all the world of Greeks and Roman Catholics. Their dwelling, situated in a dark nook in the shadow of the hospital, bears traces of having been one of the city towers now incorporated in the massive masonry of surrounding buildings, yet retaining certain characteristic fea tures of the original construction. The walls are of stone, the interstices filled with a durable cement of lime and gravel, while irregular apertures indi cate the loopholes from which the arrows of cross bows were discharged at assailants in the day of Amerigo Vespucci. The narrow door has heavy posts of wood, with a bust of St. John in terra- 282 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. cotta above, as guardian of the habitation, the case ments are protected with rusty iron gratings, and the parapet is ornamented with square machicola tions. The heavy arch adjacent, now used as a shop by the dealer in oil, maccaroni, and maize-flour, once led to the stables where the steeds of the Middle Ages were sheltered in readiness for a fray, or journeying to Home, and over the mountain passes of Bologna to northern Italy. In the history of Florence such strongholds are affirmed to have been first adopted by the Etruscans, as places of shelter and defence. The nobles of the tenth century began to attach the towers to their rude habitations, and in the twelfth century the town boasted of more than one hundred. In 1247 the Arno capital was divided into six quarters (sestieri), and, feuds constantly arising, the citizens fought each other from house to house. Thus the fastnesses of the Uberti were situated near the Palazzo Vecchio, those of the Abati, Telesei, Ginochi, and Galigari were massed about the Porta San Pietro and the Scarafaggio, while the Tosinghi held a place adjacent to the Church of San Pancrazio, and the lofty pinnacle of the Adimari threatened to demolish the baptistery in its fall. If the feudal shell imbedded in the labyrinth of build ings of a crowded quarter does not possess the stately proportions of the turret of the Gianfigliazzi family on the Piazza Santa Trinita, retain the historic value of the tower on the site of Dante's birthplace, or have the religious associations of that of St. Zeno- Loggia de Lantf. A SHRINE OF MEMORIES. 283 bius on the Via Por Santa Maria often decked with flowers, on occasion it becomes resplendent. When the birthday of the queen is celebrated the tower is lighted from cellar to battlements with wax- torches held in the iron rings and sockets of the masonry, as in the Middle Ages, the humblest arti san still making his modest casement glow with red and white, the colours of the commonwealth, while palaces sparkle with crowns of tinted flame, and clusters of stars in the brackets of filagree iron work set at the angles of the walls. To-day the populace may gather in the glare of electricity to listen to the harmonies of a military band in the Loggia de' Lanzi of the Piazza Signoria; the wax- torches flickering on the old tower mark a date when the people sought the same spot to witness a dis play of artificial fires, and dance, and sing, to the music of the flutes, viols, cymbals, and trumpets, in lieu of the melodies of Donizetti and Verdi. The old gentleman dwells modestly on the first floor, his manage suggestive of the frugality which astonished Francesco Cibo in the daily habits of his father-in-law, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Like such Parisians as Auber he never quits the town, except for a fortnight at the mineral springs of Montecatini, and an autumn visit to a relative in the Val d'Arno at the vintage. He sips his cup of black coffee of a morning, dines at four o'clock, and seeks club or theatre for evening recreation, indifferent to sultry heat and bitter cold. The servant is also an old 284 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. Florentine, witty, tolerant, and economical. Neither feudal retainer of some country estate, nor foster brother of his employer, he is a brigadier of cara- binieri, retired on a pension. He can brown, crisply, a frittata, compose a salad, polish weapons and carved furniture, mend porcelain, and write letters, flowery and courteous in tone, with many felicitous turns of expression. His superiority is acknowl edged by the entire neighbourhood on all questions of politics and municipal rules. He belongs less to the class of Montanelli's portrait of Stentorello, as the typical Tuscan valet, sly, unfaithful, and a glib liar even, than the British menial, who, after the Plague of 1350, is reputed to have waxed inde pendent, and demanded higher wages. The ex- brigadier sews together the leaves of the serial printed in the daily journal, to read at his leisure during summer hours, spectacles on nose, seated in the doorway on the street. Eeturned from church the old gentleman gravely selects an egg from the basket, and eats it, after which the domestic retires to a cellar larder with the remainder, and consumes his portion. The wizard emerges suddenly from a crooked alley where he has an abode in the rear of the hospital buildings. He seeks the Church of Ognissanti on Easter morning to repeat a prayer, and issues forth with several blessed eggs secured in a red pocket- handkerchief. He is a most fantastic figure in a coat of bottle-green tint, with capes, an odd cap, A SHRINE OF MEMORIES. 285 tinted goggles, and gaiters. Once a week he makes a round of adjacent streets, blows on a brass trumpet, and pauses to bow to the public, begging for alms. Wind, storm, and August heat bring this weird old man with the punctuality of the sun. He does not don the brown robe of the mediaeval astrologer, with signs of the zodiac wrought on the girdle, but he carries thin sheets of paper, red and green, for sale, in the wallet slung over his shoulder. What cab alistic devices of magic are printed on these leaflets? Are they combinations of lucky numbers for the weekly drawing of the lottery, in guise of wheels of fortune ? Are they symbols of the Twelve Houses of Heaven, and their powers ? Do they indicate the influences of the Dragon's head or tail, the sway of the Seven Planets, with reference to the day of birth in a series of figures, designating whether under Mars one will quarrel with kindred, be sub ject to gout and apoplexy if Jupiter is in a bad aspect, and reap wealth from the sea under the smiles of Venus ? The brass trumpet yields a mar tial note, the wizard bends his head before the keen tramontane wind, while his reedy voice quavers forth : - " Good health and long life, ladies and gentlemen ! " Has he not drunk of a subtle elixir compounded of hellebore, sage, rue, mace, or gillyflowers to pro long his years ? Is he not a sort of Wandering Jew, uncanny, mysterious, forgotten by death, who may have been here when Amerigo Vespucci was a boy ? 286 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. In a shabby house overlooking the hospital build ings lives the upholsterer. Humblest drudge of the carpet-mending, wool-beating, and mattress- sewing class, he is a tiny, bent old man, who creeps forth to pray, at dawn, in the Church of Ognissanti, summoned by the bells. For what boon does he pray, as the sands ebb in the hour-glass, unless for the daily crust of a hunger-pinched household, shared with the patient son and pale daughter who has coughed for weary years ? On Easter day he carries three eggs to the sanctuary in a napkin. The fineness of the damask, and the bow of ribbon, suggest the display of linen made by proud house wives on the festa through Tuscany. The old flower-vendor pauses to nibble half of a sanctified egg, for that is sufficient to ensure a bless ing on a Christian, and saves the other half in a morsel of paper as he prepares to sally forth on his daily round of the Piazza Manin, and the Arno quarter beyond. He has the smiling face of an old child. In winter he wears a blue military cloak, and tilts a green cotton umbrella over his shoulder in a rainy season. The harvest of his basket marks the calendar of the year in the Flower City. Jan uary has branches of holly, but defies frost with sprays of heliotrope, snowdrops, and masses of scarlet plebeian geranium ; autumn blooms in mari golds, tuberoses, and chrysanthemums, gold, tawny- brown, creamy-hued; and now early spring over flows the receptacle with Lenten lilies, primroses, A SHRINE OF MEMORIES. 287 hyacinths in pyramids of exquisite bells, pink, lav ender, and flesh-colored, and violets ; while summer will be fragrant with bundles of fresh herbs to tempt housekeepers, after the butterfly throng of strangers has flown away. In mid-summer colour and scent are replaced by fruit, pears, figs, peaches, lemons, and pomegranates, seeds, and nuts, where with to tempt an occasional small boy, who, as a Florentine, will by no means waste his pennies on flowers. At times the Fiorajo carries, gun-wise, a bough of pink almond blossoms, bunches of red poppies, and the iris, with delicate silken petals rolled in a sheath of envelope resembling paper, and clusters of alabaster white lilies. He knows that foreign ladies will madly essay to paint these per ishable models on vase and screen. He has a quirk and a jest for everybody, but he does not wheedle, or complain, and evinces a quiet self respect. Busi ness is not so -bad, and the weather never too in clement, although he admits that the December morning was a trifle chilly when he rose at four o'clock. He has eaten a portion of polenta, and will partake of a minestra (soup) with the family at night, when his children return from their trades. He has long survived the robust old wife who sat in a bower of flower-pots on the stone bench of a palace of the Borgogissanti, and presided over a brass can on a stand, in sultry weather, opposite the barracks, containing some harmless beverage, sold by the glass. Ah, what memories the cheery voice 288 AMERICA'S GODFATHER. of the Fiorajo evoke, of smiles and tears, of life and death, floating in the windows with the passing years ! "Belle rose!" he pipes. "Who buys?" This group, dwelling in the Vespucci quarter of Flor ence, and responding to the call of the Easter bells of the church built by the monks who founded the portion of the town, with their especial industry, form links in the chain of humanity binding to gether the past and the present, marking changes, and yet remaining essentially unchanged. The old gentleman of the tower, and his humble neighbours confirm the theory that the air of Florence is unus ually favourable to longevity. These old men have the strong, conservative force which makes all na tions kindred in those who endure patiently, serenely, and temperately to the end of a long life, amidst all the wreckage of daily strife, passion, epidemic, and suicide. The light of noon, and the sound of the bells penetrate the colonnade of the Uffizi with the statues gazing forth at the cloudless Easter of another year from their respective niches. What does it matter to us which of the early discoverers of America first gained the goal of the shore of a new continent? For them the storms and difficulties in threading unknown currents, with frequent wreck, sickness, and other hardships; for us the complete fulfilment of each navigator suc ceeding others in a vast scheme of destiny. Had A SHRINE OF MEMORIES. 289 not Columbus sighted land Cabral would inevitably have been blown out of the course to the east he was pursuing to the coast of Brazil by seemingly adverse winds. All men are bound to love and seek the truth. Therefore when spring blooms afresh in the Flower City let the young American not fail to pause before the statue of Vespucci with a sentiment of filial respect. In justice he should recall the birth right of this sailor, in all its manifold significance, and meditate on the words of Lord Macaulay; "We doubt whether any country of Europe, our own excepted, has at the present time reached so high a point of wealth and civilisation as some parts of Italy had attained four hundred years ago." The British historian thus referred to the description of Florence given by Giovanni Villani in the four teenth century. Truly a springtime is coming, even an eternal spring, when all that is dead, and deserved not to die, shall blossom again and live forever. Amerigo Vespucci left no children, but he held the infant America at the font, not of the old baptistery of his native inland town, but of the world. 19 INDEX. ABDELASIS, 147. Academy del Cimento, 68. delfa Crusca, 68. Instancabile, 68. of Apatista, 68. Acciajuoli, Biondella, 95. Francesco, 95. Laudomine, 95, 96. Margherita, 95. Nerozo, 95. Niccolo, 69. Accorso, Taddeo, 6. Agli, Antonio, 73. Albert, Duke of Bavaria, 90. Albizzi, Luca di Piero Degli, 94. Alcazar, 147. Alchemy, 66. Alexander VI., 234. Alfonso II., 50. of Aragon, 41, 42. Alphonsine Tablets, 81. Alterati, 68. Amerigo a common name, 55. Amerigo Vespucci. See Vespucci. Annunziata, Church of the, 75. Arentino, Guido, 9, Aristo, 98. Arlotto. See Mainardi. Arno, The, 3, 140. Astrologers often consulted, 64. Aurispa, 63. BALBOA, 186. Baldi, Guido, 87, 88. Bandini, 41, 62, 66, 74, 76, 77, 112, 116, 120, 142, 153, 189, 196, 213, 215, 269, 271, 273, 277. Bardi, 119. Barga, Conquest of, 8. Bargello, 12. Bartolommei, Girolamo, 74. Bartolommeo, 50. Bartolozzi, Francesco, 200, 210, 211, 262. Bastides, Rodrigo de, 194. Becchio, Guglielmo, 73. Behring, 10. 'Bello, tavern of Michele del, 75. Benedict XI., 58. Bentivoglio, Antonio, 42. Benzoni, 260. Berardi, 105, 106, 136, 146, 153. Bergamo, 67. Bermuda, 183. Biscayen, Jean. See Cosa, Juan dela. Blacks and the Whites, Conflict of the, 57. Bobadilla, 187. Boccaccio, 43, 100. Bologna, College of, 70, 71. Boniface VIII., 58. Borgia, Lucrezia, 24. Brabant, Duke of, 89, 90. Brunellesco, 80. Burchiello. See Nanni. Burgundy, Duke of, 92, 93. Buonomini, 41. CABOTS, 10, 102, 110, 172, 199, 209, 258, 275. Cabral, 229, 270, 289. Cadalso, 156. Calabria, Duke of, 42. 292 INDEX. Cambio, Arnolfo di, 7. Canale, Martino da, 69. Canary Islands, 179. Cano, Sebastian del, 155. Canovai, 110, 196, 277. Canto alle Farino, 19. Canto alia Paglia, 58. Caparra, Niccolo, 58. Caponsachi family, 58. Cappadocia, 53. Capponi, Marchese Gino, 264. Piero, 3. Capra, Arrigo, 67. Cardinal of Prato, 48, 58. Carraiu Bridge, 3, 44, 47; Festival of the, 48, 49. Cascine, 38. Castelcaro, 96. Catano, Manuel, 258. Cathedral, 12. Cauldron, Society of the, 68. Cavalcanti, 73. Cellini, Benvenuto, 9. Cerchi family, Gardens of, 45. Cerezo, Maria, 110, 142, 143,247,258. Charlemagne, 70, 148. Charles IV., 70, 139. V., 58, 125. VI., 91-93. VII., 43. VIIL, 42. Charlevoix, 263. Cibo, Francesco, 283. Cieco, 68. Cimabue, 9. Cino, Bernardo, 89, 90. Clement VI., 91. Clisson, Olivier de, 91. Codro, Micer, 255. Coelho, Gonzale?, 109, 235. Coeli, Duke of Medina, 192. Coaur, Jacques, 100. Colonna, Serafina, 50. Columbus, Bartholomew, 252. Christopher, 81, 304, 106, 110- 112, 120, 136, 145, 148, 150- 152, 155, 157, 159-162, 169, 171, 180, 185, 186, 190-192, 194, 195, 197, 199, 206, 208, 209, 219, 225, 233, 239, 242, 244, 250, 252, 255, 256, 260- 268, 273, 274, 277, 284. Columbus, Diego, 106, 250. Ferdinand, 106, 250, 260, 265, 271,272,276; tomb of, 145. Contractacion, Casa de, 249, 252. Cook, 10. Copernicus, 73. Corsini, 89. Cortez, 158, 239. Cosa, Juan de la, 108, 178, 179, 190, 193-195, 200, 201, 209, 248, 251, 255. Cosimo, 8, 68. See also Medici, Cosimo de'. Council of Two Hundred, 40. DANTE, 43, 74, 83, 100, 149, 214, 278, 282. David, bronze statue of, 3. Davis, 10. Degli Spini, 89. Diamond, Spezieria of the, 75. Diaz, Bartolomeo, 233. Didier, Charles, 125. Diemen, Mary Van, 23. Dondi, Giovanni, 149, 150. Jacopo, 149. Drake, 10. Duomo, 30; square of the, 74. EARLY map-making, 252, 253. Egyptian Museum, 30. Emanuel, king of Portugal, 5, 109, 114,150,155,215,219,235,257,270. Emerson, 274. Emmanuel, Victor, 64. Este, Duke Ercole d', 76. Euminius, 63. FAFIA y Sousa, 150. Fedele, Cassandra, 50. INDEX. 293 Ferdinand of Spain, 5, 102, 106, 109, 110, 145, 186, 187, 189, 190, 197, 214, 216, 246, 247, 251, 252, 267, 268. Ferrucio, 3. Fibonacci, Leonardo, 72. Fiesole, convent of, 62. Fire of 1304, 58. Fiske, John, 277. Florence, academy of, 68, 69; cos tumes of, 60, 61 ; festivals of, 56 ; gates of ancient, 44; houses of, 46 ; in time of Amerigo Vespucci, 43 et seq.\ night in, 6, 7; Old Market of, 60; tourists in, 12; trades of, 47 ; wealth of, 45. Florentine Republic, 8. Florida, 182, 183. Flower-shows, 3. Foix, Germaine de, 247. Foligno, Federigo Frezzi da, 74. Fonseca, Juan Rodriguez, 102, 106, 190, 191. Foscari, Francesco, 43. Marco, 46. Francia, Francesco, 43. Franzezi, Napoleone, 42. Frascati, tavern of, 75. Frederic I., 43. Fregoso, Pietro, 43. Frobisher, 10. GALILEO, 5, 23. 43, 68, 73, 100, 225, 277. Gama, Vasco di, 115, 215, 270. Garcia, Christobal, 200. Gasparone, 63. Ghirlandajo, 29, 45, 143. Giglio, spezieria of the, 75. Ginori, Carlo, 97. Giocondo, Fra Bartolomeo, 112, 215, 271. Giotto, 9. Giovanni di Antonio, 26. Giralda, 145, 147, 148, 151, 154, 185. Gnomon in the Cathedral, 80, 81. Gomara, Francesco Lopez de, 262. Gonsalvo, 158, 246. Gozzoli, Benozzo, 17. Gradenigo, Jacopo, 74. Grazie bridge, 44. Gregory XL, 86. Grineo, Simone, 269. Guadalquivir, 122, 140, 141, 154, 155, 157. Guarino, 63. Guerra, Christoval, 160. Luis, 160. Guever, 147. Guicciardini, 5. Guild of silk, balls of, 76. Guyot, 183. HARISSE, 277, 278. Harmony, School of, 68. Henry VI., 43. Hermandad of Castile, 126. Herrera, 110, 144,172,199,260-262, 268, 270. Honorius IV., 69. Horn, Schouten Van, 10. * Hotel Washington, 1, 12. Humboldt, 276. INNOCENT VIIL, 42, 253. Irving, Washington, 273. Isabella, 50, 134-136, 187, 190-192, 214, 246, 247, 252. JAQUES, Cristoval, 235. Jesus the Pilgrim, Church of, 76. Joan of Arc, 43. Joanna of Spain, 24, 25, 246, 249. John XXII., 69. KERGUELKN, 10. Kingsley, Charles, 2. LA FLORIANA, 76. La Guaranita, opera of, 6. Landuccio, 97. Langle, Marquis de, 139. 294 INDEX. Las Casas, 112, 259, 260. Latini, Brunette, 69. Latour, Antoine de, 263. Le'brija, Antonio de, 164. Leo X., 98. Leon, Battista Alberti, 9. Ponce de, 158, 183. Leopardi, 77. Lily, Church of the, 81. Lion, Bell of the, 7. Lisbon, 218, 219. Loggia de' Lanzi, 6, 8, 283. Lorenzo the Magnificent, 6, 42, 50, 75, 77, 111, 113, 117, 204, 207, 210, 219, 226, 283. Lothario, 70. Louis le De'bonnaire, 53. Louis XL, 42. Louis XII., 246, 247. Lullo, Raimoudo, 66. Lung' Arno Amerigo Vespucci, 16, 18, 20; scenes in the, 17. MACCHIAVELLI, 5, 82, 83, 100. Magellan, 10, 155, 160, 161, 216, 241. Magistracy of Abundance, 19. Mainardi,*Arlotto, 76, 80. Mairena, Fair of, 141, 142. Manetti, Giannozzo, 68. Manolito, Gazquey, 138. Manuel, Don Nuno, 109, 219. Manzuoli, Cardinal Luca, 74. Mariotti, Ferrantini, 89. Martinez, Ferdinand, 81 . Martyr, Peter, 15, 102. 105, 108, 152, 249, 265, 268, 270, 271, 273. Marucci, Michel, 87, 88. Marzocco, the, 7, 8. Mathilde, Countess, 44, 70. Maury, 163. Medici, Catherine de', 53. Cosimo de', 5, 6, 42, 45, 116, 117. Giovanni delle Bande Nere, 3. Medici, John de', 116. Lorenzo de'. See Lorenzo the Magnificent. Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de', 104, 106, 153, 270. Piero di Cosimo de', 73. Mendez, Diego, 250. Mexico, 182. Michelangelo, 9, 20, 43, 45, 55, 100. Michele, 5. Michelet, 160. Micheli Marullo, 50. Milan, Duke of, 91, 96, 97. Mini, Elisabetta, 40, 50-56, 58, 75, 113, 193; wedding of, 51, 52. Mississippi, 182. Monte Morello, 26. Montereggio, Giovanni da, 197, 213. Moors, expulsion of, from Spain, 124, 125. Morales, Andreas, 194. Morto da Feltre, 46. Mugello district, 85. Mundella, Podesta Otto da, 47. Murate, Convent of the, 53. Museum of Natural Science, 23. NANNI, Domenico di, 76, 80. Natives, Description of, 221-224. Navarete, 262. Neghittosa, tavern of, 75. Negro, Alonzo, 239. Neri Abati, 58. Tomaso de', 94. Nero, 24, 25. Nicholas V., 42. Nicuesa, Diego, 193. Nova, Joao da, 234. Nunez, Vacco, 160. Nuzzi, Bernardo, 73. OGNISSANTI, church of, 13, 279-281, 284, 285; convent of, 13; piazza of, 45. INDEX. 295 Ojeda, Alonzo de, 108, 162, 178, 179, 190, 192-195, 199-201, 203, 213, 225, 255, 261-263, 268-270, 272-274. Oleron, 121. Or. San Michele, church of, 19, 58. Orcagna, 6. Oviedo, 239. PACIOLI, Fra Luca, 72. Paganino, Bonafede, 73. Paganini, 9. Pagliano Theatre, 6. Palazzo Publico of Padua, 149. Vecchio, 3-5, 7, 8, 10, 19, 46, 282. Pandolfini, Agnolo, 49. Paolo, 63. Parmigranino, 27. Pascal, 102. Pazzi Cabal, 42. Pedro the Cruel, 138, 147, 148. Pellegrino, 73. Peretola, 40, 41, 55. Perseus, group of the, 9. Peruzzi, 119. Pescia, 95. Petrarch, 43, 64, 67, 68, 74, 83. Philip II., 125, 127. Piacenza, 69. Piazza delle Cipolle, 58. Giovanni, 45. Manin, 13, 286. of St. Croce, 44, 45. of the Annunziata, 30. Santa Trinita, 282. Santo Spirito, 45. Signoria, 4, 6, 55, 283. Pie van o, tavern of, 75. Pignotti, Lorenzo, 72. Pinto, Fernao Mendez, 275. Pinzon, Martin Alonzo, 190. Vincente Yanez, 160, 163, 190, 239, 253. Pisani, Niccolo, 9. Pitti, Brindella, 94. Buonaccorso, 49, 85, 88-97, 118, 119, 136; journal of, 86-96. Fioretta, 95. Luca, 85, 95, 96. Luigi, 94, 95. Neri, 94, 95. Pius II., 50. Pizarro, 158. Platonic Academy, 68. Podesta, 7. Poggio, 73. Politian, 50. Polo, Marco, 169, 274, 275. Polverosa, 13. Ponte Vecchio, 3, 29, 98. Porro, 91. Porta al Prato, 44, 45. Romana, 97. San Frediano, 44, 45. San Pietro, 282. Portugal, early voyagers of, 216-218. RAMUSIO, 260, 269. Red Cross, spezieria of the, 75. Renaldi, Buccio, 73. Rene II., Ill, 254, 274. Riccobaldo of Ferrara, 74. Robert of Bavaria, 97. of Naples, 66. Robertson, 261, 272, 273. Roland, Madame, 2. Rosebecq, battle of, 91. Rucellai, 73, 84. Ruiz, Fernando, 147. Rustici, 68. SAN CASCIANO, 82, 83. Donate, 13. Gerninguano, 95. Giovanni di Dio, confraternity of, 14, 41; hospital of, 13; arrival of a patient at, 16; monk-nurse of, 14. Lorenzo, Piazza of, 44; church of, 75. 296 INDEX. San Marco, cloister of, 12; monas tery of, 62. Miniato, height of, 3. Pancrazio, church of, 282. Petronia, church of, 81. Simone, Festa of, 55. Sanchez, 150. Sant' Antonino, 9. Santa Lucia di Ognissanti, 41. sul Prato, 13. Maria degli Angeli, church of, 81. Maria degli Unghi, church of, 58. Maria delP Umiliati, 41. Maria Novella, church of, 29; Piazza of, 44, 45, 58. Santarem, Viscount de, 263. Savonarola, 8, 43, 62, 100. Savoy, Count of, 90. Scala, Alessandra, 50. Schioppi, Laura Brenzoni, 50. Serra, Marchese Girolamo, 22. Settimello, Arrigo da, 74. Seville, description of, 136-138; cathedral of, 144, 145, 185; church festivals of, 141; ladies of, 143; society of, 143; trade of, 146; watchman of, 144. Sforza, Cardinal, 152. Francesco, 42, 50. Gian Galeazzo, 50. Ippolita, 50. Sierra Morena, 140. Silvestro, Domenico di, 73. Sixtus IV., 41. Society Colombaria, 68. Soderini, 104, 107, 114, 172, 173, 189, 225, 236, 254, 269, 271. Solis, Jnan Diaz de, 110, 154, 163, 190, 258. Spain in fifteenth century, 124-128 ; national dishes of, 139. Spezierias, 75. Spina, Anna di, 50. Squarcialupi, Antonio, 68. St. Ambrose, guilds of Milan pro tected by, 47. St. Andrea Corsini, 73. St. Antonino, 193. St. Catherine and St. Francis, Festa of, 71. St. Denis, abbey of, 53. St. Elizabeth, church of, 59. St. Gregory, guilds of Naples pro tected by, 47. St. Justina, 148. St. Louis, 148, 169, 170. St. Michael of Alexandria, monks of, 47. St. Michael of the Trumpet, 59. St. Kutina, 148. St. Sulpice, church of, at Paris, 81. St. Thomas of Aquinas, 66. St. Zeuobius, 282. Statues in Uffizi portico, 4-6, 8-10. Superstitions attached to the sea, 167-169. TAPESTRY, Gallery of, 30. of Florence, 30-37, 129; of Spain, 129-135. Tasman, 23. Taverns of the fifteenth century. 75. Tell, William, 23, 24. Tertullian, 25. Thearion, 53. Theatres of the fifteenth century, 75. Tinghi, Matteo dello Scielto, 86, 87. Tiraboschi, 66, 264, 265, 271; de ductions of, concerning Vespucci, 265-270. Tommasi, Pietro Francesco de', 63. Tornabuoni, Lucrezia, 50. Torquemada. 190. Toscanelli, Paulo, 80, 81, 85, 101. Trebbio, 76, 82, 97. Trinita, 3. Trumpeters of the Signory, 59. Turin, University of, 71. INDEX. 297 UBERTI, Farinata degli, 3. Fazio degli, 73. Ubertino of Carrara, 149. Uffizi, 3, 8, 288. Ulloa, Alonzo de, 271. Umidi, 68. Umiliati, 13. VALDIPESA, 95. Valori, Bartolomeo, 73. Filippo, 73. Valsequa, Gabriel de, 252. Varano, Costanza da, 50. Varnhagen, 172, 177, 178, 197, 225, 235, 248, 256, 276, 277. Vega, Garcilasso de la, 240. Vespucci, Amerigo, 5, 10, 21, 22, 26, 27, 29, 31, 36, 42, 44, 67, 69, 72-74, 76, 77, 79, 82-86, 89, 91, 94, 97-114, 116-120, 122, 124, 125, 127, 136-146, 148, 151-159, 161, 163-169, 171-174, 177-183, 185-193, 196, 197, 199-216, 219, 225, 227^ 229-233, 235-238, 240- 242, 244, '247-281, 285, 289; an cestors of, 40 ; arrival at Seville, 122, 136; battle with Indians, 175-177; birth of, 16, 40, 42, 54 ; birth-place of, 13, 49 ; childhood of, 49, 55-59; departure for Spain, 77-80, 84, 100, 112-116, 118; departure from Seville, 154; departure on second voyage, 194-196 ; education of, 61-64, 66, 67, 77 ; favorite authors of, 67 ; first voyage of, 106, 107, 154 et seq. ; second voyage of, 108, 197- 199, 201 et seq.; third voyage of, 109, 220 et seq., 225 et seq. ; fourth voyage of, 109, 110, 235 et seq. ; fifth and sixth voyages of, 241, 242 ; last descendant of, 26; letter written by, 66; longi tude found by, 209-213 ; made pilot-major of Spain, 110, 251 ; on the Atlantic, 163-169; portrait of, 27; provisions of, 160, 161; sights land, 172, 173; sojourn in Barcelona, 121, 136; statue of, 4; vessels of, 158-160; youth of, 60, 73. Vespucci, Anastasio, 40, 60, 75-77, 83, 113. Antonio, 98, 258. Bartolommeo, 98. di Dolcebene, 40, 41. Giorgio Antonio, 61-63, 67. Giovanni, 41, 78, 105, 258. Girolamo, 77. Guido, 41, 42. Luca di Messer Piero, 40. Niccolo, 98. Piero, 42. Pietro, 14. Simone, 14. Simone de Piero, 41. Vettori, 82. Via Archibusieri, 3. Cacciajuoli, 58. Calimala, 58, 76. Calzuoli, 58. dell' Oche, 59. della Forca, 15. di Borgognissanti, 12, 14, 41, 47, 59, 60, 193, di Pilastri, 75. Laura, 129. Por Santa Maria, 283. San Gallo, 76. Vianello, Geronimo, 178, 179. Villanuova, Arnaldo di, 66. Vinci, Leonardo da, 9, 43, 99. Visconti, Barnabo, 65. Bianca, 50. Galeazzo, 64, 65. Gian Galeazzo, 69, 150. Matteo, 65. WALDSEEMULLER, 253, 254, 276. Wheat, history of, 17-19. 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