There are three separate impressions of this Chronicle—one on parchment, of which the Bibliotheca National in Lisbon possesses a copy, another on large paper, both of these being folio size, and a third on small paper octavo size.
Two early MSS. of the Chronicle exist: one, very handsome and perfect, in the Paris National Library, from which the printed edition was made; and the other, bearing date 1506, in the Royal and National Library at Munich. The latter belonged to Valentim Fernandes, a German printer, established in Lisbon from the end of the 15th century to past the middle of the 16th, who owned many MSS. of great value, which have been studied by Schmeller in his Ueber Valentī Fernandez Alemā und seine Sammlung von Nachrichten über die Entdeckungen und Besitzungen der Portugiesen in Afrika und Asien bis zum Jahre 1508. The imprint of this essay is 1845.
The Munich MS. is an abridgment; many of the rhetorical passages, ch. i, and nearly the whole of chs. iii-vii, being omitted. Valentim Fernandes, who transcribed, if he did not compile, this summary, which he finished on November 14th, 1506, commences his chapters at the eighth of the Paris MS., and reduces the original number of chapters from ninety-seven to sixty-two.
The text of the Paris MS. seems to have been added to at some later time, and, at any rate, is not in the state in which Azurara left it in 1453, the year the Chronicle was finished, because certain passages speak of D. Henrique as though already deceased, while he only died in 1460.[[90]] Innocencio thinks Azurara emended his work after the Prince's death, and inserted some reflections on his life and moral qualities, without continuing the narrative, or passing the limit he had at first marked out, namely 1448.
The history of the MS., and the discovery in 1837 by the Lusophile, Ferdinand Denis, of the Paris copy, together with a description thereof, is related by the Viscount de Santarem in his Introduction, and deserves perusal.[[91]] Fragments of the Chronicle were known to Barros, who incorporated them in his Asia, but Goes never saw it at all, and it would seem to have disappeared from Portugal in the 16th century.[[92]] Frei Luiz de Sousa, the great Dominican prose writer, met with a MS. copy at Valencia, in the possession of the Duke of Calabria, one of whose ancestors, a King of Naples, had received it, he was informed, from D. Henrique himself.[[93]] We know from another source that this MS. was still in Spain at the beginning of the last century, but how it reached its present resting-place, the National Library in Paris, remains a mystery.
(d) "Chronica do Conde D. Pedro (de Menezes) Continuada aa tomada de Cepta, a qual mandou El-Rey D. Affonso V deste nome, e dos Reys de Portugal XII, escrepver." Such is the title of this Chronicle, which was published in Vol. II of the Ineditos, and runs from page 213 to the end. It is there preceded by an Introduction of six pages, dealing with the life and works of Azurara, from the pen of the erudite Abbade Corrêa da Serra.
There exists a valueless MS. of this Chronicle in the Bibliotheca National in Lisbon of the end of the 17th century, and another equally devoid of interest in the Academia das Sciencias. Mr. Quaritch recently offered one for sale,[[94]] which derives importance from having been copied from another of early date, and was kind enough to send it for our inspection. It is a small folio, beautifully written on paper, containing 164 leaves with thirty-one lines to the page, and was transcribed from a MS. on parchment of 233 folios in a single column, which had been itself finished in Lisbon on July 24th, 1470, by João Gonçalvez, the scribe who copied the Paris MS. of the Chronica de Guiné. The copy belonging to Mr. Quaritch has some marginal notes without value, and must, to judge from the writing, have been made in Portugal at the very beginning of the 17th century, or, as he says, about 1620. The text is the same as that printed in the Ineditos.
(e) "Chronica do Conde D. Duarte de Menezes."
This was published for the first time in Vol. III of the Ineditos, and has there no separate title page, but the heading of the first chapter reads as follows:—"Comecasse a Historia, que fala dos feitos que fez o Illustre e muy nobre Cavaleiro Dom Duarte de Menezes, Conde que foi de Viana, Alferes Del-Rey e Capitão por elle na Villa Dalcacer em Affrica. A qual foi primeiramente ajuntada e escripta per Gomez Eanes de Zurara, professo Cavalleiro, e Comendador na Ordem de Christus, Chronista do mesmo Senhor Rey, e Guardador mór do Tombo de seus Regnos."
All the MSS. of this Chronicle are defective, and we know from the Royal Censor that they were in the same state as early as the reign of Dom Sebastião. In fact, more than a third of the work has disappeared, and is represented by lacunæ. The Bibliotheca National in Lisbon has three, the Torre do Tombo two, and the Bibliotheca da Academia Real das Sciencias one MS. of this Chronicle; all show the same gaps. The only MS. of value is one (No. 520) in the Torre do Tombo, dating from the end of the 15th century, written on parchment, with the headings to the Chapters in red and black, and an illuminated title-page. It must be pronounced a fine specimen of caligraphy, and, though incomplete like the rest, is otherwise in good condition.