50 (p. 32). Virgin Themis ... returned to the Kingdom very honourably.
On the first words there is this original MS. note:—[It is to be understood that near to Mount Parnassus, which is in the midst between east and west, are two hill tops, which contend with the snows. And in one of these was a cave, in which in the time of the Heathen, Apollo gave responses to certain priestly virgins who served in a temple which was there dedicated to the said Apollo. And those virgins dwelt by the fountains of the Castalian mount. And among these virgins was that virgin Themis, whom some held to be one of the Sibyls. And it is said that those virgins were so fearful of entering into that cave, that, save on great constraint they dared not do so—according as Lucan relateth in his fifth book and sixth chapter, where he speaketh of the response which the Consul Appius received, on the end of the war between Cæsar and Pompey.]
On this Santarem remarks:—
[Both in this note and in those on pp. 10, 11, 12, and 21 (= pp. 7-8, 13, of this version), which are met with in our MS., and are in the same script, there prevails such a confusion of thought that we hesitate in supposing them to have been written by Azurara. These notes, so far from illustrating the text, themselves call for elucidation. Here the writer follows the opinion of the ancients as to the position of Parnassus, viz., that it was situated in the middle of the world, though, according to Strabo, it was placed between Phocis and Locris. As to its "contending with the snows," the writer of this note, who quotes Lucan, seems to have taken this passage from Ovid rather than from the Pharsalia. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, v, 316-7; Lucan, Pharsalia, V, v, 72-3. The cave is the Antrum Corysium of the Poets. See the Journey to Greece of the famous archæologist Spon. The passages referred to as from Bk. V of the Pharsalia are those beginning with the lines—Hisperio tantum ... and v, 114, Nec voce negata ... together with line 120, Sic tempore longo, and the following lines.]
On the "honourable return" of these caravels, with "booty of the Infidels," from the Levant Seas, we may compare the text on p. 18, and note (31) to the same. Here Santarem remarks:—
[The attempts made by the Portuguese seamen to pass the Cape began before the fifteenth century. Already, in the time of King Affonso IV, the Portuguese passed beyond Cape Non, i.e., before 1336 (?). The documents published by Professor Ciampi in 1827, and discovered by him in the MSS. of Boccaccio in the Bibliotheca Magliabechiana in Florence, as well as the letter of King Affonso IV to Pope Clement VI attest that fact. See the Memoir of Sr. J. J. da Costa de Macedo, in vol. vi. of the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Lisbon, and the additions published in 1835. As for the attempts made in the Prince's time by ships that he sent into those latitudes to pass beyond Cape Bojador, if we admit the number of twelve years which Azurara indicates, and if this is taken together with the date 1433, which he fixes for the passage effected by Gil Eannes(?), the result is that these attempts began only in 1421; and so Azurara did not admit that the expedition of 1418 (or of 1419), which went out under J. G. Zarco, had for its chief object the passage of the Cape at all. But from Barros it is seen that Zarco and Vaz went out with the object of doubling the Cape, but that a storm carried them to the island they discovered, and named Porto Santo (Decades I, ch. 2, and D. Franc. Manoel, Epanaphoras, p. 313]. The statements of part of this note are loosely worded. See Introduction to vol. ii, on the voyage of 1341, on the earlier claims of Affonso IV, and on the rounding of Bojador.]
Also, on Azurara's use of Graada for Granada, Santarem remarks: [On the origin and etymology of this word, see Cortes y Lopez, art. Ebura quae Cerialis. Dic. Geograf. Hist. de la Esp. Ant., II., 420, etc.].
And on the "Granada" and "Levant" expeditions, the same editor remarks: [The details of these expeditions prove the activity of our marine at the beginning of the fifteenth century, and its system of training, which enabled it to cope better with the perils of Ocean voyages, and in naval combats with Arabs and Moors to protect the commerce of the Christian nations in the Mediterranean]. Cf. note 31 to p. 18 of this version.
51 (p. 33). Gil Eannes ... touched by the self-same terror.—As to Gil Eannes, Santarem remarks:—[Barros also says he was a native of Lagos, and was the man who so named "Bojador" from the way it jutted or bulged out (Decades I, 6)]; This last statement is quite untrue; [cf. an Atlas of which Morelli and Zurla treat in their Dei Viaggi et delle Scoperte Africane da Ca-da-Mosto, p. 37, on which is the inscription "Jachobus de Giraldis de Venetiis me fecit anno Dmi mccccxvi;" as well as another atlas of the fourteenth century, on which two the Cape appears as (1) Cabo de Buider, and (2) Cavo de Imbugder; cf. Zurla's Dissertazione, p. 37.]. Also, see Introduction to vol. ii, pp. x, lxiv, lxviii-lxx.
52 (p. 33). Needle or sailing chart.—See Introductory § on History of Maps and Nautical Intruments in Europe up to the time of Prince Henry, vol. ii, pp. cxvii-cl, and especially pp. cxlvii-cl.