19 (p. 12). The Philosopher, i.e., Aristotle, in Azurara's day regarded among Christians as the "master of them that knew." The transformation of Aristotle into a storehouse of Christian theology was a long process, which was perhaps most completely successful in the hands of Thomas Aquinas.
20 (p. 14). As in his Chronicle, i.e., The Chronicle of the Reign of Affonso V, the African, attributed by Barros and Goes to Azurara himself, and perhaps embodied (partially) in Ruy de Pina's existing chronicle of the monarch. (See Azurara, Hakluyt Soc. ed., vol. i, Introduction, pp. lxi-lxiii.) We must notice that a little earlier (p. 13, top of our version), on Azurara's reference to Prince Henry as an "uncrowned prince" (cf. Azurara, vol. ii, Introduction, p. xix). Santarem remarks:
[This detail, recorded by Azurara, a contemporary writer, shows the error into which Fr. Luiz de Souza fell in his Historia de S. Domingos, liv. vi, fol. 331, by saying that the Infant was elected King of Cyprus: an error which José Soares da Silva repeated in his Memorias d'El Rei D. João I; whereas if the words of Azurara were not sufficient to demonstrate the contrary, the dates and facts of history would prove the errors of those authors. As a matter of fact, the kingdom of Cyprus, which Richard, King of England, took from the Greeks in 1191, was immediately ceded by that Prince to Guy of Lusignan, whose posterity reigned in that kingdom till 1487; and as our Infant was born in 1394 and died in 1460, it was not possible for him to be elected sovereign of a kingdom ruled by a legitimate line of monarchs. Besides this, in the list of the Latin or Frank Kings of Cyprus, the name of D. Henry is not found. It is to be presumed that Fr. Luiz de Souza confounded Henry, Prince of Galilee, son of James I, King of Cyprus, with our Infant D. Henry.]—S.
Also, on the words Atlas the Giant (middle of p. 13 in our version), there is another original MS. note:
[Atlas was king of the land in the west of Europe and of that in the west of Africa, brother of Prometheus, that great wise man and philosopher descended from Japhet, the giant. And this Atlas was considered the greatest astrologer living in the world at his time. And his knowledge of the stars made him give such true forecasts of matters which were fated to happen, that men said in his time that he sustained the heaven upon his shoulders. And as Lucas saith, he was the first who invented the art of painting in the city of Corinth, which is in Greece.]
On this Santarem remarks:—
[Here our author mixes up all the historical and mythological traditions from Greek and Latin authors relative to Atlas. Diodorus Siculus and Plato are not cited by Azurara, who, however, relates that Atlas was king of the West of Europe and of the West of Africa; but he forgets to say that he reigned over the Atlantes, as Herodotus says, and confounds Prometheus with "Japhet," whose son he was, viz., according to Apollodorus, Diodorus Siculus, and all the ancient writers. Diodorus says in effect that Atlas had taught astronomy to Hercules, but our author confounds the three princes of this name, and made a mistake in citing Lucas de Tuy (continuer of the Chronicle of Isidore of Seville) as saying that Atlas was the first who invented the art of painting in the city of Corinth. The origin of this art was unknown to the ancients. It is true that Sicyon and Corinth disputed the glory of the discovery, but the discoverer according to most of the ancient authors was Cleanthes of Corinth and not Atlas, as Azurara says. According to others, the discovery was due to Philocles the Egyptian.]—S.
The Atlas chain of N. Africa has been the subject of persistent exaggeration. The Greek pillar of heaven (derived from Carthaginian? seamen) probably referred to Teneriffe. No summit in the Atlas range answers to the legend. Though Miltsin rises to 11,400 feet, neither this nor any other peak can be supposed to represent the idea of towering height embodied in the story. We may notice the enormous over-proportion of the Atlas in some of the most important maps which Prince Henry and his seamen had to consult (e.g., Dulcert of 1339, the Catalan of 1375). See Introduction, vol. ii, pp. cxxiii-iv, cxxvi.
21 (p. 14). Tangier ... the most perilous affair in which he ever stood before or after, viz., in 1437. The conquest of Ceuta (aided perhaps by the earlier discoveries of Prince Henry's seamen) had made some in Portugal eager for more African conquests, and in 1433 King Duarte (Edward) on his accession was induced by his brothers Henry and Ferdinand, against the opinion of his next brother Pedro, to take up the project of an attack on Tangier. The Papal Court gave only a very doubtful approval to the war, but on August 22, 1437, an expedition sailed for Ceuta. Tetuan was captured, and on September 23 Prince Henry began the siege of Tangier, but his attacks on the town were repulsed; the Portuguese were surrounded by overwhelming forces which had come down from Marocco, Fez, and Tafilet for the relief of the city; and on October 25 the assailants surrendered with the honours of war, on condition that Ceuta should be given up with all the Moorish prisoners then in Portuguese hands, and that the Portuguese should abstain for 100 years from any further attack upon the Moors of this part of Barbary. Prince Ferdinand was left with twelve nobles as hostages for the performance of the treaty. The convention was repudiated in Portugal, and Ferdinand, the "constant Prince," died in his captivity June 3, 1443. Like Regulus in Roman tradition, he advised his countrymen against the enemy's terms of ransom,
"Lest bought with price of Ceita's potent town To public welfare be preferred his own." Camöens: Lusiads, iv, 52 (Burton).