The voyage of Verrazzano

by Henry Cruse Murphy

This discourse fails, therefore, as an authority in favor of the Verrazzano discovery, or even of the existence of a claim in its behalf; the statement which it contains in relation to Verrazzano, originating with Ramusio adding nothing to the case. [Footnote: The writer gives, however, some details in relation to the Indians and the fisheries along the easterly coast of Newfoundland, illustrative of certain points which have arisen in the course of this enquiry. Continuing his remarks, as given in the text, in regard to the Indians inhabiting the southerly coast between Cape Race and Cape Breton, he states: "There are many stags and deer, and birds like geese and margaux. On the coast there is much good fishery of cod, which fish are taken by the FRENCH AND BRETONS, ONLY BECAUSE THOSE OF THE COUNTRY DO NOT TAKE THEM. In the coast running north and south, from Cape de Ras to the entrance of the Castles, [straits of Belle-Isle] there are great gulfs and rivers, and numerous islands, many of them large; and this country is thinly inhabited, except the aforesaid coast, and the people are smaller; and there is great fishery of cod as on the other coast. There has not been seen there either village, or town, or castle, except a great enclosure of wood, which was seen in the gulf of the Castles; and the aforesaid people dwell in little cabins and huts, covered with the bark of trees, which they make to live in during the time of the fisheries, which commences in spring and lasts all the summer. Their fishery is of seal, and porpoises which, with certain seafowl called margaux, they take in the islands and dry; and of the grease of said fish they make oil, and when the time of their fishery is ended, winter coming on, they depart with their fish, and go away, IN LITTLE BOATS MADE OF THE BARK OF TREES, called buil, into other countries, which are perhaps warmer, but we know not where.">[

VIII.

II. THE VERRAZANO MAP. IT IS NOT AN AUTHORITATIVE EXPOSITION OF THE VERRAZZANO DISCOVERY. ITS ORIGIN AND DATE IN ITS PRESENT FORM. THE LETTER OF ANNIBAL CARO. THE MAP PRESENTED TO HENRY VIII. VOYAGES OF VERRAZZANO. THE GLOBE OF EUPHROSYNUS ULPIUS.

The map of Hieronimo de Verrazano, recently brought to particular notice, [Footnote: Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York. 1873 Vol. IV. Notes on the Verrazano map. By James Carson Brevoort.] is a planisphere on a roll of parchment eight feet and a half long and of corresponding width, formerly belonging to Cardinal Stefano Borgia, in whose museum, in the college of the Propaganda in the Vatican, it is now preserved. It has no date, though, from a legend upon it referring to the Verrazzano discovery, it may be inferred that the year 1529 is intended to be understood as the time when it was constructed. No paleographical description of it, however, has yet been published, from which the period of its construction might be determined, or the congruity of its parts verified. It may, however, in order to disencumber the question, be admitted to be the map mentioned by Annibal Caro in 1537, in a letter to which occasion will hereafter be had to refer, and that its author was the brother of the navigator, though of both these facts satisfactory proof is wanting. [Footnote: This map was either unknown to Ramusio and Gastaldi or discredited by them. Ramusio in his preface, after mentioning to Fracastor that he placed the relation of Verrazzano and Jacques Cartier in that volume, adds, that inasmuch as Fracastor has exhorted him to make, in imitation of Ptolemy, four or five maps of as much as was known up to that time of the part of the world recently discovered, he could not disobey his commands, and had therefore arranged to have them made by the Piedmontese cosmographer Giacomo de Gastaldi. They are accordingly to be found in the same volume with the letter of Verrazzano. One of them is a map of New France extending somewhat south of Norumbega, but no features of the Verrazzano map are to be traced upon it: and no other map of the country is given. Fol. 424-5.]

No entirely legible copy of this map has yet been made public. Two photographs, both much reduced from the original, have been made for the American Geographical Society, from the larger of which, so much as relates to the present purpose, has been carefully reproduced here on the same scale. It is to be regretted that the names along the coast, and the legends relating to the Verrazzano exploration, are not photographed distinctly, though the legends and a few names have been supplied by means of a pen. But although a knowledge of all the names is necessary for a thorough understanding of this map, these photographs, nevertheless, affording a true transcript of it in other respects, enable us to determine that it is of no authority as to the alleged discovery itself. [Footnote: This map was first brought to public notice by M. Thomassey, in a memoir entitled, Les Papes Geographes et la Cosmographie du Vatican, which was published in the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages. Nouvelle serie, tome XXXV. Annee 1853. Tome Troisieme. Paris. We are indebted to this memoir for the explanation of our copy of the map of the scale of distances, which is illegible on the photographs. According to this explanation there should be nine points in the narrower, and nineteen in the wider spaces. These being two and half leagues apart, give twenty-five leagues for the smaller and fifty leagues for the larger spaces, making three hundred and fifty leagues for the whole scale.]

It will be found, in the first place, to contravene the Verrazzano letter as to the limits of the discovery, both north and south, and to indicate merely an attempt to reconcile that discovery generally with the discoveries of the Spaniards, Bretons and Portuguese, as shown on the maps of the period to which it relates. The coast of North America is laid down continuously from the gulf of Mexico to Davis straits, in latitude 60 Degrees N. Beginning at the point of Florida, which is placed IN LATITUDE 33 1/2 Degrees N., more than eight degrees north of its true position, it runs northerly along the Atlantic, trending slightly to the west, to a bay or river, in latitude 38 Degrees N. On this part of the country, called Terra Florida, the arms of Spain are represented, denoting its discovery by the Spaniards: and the whole of its coast for a distance of eighty or ninety leagues, is entirely devoid of names.

From 38 Degrees N. that is, from the land of Florida as here shown, the coast continues in a northerly direction thirty or forty leagues farther, to a point between 40 Degrees and 41 Degrees N. when, turning northeasterly, it runs with slight variations, on a general course of east north east, for six hundred and fifty leagues to Cape Breton placed in latitude 51 1/2 S., five and a half degrees north of it true position. Along this part of the coast more than sixty names of places occur at intervals sufficiently regular to denote one continuous exploration. They are for the most part undistinguishable on the photographs, but nine of them, at the beginning, are made legible by hand, the first two of which commencing AT LATITUDE 38 Degrees, are Dieppa and Livorno. The others, proceeding north, are Punta de Calami, Palamsina, Polara flor, Comana, Santiago, C. d' Olimpe, and Olimpe, indicating a nomenclature different from that used on any other known map of this region. At a distance of three hundred leagues from Dieppa, and IN LATITUDE 46 Degrees N., is a large triangular island, designated by the name of Luisia. Hence to Cape Breton the names are illegibly photographed. Along this coast, at three points, namely, in latitude 42 Degrees; opposite the island of Luisia, in latitude 46; and in latitude 50 Degrees, standards are displayed, the nationality of which cannot be distinguished, but which no doubt were intended for those of France, inasmuch as over them occurs the name of Nova Gallia sive Iucatanet in large, commanding letters, with the Verrazzano legend, before referred to underneath it, in these words: 'Verrazana seu Gallia nova quale discopri 5 anni fa Giovanni di Verrazano fiorentino per ordine et comandamete del Chrystianissimo Re di Francia; that is, Verrazzana or New Gaul which Giovanni di Verrazzano, a Florentine, discovered five years ago by order and command of the most Christian king of France. [Footnote: The names Verrazzana and Verrazzano in this legend are WRITTEN on the photograph by hand, with a double z, though M. Thomassey uses only the single z, which is adopted on our copy. It would be a singular circumstance, leading to some speculation, if they should really be spelt with the two z's on the original. Hieronimo, if he were the brother of Giovanni, would hardly have written his own name, as it is inscribed on the map, with one z, and that of his brother with two, in the same document.]

Over Cape Breton is a representation of the shield of Brittany, denoted by its ermines, in token of the discovery of that country by the Bretons, which is separated by a bay or gulf from Terra Nova sive Le Molue, the latter term being evidently intended for Bacalao (codfish, Fr. morue), the received name of Newfoundland. The southerly coast of Terra Nova for an hundred leagues, and its easterly coast running to the north, are delineated, with the Portuguese name of C. Raso and the island of Baccalaos barely legible. The coast runs north from C. Raso to C. Formoso in latitude 60 Degrees where it meets the straits which separate it from Terra Laboratoris, the country discovered by Gaspar Cortereal on his first voyage, but here attributed to the English, and being in fact Greenland. [Footnote: Mr. Brevoort gives other names as legible on the easterly coast of Terra Nova, which we have not been able to distinguish, namely: c. de spera, illa de san luis, monte de trigo, and illa dos avos. Mr. B. reads IUCATANET, and M. Margry YUCATANET, where our engraver has IUCATANIA, for the general name of the country. The word in either form is apochryphal, as Yucatan is designated in its proper place, though as an island; but which form is correct cannot be determined from the photograph.]

It is obvious that the discoveries of Verrazzano are thus intended to embrace the coast from latitude 38 Degrees N. to Cape Breton, that is, between the points designated by the armorial designations of Spain and Brittany, and not beyond either, as that would make the map contradict itself. That they begin at the parallel 38 is shown by the names of Dieppa and Livorno, (Leghorn), which commemorate the port to which the expedition of Verrazzano belonged, and the country in which he himself was born. These names cannot be associated with any other alleged expedition. They are given on the map which contains the legend declaring the country generally to have been discovered by him; and are not found on any other. There can be no doubt, therefore, that they are meant to indicate the beginning of his exploration in the south.

That his discoveries are represented as extending in the north to Cape Breton is proven by the continuation of the names to that point, showing an exploration by some voyager along that entire coast, and by the absence of any designation of its discovery by any other nation than the French; while the distance from Dieppa to Cape Breton is laid down as seven hundred leagues, the same as claimed for this exploration.