Harrisse[1108] points out an allusion to the expedition of Cortés and a description of those of Córdoba and Grijalva, in Ein Auszug ettlicher Sendbrieff ... von wegen einer new gefunden Inseln, published at Nuremberg in March, 1520;[1109] and Harrisse supposes the information is derived from Peter Martyr.[1110] Bancroft[1111] points out a mere reference in a publication of 1522,—Translationuss hispanischer Sprach, etc.
II. The Second Letter, Oct. 30, 1520. We possess four early editions of this,—two Spanish (1, 2) and one Latin (3), and one Italian (4).
1. The earliest Spanish edition was published at Seville Nov. 8, 1522, as Carta de relaciō, having twenty-eight leaves, in gothic type.[1112]
2. The second Spanish edition, Carta de relacion, was printed at Saragossa in 1524. It is in gothic letter, twenty-eight leaves, and has a cut of Cortés before Charles V. and his Court, of which a reduced fac-simile is herewith given.[1113]
CORTÉS’ GULF OF MEXICO.
This fac-simile follows the reproduction given by Stevens in his American Bibliographer, p. 86, and in his Notes, etc., pl. iv. Dr. Kohl published in the Zeitschrift für allgemeine Erdkunde, neue Folge, vol. xv., a paper on the “Aelteste Geschichte der Entdeckung und Erforschung des Golfs von Mexico durch die Spanier von 1492 bis 1543.” Cf. also Oscar Peschel’s Zeitalter der Entdeckungen (1858), chap. vii., and Ruge’s Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, p. 355.
3. The first Latin edition was published in folio at Nuremberg, in August, 1524, in roman type, with marginal notes in gothic, and was entitled: Præclara Ferdinādi Cortesii de noua maris Oceani Hypania narratio. It was the work of Pierre Savorgnanus.[1114]