[445] This Strasburg edition is particularly described in D’Avezac’s Waltzemüller, p. 159. (Cf. Harrisse’s Notes on Columbus, 176; his Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 117; and Winsor’s Bibliography of Ptolemy’s Geography sub anno 1522.) The maps closely resemble those of Waldseemüller in the edition of 1513; and indeed Frisius assigns them as re-engraved to Martin Ilacomylus, the Greek form of that geographer’s name. There are copies of this 1522 Ptolemy in the Harvard College, Carter-Brown, Cornell University, and Barlow libraries, and one is noted in the Murphy Catalogue, no. 2,054, which is now in the Lenox Library. The map of Frisius (Lorenz Friess, as he was called in unlatinized form) was reproduced in the next Strasburg edition of 1525, of which there are copies in the Library of Congress, in the New York Historical Society, Boston Public, Baltimore Mercantile, Carter-Brown, Trinity College, and the American Antiquarian Society libraries, and in the collections of William C. Prime and Charles H. Kalbfleisch. There were two copies in the Murphy sale, nos. 2,055 and 2,056, one of which is now at Cornell University. Cf. references in Winsor’s Bibliography of Ptolemy.
This “L. F. 1522” map (see p. 175), as well as the “Admiral’s map,” was reproduced in the edition of 1535, edited by Servetus, of which there are copies in the Astor, the Boston Public, and the College of New Jersey libraries, and in the Carter-Brown and Barlow collections. A copy is also noted in the Murphy Catalogue, no. 2,057, which is now at Cornell University.
The American maps of these editions were again reproduced in the Ptolemy, published at Vienna in 1541, of which there are copies in the Carter-Brown, Brevoort, and Kalbfleisch collections. Cf. Winsor’s Bibliography of Ptolemy.
[446] Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 133. The edition of 1530 has no maps (ibid., no. 158).
[447] There is a copy in the Grenville Collection in the British Museum. Cf. Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 144; Zurla, Fra Mauro, p. 9, and his Marco Polo, ii. 363. Harrisse, in his Notes on Columbus, p. 56, cites from Morelli’s Operette, i. 309, a passage in which Coppo refers to Columbus.
[448] Harrisse (Bibl. Amer. Vet.) gives the various ways of spelling the name by different authors as follows: “Albericus (Madrignano, Ruchamer, Jehan Lambert); Emeric (Du Redouer); Alberico or Americo (Gomara); Morigo (Hojeda); Amerrigo (Muñoz); Americus (Peter Martyr); Almerigo Florentino (Vianello); De Espuche, Vespuche, Despuche, Vespuccio (Ramusio); Vespuchy (Christ. Columbus).” Varnhagen uniformly calls him Amerigo Vespucci; and that is the signature to the letter written from Spain in 1492 given in the Vita by Bandini.
[449] The facts relative to the birth, parentage, and early life of Vespucci are given by the Abbé Bandini in his Vita e lettere di Amerigo Vespucci, 1745, and are generally accepted by those whose own researches have been most thorough,—as Humboldt in his Examen Critique; Varnhagen in his Amerigo Vespucci, son caractère, ses écrits, sa vie, et ses navigations, and in his Nouvelles recherches, p. 41, where he reprints Bandini’s account; and Santarem in his Researches respecting Americus Vespucius and his Voyages, as the English translation is called. In relation to representatives of the family in our day, see Lester’s Vespucius, p. 405. The newspapers within a year have said that two female descendants were living in Rome, the last male representative dying seven years ago.
[450] Humboldt says that it cannot be true of either voyage, and relies for proof upon the documentary evidence of Vespucci’s presence in Spain during the absence of Columbus upon those expeditions. But he makes a curious mistake in regard to the first, which, we think, has never been noticed. Columbus sailed on his first voyage in August, 1492, and returned in March, 1493. Humboldt asserts that Vespucci could not have been with him, because the letter written from Cadiz and jointly signed by him and Donato Nicolini was dated Jan. 30, 1493. But Humboldt has unaccountably mistaken the date of that letter; it was not 1493, but 1492, seven months before Columbus sailed on his first voyage. The alibi, therefore, is not proved. There is indeed no positive proof that Vespucci was not on that voyage; but, on the other hand, there is nothing known of that period of his life to suggest that he was; and, moreover, the strong negative evidence is—unusually strong in his case—that he never claimed to have sailed with Columbus.
[451] The history of the Life and Actions of Admiral Christopher Colon. By his son, Don Ferdinand Colon. [For the story of this book, see the previous chapter.—Ed.]
[452] Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, with other Original Documents relating to his Four Voyages to the New World. Translated and edited by R. H. Major, Esq., of the British Museum, London. Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 1847.