[463] The title of this work is Cosmographiæ introductio cum quibusdam geometriæ ac astronomiæ principiis ad eam rem necessariis. Insuper quatuor Americi Vespucii navigationes. The name of the editor, Martinus Hylacomylus, is not given in the first edition, but appears in a later, published at Strasburg in 1509. [See post, p. 167.—Ed.]
[464] See Major’s Henry the Navigator, p. 383. The title of Lud’s four-leaved book is Speculi orbis succinctiss. sed neque pœnitenda neque inelegans declaratio et canon.
[465] “Et quarta orbis pars quam quis Americus invenit, Amerigen quasi Americi terram, sive Americam nuncupare licet.”
[466] “Nunc vero et hæc partes sunt latius lustratæ, et alia quarta Pars per Americum Vesputium, ut in sequentibus audietur, inventa est, quam non video cur quis iure vetet ab America inventore, sagacis ingenii viro, Amerigen quasi Americi terram sive Americam dicendum, cum et Europa et Asia a mulieribus sua sortitæ sint nomina.” Hylacomylus.
[467] [Vespucci himself says that his mission was “per ajutare a discoprire.” An astronomer was an important officer of all these early expeditions. Isabella urged Columbus not to go without one on his second voyage; and in his narrative of his fourth voyage, Columbus contends that there is but one infallible method of making a ship’s reckoning, that employed by astronomers. Cf. Humboldt, Cosmos, Eng. tr., ii. 671.—Ed.]
[468] Herrera,—of whom Robertson says that “of all Spanish writers he furnishes the fullest and most authentic information upon American discoveries”—accuses Vespucci of “falsehoods” in pretending to have visited the Gulf of Paria before Columbus.
[469] [Varnhagen thinks there is reason to believe, from the letter of Vianello, that Vespucius made a voyage in 1505 to the northern coast of South America, when he tracked the shore from the point of departure on his second voyage as far as Darien; and he is further of the opinion, from passages in the letters of Francesco Corner, that Vespucius made still a final voyage with La Cosa to the coast of Darien (Postface in Nouvelles recherches, p. 56). Harrisse (Bibl. Amer. Vet., Additions, p. xxvii) gives reasons, from letters discovered by Rawdon Brown at Venice, for believing that Vespucius made a voyage in 1508.—Ed.]
[470] Cf. Navarrete, iii. 297, for the instructions of the King.
[471] “Noticias exactas de Americo Vespucio,” in his Coleccion, iii. 315. The narrative in English will be found in Lester’s Life of Vespucius, pp. 112-139.
[472] May 10, 20, 1497, and Oct. 1, 15, 18, 1499.