The original authorities for the early French expeditions have, unhappily, not been preserved, or they still lie hidden in some dusky receptacle, baffling all search for them. The Breton fishermen perhaps wrote no accounts of their voyages across the Atlantic; but we might hope for some authentic reports of the voyages of Denys, Aubert, and others, made under the auspices of the rich and powerful Angos. The archives of Dieppe, however, were destroyed at the bombardment of that town in 1694, and those of La Rochelle met a similar fate.
The earliest mention of these transatlantic voyages that we now find occurs in a discourse attributed to a great French captain of Dieppe, preserved in an Italian translation by Ramusio, in his collection of voyages.[38] This discourse gives a summary description of the new countries, and a very brief mention of their discoverers. From internal evidence it appears to have been written in 1539. Ramusio, in introducing it, expresses his regret that he could not ascertain the name of its author. M. Louis Estancelin published in 1832 a journal of the voyage made by Jean Parmentier to Sumatra in 1529, which corresponds so exactly with the details of a similar voyage in the great captain’s discourse as to make it evident that Parmentier was the person described by Ramusio under that title.[39] This discourse mentions the voyages of Denys and Aubert, and speaks of Verrazano as the discoverer of Norumbega. From this source other writers have generally drawn their authority for these early voyages. The Chronicle of Eusebius,[40] however, contains an account of the visit of American savages to Rouen in 1509; and there is a curious bas-relief over a tomb in the Church of St. Jacques at Dieppe, in which American natives are represented.[41] Charlevoix speaks of the map which Jean Denys is said to have made.[42]
The authorities for the voyage of Verrazano are two copies of his letter, written to the King of France from Dieppe July 8, 1524, on his return from the voyage. Both of these are, however, Italian translations of the letter, the original of which does not exist. One was printed by Ramusio in 1556, in the third volume of his collection of voyages.[43] The other was found many years later in the Strozzi Library (the historical documents in which were afterward transferred to the Magliabechian, now merged in the National Library) in Florence, and was first published in 1841 by the New York Historical Society, with a translation made by Dr. J. G. Cogswell.[44] This contained a Cosmographical Appendix not in the copy printed by Ramusio. The earlier printed version was translated into English by Hakluyt for his Divers Voyages, which appeared in London in 1582, and was incorporated by him into his larger collection published in 1600.[45] Dr. Cogswell’s translation was reprinted in London by Dr. Asher in his Henry Hudson the Navigator, prepared for the Hakluyt Society in 1860.[46] Dr. Asher considers the Cosmographical Appendix a document of great importance. With this Strozzi copy there was found a letter written by one Fernando Carli from Lyons, Aug. 4, 1524, to his father in Florence, accounting for sending Verrazano’s letter, which Carli thought would interest his countrymen. This letter of Carli was first printed in 1844, with the essay of George W. Greene on Verrazano, in the Saggiatore (i. 257), a Roman journal of history and philology. Professor Greene, who was the American Consul at Rome, had been instrumental in obtaining the Verrazano letter for the New York Society, and had previously published his essay in the North American Review for October, 1837. He reprinted it in his Historical Studies. Carli’s letter may be consulted in English translations in Mr. Smith’s, Mr. Murphy’s, and Mr. Brevoort’s essays on Verrazano.
References to the voyage occur occasionally in French, English, and Spanish authors;[47] and it was not until within a few years that any doubt was thrown upon the authenticity of the narrative.
In October, 1864, Mr. Buckingham Smith, an accomplished scholar, who had been secretary of the American Legation at Madrid, read a paper upon this subject before the New York Historical Society, afterward published the same year under the title, An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Documents concerning a Discovery in North America claimed to have been made by Verrazzano. Mr. Smith’s death interrupted an enlarged and revised edition of this essay, which he was urged to prepare.[48] Mr. J. Carson Brevoort presented a paper on Verrazano, taking an opposite view, to the American Geographical Society, in 1871, which he printed three years later, entitled Verrazano the Navigator.[49] This was followed by the appearance, in 1875, of Mr. Henry C. Murphy’s The Voyage of Verrazzano, in which he makes an able plea against the genuineness of the accounts of the voyage. This book caused considerable discussion, and has been answered several times. It remains, I think, the last word on that side of the question,—except that Mr. Bancroft has omitted all notice of Verrazano in the revised edition of his History of the United States, and the editors of Appleton’s American Cyclopædia seem to adopt Mr. Murphy’s conclusions. Mr. Murphy’s book was reviewed by Harrisse in the Revue critique for Jan. 1, 1876, and his conclusions were accepted with some reserve. It was noticed unfavorably by Mr. Major in the London Geographical Magazine (iii. 186) for July, 1876 (copied from the Pall Mall Gazette of May 26, 1876), and by the Rev. B. F. De Costa in the American Church Review of the same date. In 1878-1879 papers on this subject by De Costa appeared in the Magazine of American History, which were afterward collected and revised by their author, and issued, with the title, Verrazano the Explorer, in 1881. This work contains an exhaustive bibliography of the subject, to which reference should be made.[50] In this same year, 1881, M. Cornelio Desimoni, vice-president of the “Società Ligure di Storia Patria,” printed in the fifteenth volume of the Atti of that Society a second Studio on Verrazano, in which he takes strong ground in favor of the genuineness of the voyage. This essay had been presented to the third congress of “Américanistes,” which met at Brussels in 1879. M. Desimoni had previously contributed to the Archivio Storico Italiano for August, 1877, an article upon this navigator,[51] but was able to review Mr. Murphy’s book only from notices he had seen of it. In a note at the end of his paper he states that he had procured a copy, and, so far from finding any reason to modify the views he had expressed, he thought that he could find in Mr. Murphy’s essay additional arguments for the authenticity of the voyage. The second Studio was followed by what M. Desimoni modestly calls a Third Appendix (the Studio having two Appendices printed with it). This is a paper of considerable importance, as it contains the reproduction of the map of which I shall speak later.[52]
Hieronimo da Verrazano, the brother of the navigator, made about 1529 a large mappamundi, on which the discoveries of Giovanni are laid down.[53] This map is preserved in the Borgiano Museum of the College “di Propaganda Fide” in Rome. It is not certain that the map is an original; and it was first mentioned by Von Murr in his Behaim, Gotha, 1801, p. 28, referring to a letter of Cardinal Borgia of Jan. 31, 1795, regarding it. It was again referred to in Millin’s Magazin encyclopédique, vol. lxviii. (1807); but general attention was first directed to it by M. Thomassy in 1852, in a communication published in the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages.[54] Mr. Brevoort[55] has given a description of it, which he prepared from two photographs, much reduced in size, made for the American Geographical Society in 1871. These photographs were not large enough nor sufficiently distinct to allow the names of places on the American coast to be read. This North American section of the map was first given with the names by Dr. De Costa, who had made a careful examination of the original during a visit to Rome, in the Magazine of American History for August, 1878.[56]
This map is not dated; but the following legend, placed at the position of Verrazano’s discoveries, fixes the date for 1529: “Verrazana sive nova gallia quale discoprì 5 anni fa giovanni da verrazano fiorentino per ordine e Comandamento del Cristianissimo Re di Francia” (“Verrazana, or New Gaul, which was discovered five years ago by Giovanni di Verrazano, of Florence, by the order and command of the most Christian King of France”).
One of the most interesting of the maps which show the traces and influence of Verrazano’s voyage is the copper globe known as the globe of Ulpius, from its maker, Euphrosynus Ulpius, constructed (as appears by an inscription on it) in 1542. This was found in Spain by the late Buckingham Smith, and bought for the New York Historical Society in 1859 by Mr. John D. Wolfe. Mr. Smith prepared a paper on this globe, which was printed, with a map of the portion relating to North America, in the Historical Magazine in 1862.[57] Dr. De Costa published, in the Magazine of American History for January, 1879, an excellent account of the globe of Ulpius, with a representation of one hemisphere, which, he says, “without being a fac-simile, is nevertheless sufficiently correct for historical purposes, and may be relied upon.”[58] On this globe, between Florida and the “Regio Baccalearum,” we find this inscription, covering a large extent of territory: “Verrazana sive Nova Gallia a Verrazano Florentino comperta anno Sal MD.” (“Verrazana, or New Gaul, discovered by Verrazano the Florentine, in the year of Salvation MD.”). It will be observed that the date has been left incomplete.
Other maps showing traces of Verrazano’s voyage are enumerated by Kohl, Brevoort, and De Costa, the account by the last-named being the latest, and perhaps the most complete.[59]