The influence of this map upon subsequent ones is next considered, and a long list of maps showing this influence is cited. Dr. De Costa adds to the value of his discussion by giving tracings from several of these maps, with fac-similes of the Verrazano map, and an enlarged drawing of its coast-line.[93] But the strong point of his chapter, and that for which he deserves the greatest credit, is the publication of a sketch of Verrazano’s coast of the United States, with the names of places attached. These names he deciphered from the original map during a late visit to Rome. They are, of course, of the greatest value in any future study of the map. Dr. De Costa enters somewhat into a study of these names.[94]
M. Desimoni, while generally acknowledging his indebtedness to Dr. De Costa’s work, and praising that gentleman’s scholarship and research, could not accept all his inferences in the matter of the names, and doubted some of his readings. He therefore caused a fresh examination of the map to be made, through the kind and learned services of Dr. Giacomo Lumbroso and Canon Fabiani. He prints, in the Appendix to his Studio secondo on Verrazano, in parallel columns, the variations from De Costa’s readings. The great difficulty and doubt attending the deciphering words, particularly names, in old documents and maps, is well known to all who have attempted such work.[95]
A discovery made lately at Milan brings out a new map, and one of great value in the discussion of Verrazano’s voyage. M. Desimoni, on his return to Genoa from the Geographical Congress held at Venice in September, 1881, stopped at Milan, where he visited the Ambrosian Library to consult some maps. He was there told by the prefetto, the Abbé Ceriani, that a map by Vesconte Maggiolo, hitherto supposed to bear the date of 1587, and therefore to have been the work of one of the second generation of this family of map-makers, was really dated 1527. By comparing the legend on this map with one of similar form and writing on a map of 1524, it could be seen that the numeral 2 in the first map had become an 8 by lengthening the curves of the figure until they were finally joined. This appeared to have been done with ink of a paler color. M. Desimoni reproduces the two legends, to show the process.[96] He finds also certain peculiarities in the map, supposed of 1587, which prove that it must belong to the first decades of the century, and therefore entertains no doubt of the correctness of the change in the date.
Fresh from studies of early American voyages, M. Desimoni examined the North American portion of this map, particularly the coast, with as great care as his limited time and the poor condition of the parchment permitted. He was not a little surprised to find that the coast bore names closely related both to the Verrazano and to other maps whose source is yet undiscovered. He made a copy of the names, and afterward submitted his work to Signor Carlo Prayer, of Milan, who verified it, and also furnished as perfect a copy as it was possible to make of the names, and a sketch of the whole coast. This was reproduced by M. Desimoni to illustrate a paper prepared for the Società Ligure di’ Storia Patria.
This map measures about seventy-five centimetres in length by about fifty in width,—about 29½ inches by 19½. Its legend reads: “Vesconte de Maiollo conposuy hanc cartam in Janua anno d̄ny. 1527, die xx Decenbris.” The place occupied in the Verrazano map by the title Nova Gallia, etc., and the legend about Verrazano’s discovery, bears in this map the name Francesca, to indicate exactly a name for the whole region.
There is no mention of Verrazano by name in this map, but there is ample evidence of a connection between Maggiolo’s map and that of Hieronimo da Verrazano; very probably, M. Desimoni thinks, through the intervention or medium of some chart or charts yet unknown. The Maggiolo map has a reference to Florence, Verrazano’s birthplace, in the names of “Valle unbrosa” (Vallambrosa), “Careggi,” etc.; references to France and Francis in such names as “Anguileme,” “Longavilla,” “Normanvilla,” “Diepa,” “San Germano,” and others, particularly “Luisa,” applied to an island. The map is connected with Verrazano’s, not only by this name, but by a great number which the two have in common. It is true that these names are not always applied to the same positions on the two maps: “Luisa” is a squarish island on the Maggiolo map, and a triangular one on the other, and in the letter. The latitudes of Maggiolo’s map are different. Florida is placed as far south as the tropic. There is naturally some diversity in the general direction of the coast, and in the distances from place to place. But the substantial points are equivalent, if not identical. We have the Nova Gallia in its equivalent, Francesca; the same allusions in the names to Tuscany, France, Dieppe; and an identity in the names of three very important places,—“Luisa,” the port of refuge, and the attempt to show Cape Cod.
M. Desimoni examines again the map of Gastoldo, first published in the Ptolemy of 1548, inserted later in Ramusio’s third volume, and the globe known as the globe of Ulpius, already mentioned here. Both contain names that appear on the Verrazano map; but an examination shows that both contain names not on that map, and each contains at least one name not on the other. All these names are found on the map of Maggiolo; and M. Desimoni concludes his paper with a table in four parallel columns, in which a careful comparison is given of the nomenclature of four maps,—the Maggiolo of 1527, the Verrazano of 1529, the Ulpius globe of 1542, and the Gastoldo of 1548.[97]
The earliest mention of the voyage of Gomez is found in Oviedo’s Sumario, which was published at Toledo in 1526.[98] It is there stated (folio xiv, verso) that Gomez returned in November from a voyage begun the year before (1524, which we now know is an error); that he had found in the north “a greate parte of lande continuate from that which is caued Baccaleos, discoursynge towarde the West to the xl. and xli. degree [et puesta en quarenta grados y xli, et assi algo mas y algo menos], frō whense he brought certeyn Indians,” etc.[99]
Peter Martyr’s Decades were published in a complete edition at Alcala in 1530,[100] and his Letters appeared also that same year from the same press.[101] He speaks thus of Gomez in the Decades: “It is also decreed that one Stephanus Gomez, who also himselfe is a skillful navigator, shal goe another way, whereby, betweene the Baccalaos and Florida, long since our countries, he saith he will finde out a waye to Cataia: one onely shippe, called a Caruell, is furnished for him, and he shall haue no other thing in charge then to search out whether any passage to the great Chan, from out the diuers windings and vast compassings of this our Ocean, were to be founde.”[102]
And later he narrates the return of the expedition, its failure to find the strait (declaring his own opinion that Gomez’ “imaginations were vaine and frivolous”), and tells the story about the mistake of cloves and slaves.[103] In a letter written in August, 1524, he speaks also of the voyage of Gomez, but I find no mention of his return in that publication.[104]