The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci, and Other Documents Illustrative of His Career

FOOTNOTES

1 (return)
Amerigo Vespucci, son caractère, ses écrits (même les moins authentiques), sa vie, et ses navigations. Par F. A. de Varnhagen, Ministre du Brazil en Perou. (Lima, 1865.)

2 (return)
Vita e lettere d'Amerigo Vespucci, Gentiluomo Florentino, raccolte ed illustrate dall' Abate Angelo Maria Bandini. (4to, Firenze, 1745.)

3 (return)
Viaggi d'Amerigo Vespucci con la vita, l'elogio, e la dissertazione justicativa di questo celebre navigatore, del Padre Stanislao Canovai, delle scuole pie, pubblico professore di Matematico. Opera postuma. (Firenze, 8vo, 1817.)

4 (return)
The first of these letters was published by Bandini from a manuscript found in the Riccardi Library at Florence. It is intended to describe the voyage with Hojeda in 1499. The second appeared in the edition of Marco Polo by Baldelli in 1827, and was also found in the Riccardi Library. It describes an imaginary voyage to the East Indies. The third describes a Portuguese voyage, and was published by Bartolozzi in 1789. It was discovered in the archives of the old Secretariat of State at Florence, among papers which belonged to the Strozzi Library. All three profess to be addressed to Lorenzo di Medici. They are reprinted by Varnhagen, pp. 69-86.

5 (return)
Bandini, Vita, xxiv.

6 (return)
There are sixty-eight letters to him, 1483-91, chiefly on business matters.

7 (return)
Nav., iii, 316.

8 (return)
Four sailed for Española, under the command of Aguado, on 5th August 1495. Others were probably used for the voyage of Pero Alonzo Niño, which sailed on June 15th, 1496; and for the third expedition of Columbus in 1498.

9 (return)
On the authority of Muñoz, quoted by Navarrete (iii, 317 n.). More recent researches have failed to discover these entries seen by Muñoz in the second book of Gastos de las armadas de las Indias of the "Casa de Contratacion"; and Mr. Harrisse, therefore, assumes that they never existed. This does not follow, and the evidence of so high an authority as Muñoz cannot so lightly be set aside. It is true, however, that the evidence of Muñoz is not conclusive without documents, and in that case the last date on which Vespucci is mentioned as being at Seville is January 12th, 1496.

10 (return)
Pliny the elder was born thirty-one years after the death of Mecænas.

11 (return)
"The sculptures of Polycletus and the paintings of Apelles." (Macaulay.)

12 (return)
Letter to Solderini, p. 3.

13 (return)
Chap. clxvi, end.

14 (return)
Letter to Medici, p. 4.

15 (return)
Letter to Solderini, Fourth Voyage, p. 53.

16 (return)
Ibid., p. 56.

17 (return)
Ibid., Second Voyage, p. 27.

18 (return)
Sebastian Cabot only knew of the qualifications of Vespucci from the report of his nephew Giovanni and others. He said, in his evidence before the Badajoz Commission (13th November 1515), that Vespucci took the altitude at Cape St. Augustine, and that he was expert in taking observations. Giovanni Vespucci also said that his uncle took sights and kept a journal. Nuño Garcia gave similar evidence. (Extracts by Muñoz from the Registro de copias de cedulas de la Casa de la Contratacion, Nav., iii, 319.)

19 (return)
See p. 44.

20 (return)
See pages 99 to 106.

21 (return)
Las Casas thinks that the islands where the natives were kidnapped, called Iti by Vespucci, were Dominica and Guadalupe. See p. 93.

22 (return)
These dates make the voyage mentioned in an alleged letter of Vespucci, recently found in Holland, quite impossible. This fabulous voyage from Lisbon to Calicut covered the time from March 1500 to November 15th, 1501. The letter was printed in Dutch by Jan van Doesborch at Antwerp, on December 1st, 1508 (twelve leaves). Mr. Coote (in the Athenæum, Jan. 20, 1894) has suggested that the date is a mistake, and that it should be 1505-1506, the date of the Portuguese voyage of Almeida; having found that some incidents in the spurious letter occur also in the account of the voyage of Almeida. But the suggested dates are equally impossible so far as Vespucci is concerned, for he was certainly in Spain during the whole of 1505 and 1506. The letter is clearly a fabrication.

23 (return)
Nav., iii, 292.

24 (return)
Ibid., 294-95, 302.

25 (return)
See p. 58.

26 (return)
Nav., iii, 299.

27 (return)
Nav., iii, 305, 308.

28 (return)
On her death, in 1524, her pension was passed on to her sister Catalina. (Nav., iii, 324.)

29 (return)
Ibid., 306.

30 (return)
See page 35.

31 (return)
See page 42.

32 (return)
See pp. 44, 45.

33 (return)
Varnhagen thought, from the places and dates of other pamphlets bound up in the same volume with his copy, that it was printed by Piero Paccini, at Pescia, in 1506.

34 (return)
The Spanish traer is used for the Italian portare four times, cansado for stanco three times, disnudi for ignudi three times, salir for escire twice, allargar for allungare twice, dismanparate for abbandonate twice, largi for lontani twice, and ruego for priego twice. Other Hispanicisms occur once, namely:—

35 (return)
He calls a bay ensenada instead of seno, surgemo for gettamo (l'ancora), calefatar and brear instead of spalmare and impeciare, aquacero for rovescio, serrazon for oscurezza, tormento for tempesta, palo for legno, riscatto for comprato. He uses the Spanish phrase doblare un cabo, and the Portuguese word fateixa for a boat's anchor.

36 (return)
See p. 11.

37 (return)
See pp. 16, 17.

38 (return)
See p. 39.

39 (return)
See p. 55.

40 (return)
In his second voyage he calls the cannibal tribe Cambali. Columbus, in the Journal of his first voyage, frequently mentions the Caribas or Canibas.

41 (return)
See p. 11.

42 (return)
The name of Columbus is not once mentioned in the Cosmographiæ Introductio, containing the Latin version of Vespucci. It occurs only once in the letter of Vespucci, where, in his second voyage, he mentions his arrival at Antiglia, formerly discovered by Columbus.

43 (return)
See also Navarrete, iii, 474. Peter Martyr says, "in the year before the expedition of Nicuesa and Hojeda", which was in 1509.

44 (return)
Ledesma was aged 37 in March 1513. (Nav., iii, 539.)

45 (return)
A study of Harrisse, and reference to the original authorities (after writing the note on the Pinzon and Solis voyage at p. 284 of my Life of Columbus), has led me to make several corrections, especially as regards the date of 1506 given by Herrera. The true date of the voyage was 1508.

46 (return)
Dec. II. Lib. vii, pp. 85-6, of Eden's translation (Willes' ed.).

47 (return)
"That is, the Prince of Chiauaccha, for they call princes or kings Chiaconus."

48 (return)
"The first year before the departing of the captains Nicuesa and Fogeda" (Hojeda), which was in 1509.

49 (return)
Names on the coast-line from Paria to Cabo de la Vela:—

Six of the names are the same, all the rest are different. Juan de la Cosa gives twenty-two, the Cantino map fifteen names.

50 (return)
Vespucci calls Española by the name used in Portugal—Antilla. On the Cantino map the West Indian Islands are called Antillas.

51 (return)
Dec. II, Lib. x (p. 92 in Eden's translation):—

"From the tyme, therefore, that I fyrste determined to obeye theyr requestes who wylled me fyrst in your name to wryte these thinges in the Latine tongue, I did my endevour that al things myght come foorth with due tryal and experience; whereupon I repayred to the Bishop of Burgos, beyng the cheafe refuge of this navigation. As we were therefore secretely togeather in one chamber, we had many instruments parteining to these affaires, as globes, and many of those mappes which are commonly called the shipmans cardes, or cardes of the sea. Of the which, one was drawen by the Portugales, wherunto Americus Vesputius is said to have put his hande, beyng a man most experte in this facultie, and a Florentine borne, who also under the stipende of the Portugales had sayled towarde the South pole many degrees beyonde the Equinoctial. In this carde we founde the first front of this lande to be broder then the kynges of Uraba had persuaded our men of theyr mountaynes."

52 (return)
The Viscount Santarem, principal archivist of Portugal in 1826, searched all the original correspondence of King Emanuel from 1495 to 1503 inclusive, and many thousands of documents of that time in the Torre de Tombo at Lisbon, and at Paris, but never once came across the name of Vespucci.

53 (return)
Beseneque (?).

54 (return)
A Portuguese pilot, who wrote an account of the voyage of Pedro Alvarez Cabral to India, says that on their return, on reaching the land near Cape Verde, called Beseneque, they met three Portuguese ships sent to discover the new land found by Cabral on the voyage out (Coleccion de Noticias, etc., Lisboa, 1812, cap. 21). It is very suspicious that Vespucci should not mention this meeting if he was on board one of these three ships. (Nav., iii, 310.)

55 (return)
Varnhagen supposes this land to be South Georgia, in 54° S., discovered by Captain Cook in 1776. Navarrete suggested Tristan d'Acunha.

56 (return)
Goes mentions an expedition to Brazil commanded by Gonzalo Coelho, which sailed from Lisbon on June 10th, 1503, and consisted of six ships. But Coelho returned safely with four out of his six ships, while Vespucci asserts that the commander perished, in the expedition in which he served.

57 (return)
Latin edition: "To the most illustrious René, King of Jerusalem and Sicily, Duke of Lorraine and Bar."

58 (return)
Supposed to be Pietro Soderini, Gonfaloniere of the Republic of Florence in 1504, who had studied with Vespucci. See Bandini, p. xxv.

59 (return)
Fernando is never called King of Castille in any document of the period.

60 (return)
The Latin version has 20th.

61 (return)
Inferno, Canto 26, l. 116:

62 (return)
The third climate of Hipparchus was between the parallels of Syene and Alexandria.

63 (return)
The distance shows that, like Columbus, he reckons four miles to a league.

64 (return)
"Ponente figliando una quarta di libeccio." Varnhagen makes this 0¼ S. O. A course W.S.W. for 1,000 leagues would have taken him to the Gulf of Paria, which is a little over 900 leagues W.S.W. from Grand Canary. He would not have reached land in 16° 68 N. and 70° W. even if he had steered the right course, and there had been no intervening land, by going 1,000 leagues. Such a distance would have left him 930 miles short of that position.

65 (return)
Twenty-seven days (Latin version).

66 (return)
Equal to 1333⅓ leagues of three geographical miles.

67 (return)
70° W. of Canaria, or 85° W. of Greenwich, would be in the Pacific Ocean; but this is a specimen of Vespucci's romancing. There was no observation for longitude with instruments in those days. Columbus observed the time occasionally, when there was an eclipse, comparing it with the time at some place given in his almanac, but the result was too rough to be of any use.

68 (return)
The part of the mainland in 16° is in the Gulf of Honduras. In his second voyage he alleges that he reached 15°, which is probably the reason why he chose 16° for a landfall on this voyage.

69 (return)
Bombix.

70 (return)
Coltroni. Varnhagen suggests the Spanish word colchones, mattresses; but coltroni is a good Italian word, and suitable.

71 (return)
Yuca is a word in the language of the West Indian islanders for the root of Jatophra Manihot.

72 (return)
Cazabi, the bread made from the same root.

73 (return)
Inhame (Port.), Ñame (Sp.), a word of African origin. Yam.

74 (return)
Zibaldone (Lat. Libellum).

75 (return)
Cani alani.

76 (return)
This is a description of the iguana, which Vespucci would have seen on the coast of Venezuela.

77 (return)
Lariab in the Italian edition.

78 (return)
Maestrale.

79 (return)
He says he left Cadiz on 10th May 1497. According to this it was then 10th June 1498.

80 (return)
I am indebted to Mr. Quaritch's translation for the suggestion that the word allogiate may be allegiate for allegerite ("lightened").

81 (return)
I.e., the course. Infra Greco e Levante.

82 (return)
Iti (sing. Ito), an old Italian word, meaning "gone". Here he gives it as the name of an island. In the second voyage he uses it for "gone"—"Dipoi che fumo iti circa di una legua." It is probably a name invented by himself. Navarrete suggests it may be Ha-iti, the native name for Española, which he adopted for his imaginary island.

83 (return)
Two hours, in the Latin edition.

84 (return)
Latin edition has 25.

85 (return)
Both editions agree as to this number "222".

86 (return)
This is untrue. There were four ships. See Las Casas, chap. 165.

87 (return)
He uses the word "wind" for rhumb or course.

88 (return)
Trinidad and the Gulf of Paria.

89 (return)
Braccia is a yard, a measure of three spans.

90 (return)
Mirabolani.

91 (return)
Alonso Niño and Cristobal Guerra, in their voyage in 1500, observed the same practice among the natives, and said it was to keep their teeth white. (Nav., iii, p. 15.)

92 (return)
Further on he says that the kinds of animals on the island were varied and numerous.

93 (return)
Iti, an old Italian word for "gone"—"Dipoi che fumo iti circa di una legua."

94 (return)
The island of Curaçoa.

95 (return)
This is untrue, as Las Casas has proved.

96 (return)
It should be 13°. The coast explored by Hojeda is, in no part, north of 13°.

97 (return)
Conta, a Portuguese word.

98 (return)
The island of Española, so called by the Portuguese.

99 (return)
September 5th, 1499, to November 22nd, 1499.

100 (return)
A false date. It should be November 22nd. He gives the day correctly.

101 (return)
These dates are shown by Las Casas to be false. Amerigo does not give any year; but the date of arrival at Cadiz was really about February 1500. Varnhagen (p. 107 n.) suggested that Hojeda and La Cosa arrived first at Española, while Vespucci remained on the coast of the mainland for some months. He refers to the evidence of one Cristobal Garcia of Palos, given on October 1st, 1515, to the effect that, he being at San Domingo, Hojeda and La Cosa arrived there in a small bark, having lost their ships, and with only fifteen or twenty men, the rest being dead (Nav., iii, 544). But this cannot refer to the voyage of 1499, when Hojeda had not lost his ships, and did not go to San Domingo. The evidence, of course, relates to his disastrous second voyage. The narrative of Roldan, quoted by Las Casas, proves that Hojeda came to Española with all his ships, that Vespucci was not left behind on the coast of the mainland, and that the dates given by Vespucci are false, either through carelessness or design.

102 (return)
Nav., iii, 544.

103 (return)
Vespucci.

104 (return)
Casas and Herrera.

105 (return)
In one of the forged letters published by Bandini. See p. 75 of Varnhagen.

106 (return)
Only mentioned in the three instructions given by Hojeda in his second voyage, to his nephew Pedro de Hojeda and Vergara to search for the vessel Santa Ana, to Vergara to go to Jamaica to buy provisions, and to Lopez to go in search of Vergara.

107 (return)
Vita del Ammiraglio, cap. 84.

108 (return)
One of the forged letters in Bandini.

109 (return)
Beze quiche, now Gorée. Biseghier in the Medici letter. Besilieca in the Latin ed.

110 (return)
S.W. ¼ S.

111 (return)
C. S. Roque.

112 (return)
"Traeua un gran palo", which is Spanish. In Italian, "portava un legno".

113 (return)
Fateixa (fatesce), a boat's anchor in Portuguese.

114 (return)
St. Augustine's Day, 28th August.

115 (return)
Lat. 26°, not 32°.

116 (return)
Verzino.

117 (return)
Varnhagen thinks this was South Georgia, so named by Cook in Jan. 1775, in 54° S. Navarrete suggests Tristan d'Acunha. Vespucci says that 50° was the furthest limit he reached to the south, along the coast, in the Medici letter, but that he then sailed to within 17° 30′ of the S. Pole, or 73° 30′ S.!! See p. 45.

118 (return)
10th of March in the other letter.

119 (return)
This should be ten months, according to the other letter.

120 (return)
Seven days, according to the other letter.

121 (return)
17th of August in the other letter.

122 (return)
150 leagues, according to the other letter.

123 (return)
In the other letter he tells a very different story.

124 (return)
In 73° 30′ S.! There is no such statement in the other letter.

125 (return)
Policletus was not a painter.

126 (return)
He may mean their orbits, not the stars themselves; but in either case he is talking nonsense.

127 (return)
Zenit in the Italian version.

128 (return)
Gonzalo Coelho, according to Damian de Goez, sailed from Lisbon on an expedition to Brazil, with six ships, on June 10th, 1503.

129 (return)
This may mean either 33° S. lat.; or 33° from the Pole, which would be 57° S. lat. Malacca is in 2° 14′ N. lat.

130 (return)
Fernando Noronha is probably intended.

131 (return)
Bahia.

132 (return)
If this is intended for Gonzalo Coelho, the only Portuguese commander who is recorded to have sailed from Lisbon for Brazil in 1503, the statement is false. He returned safely with four out of his six ships.

133 (return)
Navarrete, i, 351.

134 (return)
In the library of San Marco at Venice, in the books of notes of correspondence of Venetian diplomatists with the Secretary Marino Sanuto, near the end of vol. vi. (Varnhagen, Nouvelles Recherches, p. 12.)

135 (return)
Juan de la Cosa.

136 (return)
Vianelo was misinformed as to Vespucci having accompanied Juan de la Cosa on this voyage in 1506. There are documentary proofs that Vespucci was in Spain during the whole of that year. There was an intention of sending him, with Vicente Pinzon, in search of the Spice Islands by the west, and he was consulted on the subject in August 1506, but the intention was abandoned. The account given by Vianelo of the voyage (especially the stories about the dragons and the gold) may have been furnished by Vespucci. It is quite in his manner.

137 (return)
Sp., a sort of whale.

138 (return)
Vernicare, "to varnish".

139 (return)
Assassimo (?).

140 (return)
Nav., iii, 292, from the Archives of Simancas.

141 (return)
It has been pretended that John Cabot had sighted the continent in the previous year, but this is not so. He only sighted Cape Breton and other islands. In his second voyage he sighted the continent (1498), but the month is unknown.

142 (return)
Las Casas only knew the Latin version.

143 (return)
Juan de la Cosa was called "Vizcaino" (Biscayan) by his contemporaries; but he was a native of Santoña, in the province of Santander, a place which was not then, and never had been, in Biscay, or in the Basque country.

144 (return)
The words "other pilots" are to be coupled with Juan de la Cosa, certainly not with Vespucci, who then went to sea for the first time, in advanced middle age, and could in no sense be called a pilot.

145 (return)
So in the Latin edition. In the Italian version L is substituted for P, and b for s, making Lariab. This may be a misprint, but in the absence of the manuscript it is not possible to be sure whether the original word was Parias, or Lariab, or something else. Las Casas bases part of his argument on the use of the word Paria by Vespucci; but the case against the Florentine's alleged first voyage is quite conclusive, without this fact. If Vespucci did use the word Lariab, it must have been invented by him, like Iti. It is in favour of Lariab that the Italian version only passed from manuscript to print, while the Latin version was translated first into French, and thence into Latin, before it was printed. On the other hand, there is evidence that the editors of the Latin version were unacquainted with the details of the third voyage of Columbus, in which the word Paria first occurs. It, therefore, is not possible that the word can have been inserted mistakenly by them. It seems, therefore, that Lariab is a misprint of the Italian compositors, and that Parias was the word in the manuscript of Vespucci.

146 (return)
This is so. The departure, in the Latin version, is on May 20th, 1497; in the Italian it is May 10th, 1497. The date of the return is 1499 in the Latin, and 1498 in the Italian edition.

147 (return)
Columbus arrived at Santo Domingo, on his third voyage, after discovering Trinidad and the mainland of America, on August 31st, 1498. He found Francisco de Roldan in open rebellion against his brother, the Adelantado. On October 18th, 1498, he sent five ships to Spain with a cargo of dyewood, and 600 slaves. By these ships the Admiral despatched his chart of the new discoveries, with a report, and two long letters giving an account of the rebellion of Roldan and the state of the colony. Las Casas believes that letters full of complaints of the Admiral were also sent home by Roldan and his accomplices. The father of Las Casas, who had gone out with Columbus in 1493, returned to Spain by this opportunity.

148 (return)
Port of Jacmel in Española.

149 (return)
Juan de la Cosa.

150 (return)
Latin version. The Italian version has thirty-seven days.

151 (return)
Jacmel.

152 (return)
Jacmel.

153 (return)
Juan de la Cosa.

154 (return)
Puerto Rico.

155 (return)
Nav., iii, p. 558.

156 (return)
Paria.

157 (return)
Navarrete, iii, 558. Peter Martyr (Dec. I, Lib. x) says that Yañez turned his course to his left hand, by the east, to Paria, and among the princes who came to him were Chiauaccha and Pintguanus.

158 (return)
Pedro de Ledesma (being 37 in March 1513, Nav., iii, 539) was born at Seville in 1476. Gregorio Camacho heard him say that he accompanied Columbus in his first voyage (Nav., iii, 588) when he would have been aged 16. He was with Columbus in the fourth voyage, serving as a seaman in the Vizcaina, under Bartolomè Fieschi, 1503-1504, aged 27. He very gallantly swam on shore over a bar to get tidings at Veragua, but joined the mutineers at Jamaica, and was very severely wounded. In his evidence he said he was Captain and Pilot, which is false. He was pilot with Pinzon and Solis in 1510, and pilot 1511-14. He sailed with Solis to Rio de la Plata, and was drowned on the voyage home in 1516. Las Casas says he was stabbed to death in a street in Seville (iii, 180).

159 (return)
A mistake for east.

160 (return)
Lib. 11, chap. xxxix.

161 (return)
See also Peter Martyr, Dec. II, Lib. vii, p. 85.

162 (return)
In 1510, according to Peter Martyr.

163 (return)
Paria.

164 (return)
Statement of Ledesma, which is erroneous.

Transcriber's Notes:

Inconsistencies in the usage of capitalization, accents and spelling are preserved as printed. As remarked upon in several footnotes, these variations reflect linguistic differences present in the original material from which this text was translated and which have been retained as part of the translation process.

Minor obvious typographic errors have been corrected.