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Calicut is placed in the peninsula of Cambaya or Guzerate. The Aurea Chersonesus and Regnum Malacha, or Malacca, are separated by a great gulf, while the latter is placed so low as 30° S. latitude. This much may suffice for an account of the incorrect yet curious specimen of cosmographical knowledge which had been acquired by the learned in Europe about 300 years ago.
But it was impossible for the jury to be unprejudiced. All inventors, to a certain extent, insult their contemporaries by accusing them of stupidity and of ignorance. And the cosmographical pedants, accustomed to beaten tracks, resented the insult by which this adventurer was attempting to overthrow the belief of centuries.
How much more then ought we to beleeue this passage to Cataia to bee, being verified by the opinions of all the best, both Antique, and Moderne Geographers, and plainely set out in the best and most allowed Mappes, Charts, Globes, Cosmographical tables and discourses of this our age, and by the rest not denied but left as a matter doubtfull.
But the holy Pontiff, bull neck, low forehead, impudent prominent nose, and sensual lips notwithstanding, is exhausted by his cosmographical efforts, and he lets it rest at that. Later, when Spain discovers that her privileges have been abated, he will have to issue another Bull; but not to-day. Sufficient unto the day are the Bulls thereof.
Ramusio in omitting the cosmography and confining his version to the narrative would have left the letter without any designation of the northerly limit reached by Verrazzano, had he not transferred to the narrative, the statement of the latitude attained, namely, the fiftieth degree, from the cosmographical part; which was therefore properly done; though as an editor he should have stated the fact.
All which proceeds from ignorance, as they are very easy to be persuaded, and imitated us with earnestness and fervour in all which they saw us do as Christians in our acts of worship. It remains for me to lay before your Majesty a Cosmographical exposition of our voyage.
Yet all this is nothing to the purpose, as there is no authentic memorial of this supposed voyage, and those who have spoken of it incidentally have given no cosmographical indications of its situation, by means of which the admiral Christopher Columbus, who made the first discovery of the West Indies, could have acquired any information to guide him in that great discovery.
These extraordinary researches, which indicate the wildness and irregularity of Kepler's genius, were published in 1596, in a work entitled, "Prodromus of Cosmographical Dissertations; containing the cosmographical mystery respecting the admirable proportion of the celestial orbits, and the genuine and real causes of the number, magnitude, and periods of the planets demonstrated by the five regular geometrical solids."
I do not call such a voyage as that one of discovery, but only a visit to discovered lands; because, as you will see by the map, their navigation was continually within sight of land, and they sailed round the whole southern part of Africa, which is proceeding by a way spoken of by all cosmographical authors.
Kepler's Birth in 1571 His Family And early Education The Distresses and Poverty of his Family He enters the Monastic School of Maulbronn And is admitted into the University of Tubingen, where he distinguishes himself, and takes his Degrees He is appointed Professor of Astronomy and Greek in 1594 His first speculations on the Orbits of the Planets Account of their Progress and Failure His "Cosmographical Mystery" published He Marries a Widow in 1597 Religious troubles at Gratz He retires from thence to Hungary Visits Tycho at Prague in 1600 Returns to Gratz, which he again quits for Prague He is taken Ill on the road Is appointed Tycho's Assistant in 1601 Succeeds Tycho as Imperial Mathematician His Work on the New Star of 1604 Singular specimen of it.