Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
Ramusio here distinctly asserts that the only document in relation to the voyage of Verrazzano which he had been able to procure, was the letter which he published; but he informs his readers that he had been told by certain persons who had known and conversed with Verrazzano, that it was the intention of the navigator, as he himself declared, to seek permission from Francis I, his adopted sovereign, in whose service it is claimed he made the discovery, to make another voyage to the new found land for the purposes of colonization and further exploration; and he also states, upon the same or other authority, that Verrazzano on another voyage was killed and eaten, by the natives of the country.
But Verrazzano was not dead, at that time, but was alive, as will appear hereafter, in 1527. There is good reason to believe that he was well known then to the royal advisers. Navigations Francaises, p. 194.
A map showing so much of it as relates to North America, was lithographed for the dissertation of Mr. The other references to a Verrazzano map, prove nothing on the subject of the discoveries, unless the letter of Annibal Caro, which alludes to discoveries by the brothers Verrazzani, in connection with a map, he deemed as referring to them.
The solution of the whole difficulty is to be found in the fact that the clause relating to Verrazzano was not the work of the author of the discourse, but of another person. It is not difficult to understand how and by whom this interpolation came to be made.
The result of the expedition was, therefore, notorious, and the letter had attained general publicity at Lyons, without the presence there of either Francis or Verrazzano. This statement must be false.
Nothing could more conclusively show the factitious origin of this delineation and its worthlessness as an exposition of the Verrazzano discovery. Some importance, however, attaches to this map in its assisting us to fix approximately the time of the fabrication of the Verrazzano letter.
The Verrazzano discovery is referred to, for the first time, in any work printed in France, in 1570, in a small folio volume called the Universal History of the World, by Francois de Belleforest, a compiler of no great authority. Par Francois de Belleforest. II, part II, 2175-9. The lord admiral having approved these words, represented then to his majesty, &c."
It is therefore equally unaccountable why the author of the discourse should have acknowledged the discovery by Verrazzano and, at the same time, have passed over altogether the description in the letter, and sought his information in regard to the country elsewhere, when he had there such ample details, especially in connection with the great bay.
Greene in his monograph on Verrazzano, without his following it to the conclusion to which it inevitably leads. If the version in Ramusio be a recomposition of the Carli copy, an important step is gained towards determining the origin of the Verrazzano letter, as in that case the inquiry is brought down to the consideration of the authenticity of the Carli letter, of which it forms a part.
Verrazzano is certainly found at Rochelle on the 16th of June, 1523, two months after the despatch of Silveira was written, with his prizes captured on a different expedition from that mentioned by the ambassador.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking