OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 289 



cse a Crucis at an altitude of 6° 0', it is necessary, taking 

 the refraction into account, to be ten degrees south of Alex- 

 andria, in the parallel of 21° 43' north latitude. In the fourth 

 century the Christian anchorites in the Thebaid desert might 

 have seen the Cross at an altitude of ten degrees. I doubt, 

 however, whether its designation is due to them, for Dante, 

 in the celebrated passage of the Purgatorio, 



lo mi volsi a man destra, e posi mente 



All'altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle 



Nou viste mai fuor ch' alia prima geute ; 



and Amerigo Vespucci, who, at the aspect of the starry skies 

 of the south, first called to mind this passage on his third 

 voyage, and even boasted that he now " looked on the four 

 stars never seen till then by any save the first human pair," 

 were both unacquainted with the denomination of the South- 

 ern Cross. Amerigo simply observes that the four stars form 

 a rhomboidal figure (icjia mandm-la), and this remark was 

 made in the year 1501. The more frequently the maritime 

 expeditions on the routes opened by Gama and Magellan round 

 the Cape of Good Hope and through the Pacific were mul- 

 tiplied, and as Christian missionaries penetrated into the new 

 ly-discovered tropical lands of America, the fame of this con 

 stellation continually increased. I find it mentioned first by 

 the Florentine, Andrea Corsali, in 1517, and subsequently, in 

 1520, by Pigafetta, as a wonderful cross {croce onaravigliosa), 

 more glorious than all the constellations in the heavens. The 

 learned Florentine extols Dante's "prophetic spirit," as if the 

 great poet had not as much erudition as creative imagination, 

 and as if he had not seen Arabian celestial globes, and con- 

 versed with many learned Oriental travelers of Pisa.* Acos 



* I have elsewhere attempted to dispel tlie doubts which several dis 

 tinguished commentators of Dante have advanced in modern times re- 

 specting the " quattro stelle.''^ To take this problem in all its complete- 

 ness, we must compare the passage, " lo mi volsi," &c. {Purgat., 1., 

 v. 22-24), with the other passages: Purg., 1., v. 37; viii., v. 85-93; 

 xxix., V. 121 ; XXX., v. 97 ; xxxi., v. 106; and Inf., xxvi., v. 117 and 

 127. The Milanese astronomer, De Cesaris, considers the three "fa- 

 celle^'' (" Di die il polo di qua tutto quanto arde," and which set when 

 the four stars of the Cross rise) to be Canopus, Achernar, and Fomalhaut. 

 I have endeavored to solve these difficulties by the following considera- 

 tions. " The philosophical and religious mysticism which penetrates 

 and vivifies the grand composition of Dante, assigns to all objects, be- 

 sides their real or material existence, an ideal one. It seems almost 

 as if we beheld two worlds reflected in one another. The four stars 

 represent, in their moral order, the cardinal virtues, prudence, justice, 

 strength and temperance ; and they, therefore, mei'it the name of tha 



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