OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 289 



see a Crucis at an altitude of 6 10', 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, 



Io mi volsi a man destra, e posi mente 



AU'altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle 



Non viste mai fuor ch' alia prima gente; 



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 rhornboidal figure (una mandorld), 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, byPigafetta, as a wonderful cross (croce maravigliosa), 

 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 m#ny learned Oriental travelers of Pisa.* Acos- 



* I have elsewhere attempted to dispel the 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, " Io 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 Gesaris, considers the three "fa- 

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

 the tour stars of the Cross rise) to be Canopus, Achernar, and Fomalbaut. 

 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 temperauce ; and they, therefore, merit the name of the 

 Vol. IL N 



