A. D. 1484. 705 



February — The parliament of Scotland prohibited for two years the 

 exportation of tallow, and hides, faked, dried, or barked. [J6Is Jac. 

 Ill, c. 115.] 



Martin Beheni of Nurenberg, after having redded about twenty years 

 in his ifland of Fayal, one of the Azores, is faid to have this year ap- 

 plied to John II king of Portugal for the means of undertaking extenf- 

 ive difcoveries. Having obtained fome veflels, he dilcovered Brazil, 

 and ranged along the coafl as far as the ftrait fince known by the name 

 of Magalhanes, or Magellan. But this difcovery is not fo well authen- 

 ticated as we could wifh fo important an event to be *. 



The fame Martin, in conjunction with Rodrigo and Jofeph, two JewiOi 

 phyficians in the fervice of king John, firll: applied the aftrolabe, hither- 

 to ufed only by aftronomers f , to obfervations of the fun's altitude at 

 fea, and compofed tables of declination for afcertaining the latitude. \Pur~ 

 chas''s Filgrimes^ B. ii, § 3.] Before thefe improvements were introduced 

 in navigation, feamen mufl have had very little confidence in their con- 

 jeEiures of their polition. 



1485, June 4"" — As fome Englifli merchants intended to trade to for- 

 eign countries, and efpecially Italy, with their own or chartered veflels 

 and their merchandize. King Richard, obferving from the pradice of 

 other nations the advantage of having a magiftrate appointed for fettling 

 difputes among them, and alfo underflanding that the city of Pifa was 

 moll convenient for the refidence of the Englifli merchants, he, at the 

 requeft of the merchants trading,. or intending to trade, to Pifa and the 

 adjacent countries, appointed Lorenzo Strozzi, a merchant of Florence, 

 to be conful of the Englifli merchants in thole countries, and delegated 

 to him the power of hearing, aiid fummarily determining, all difputes 

 between Englifli fubjedis in thofe parts, and doing all other things per- 

 taining to the office of a conful, with a right to receive one and a quar- 

 te^per cent on all the fales and purchafes of the EngUfli in the city and 

 port of Pifa."|:. [Ftxdera^ V. xii, p. 270.] This was pretty certainly the 



* Mr. Otto [Amer. Phil. tranfaS. V. ii, />. 26S] 400 miles from north to fouth, all on the north 



fays, that this difcovery is authenticated by Mar- fide of the equator, which is probably drawn from 



tin's own letters dated in i486, which are preferv- fancy for the fabulous Atlantis of antiquity, but 



cd in the archives of Nurenberg, and alfo by the could never have been drawn by a man who had 



delineation of a terreftrial globe condrufted by ranged along the coaft of South America as tar as 



himfelf in 149*, and ftill preferred in the library the Straits of Magalhanes. 



of Nurenberg. Dodtor Robertfon, the hiftorian f Chaucer, the father of Englifh poetry, in 



of America, denies the difcovery. If genuine the year 1391 nddreifed an effay on the aftrolabie 



Touchers of the truth of it ilill remain at Nuien- to little Louis his fon. 



berg, it is furely very unworthy of the literary in- J According to Rofcoe \_Life of Lorenzo tie 



dufti-)' of Germany to allow them to lie In obfcurity Media, c. 10] a Lorenzo Strozzi, probably the 



and concealment. — Quere, has not Mr. Otto mif- fame perfon, wau alive after the year 1538, and 



taken the delineation of the Nurenberg globe ? wrote the Life of his brother Filippo Strozzi, 



In the engraved copy of it, the only lands de- which is publillied along with Beneihlto VarchCs 



hneated in the ocean, which has the Azores and Hi/lory of Fhtencc. — Henry VII, dcfirous of un. 



the Canary iflands on the eaft fide of it, and Ci- doing whatever was done by his ptedecefTor, ap- 



pangu (Japan) and the Indian iflands on the well pointed another Florentine merchant, called Chrill- 



lidc, are a fniall idand, called Antilia, with the opher Spene, to be conful at Pifa. \_Fad:ra, F. 



famous feven cities in it, and a lurser one, of about xii, /. 314-'' 



Vol. I. ^ ' 4U 



