C WOTES. 



desma, Columbus's pilot in his third voyage, still says in 1513, in th lair- 

 suit against the heirs, that Paria is considered a part of Asia, " la tierra 

 firme que dicese que es de Asia:" Navarret*, T. iii. p. 539. The frequent 

 use of such periphrases as Hondo nuovo, alter' Orbis, Colonus novi Orbis 

 repertor, do not contradict this, as they only denote regions not before seen, 

 and are used just in the same manner by Strabo, Mela, Tertullian, Isidore of 

 Seville, and Cadamosto (Examen crit. T. i. p. 118; T. v. p. 182184). 

 For more than 20 years after the death of Vespucci, which took place in 1512, 

 and indeed until the calumnious statements of Schoner in the Opusculum 

 Geographicum, 1533, and of Servet in the Lyons edition of Ptolemy's Geo- 

 graphy in 1535, we find no trace of any accusation against the Florentine 

 navigator. Columbus himself a year before his death speaks of Vespucci in 

 terms of unqualified esteem ; he calls him " mucho hombre de bien," 

 " worthy of all confidence," and " always inclined to render me service" 

 (Carta a mi muy caro fijo D. Diego, inNavarrete, T. i. p. 351). The same 

 goodwill towards Vespucci is displayed by Fernando Colon, who wrote the life 

 of his father in 1535 in Seville four years before his death, and who with 

 Juan Vespucci, a nephew of Amerigo's, was present at the astronomical junta 

 of Badajoz, and at the proceedings respecting the possession of the Moluccas; 

 by Petrus Martyr de Anghiera, the personal friend of the Admiral, and 

 whose correspondence goes down to 1525 ; by Oviedo, who seeks for every 

 thing which can lessen the fame of Columbus ; by Ramusio ; and by the 

 great historian Guicciardini. If Amerigo had intentionally falsified the dates 

 of his voyages, he would have brought them into agreement with each other, 

 and not have made the first voyage terminate five months after the commence- 

 ment of the second. The confusion of dates in the numerous versions of his 

 voyages, is not to be attributed to him, as he did not himself publish any of 

 these accounts ; such mistakes and confusion of figures are moreover of very 

 frequent occurrence in writings printed in the 16th century. Oviedo had 

 been present, as one of the queen's pages, at the audience at which Ferdinand 

 and Isabella received Columbus with much pomp on his return from his first 

 voyage of discovery. Oviedo printed three times that this audience took 

 place in the year 1496, and even that America was discovered in 1491. 

 Gomara had the same printed not in figures but in words, and placed the dis- 

 covery of the Terra firma of America in 1497, precisely therefore in the year 

 BO critical to Amerigo Vespucci's reputation (Examen crit. T. v. p. 196 202. 

 The entire guiltlessness of the Florentine navigator, who never attempted to 

 attach his name to the New Continent, but who had the misfortune by his mag- 



