Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 3 (of 8): English Explorations and Settlements in North America 1497-1689
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
There are no headings prefixed to the inscriptions, except the 1st, the
17th, and 18th. The first inscription, relating to the discovery of
the New World by Columbus, has this title, beneath Tabula Prima, “_del
almirante_.” The 17th—a long inscription—has this title: _Retulo,
del auctor conçiertas razones de la variaçion que haze il aguia del
marear con la estrella del Norte_ (“A discourse of the author of the
map, giving certain reasons for the variation of the magnetic needle
in reference to the North Star”). It is also repeated in Latin over
the version of the inscription in that language. The title to the 18th
inscription, if it may be called a title, has already been given.
The 17th inscription begins as follows: “Sebastian Caboto, capitan
y piloto mayor de la S. c. c. m. del Imperador don Carlos quinto
deste nombre, y Rey nuestro sennor hizo este figura extenda en plano,
anno del nascim^o de nrō Salvador Iesu Christo de MDXLIIII. annos,
tirada por grados de latitud y longitud con sus vientos como carta
de marear, imitando en parte al Ptolomeo, y en parte alos modernos
descobridores, asi Espanoles como Portugueses, y parte por su padre, y
por el descubierto, por donde, podras navegar como por carta de marear,
teniendo respecto a luariaçion que haze el aguia,” etc. (“Sebastian
Cabot, captain and pilot-major of his sacred imperial majesty, the
emperor Don Carlos, the fifth of this name, and the king our lord, made
this figure extended on a plane surface, in the year of the birth of
our Saviour Jesus Christ, 1544, having drawn it by degrees of latitude
and longitude, with the winds, as a sailing chart, following partly
Ptolemy and partly the modern discoveries, Spanish and Portuguese, and
partly the discovery made by his father and himself: by it you may
sail as by a sea-chart, having regard to the variation of the needle,”
etc.). Then follows a discussion relating to the variation of the
magnetic needle, which Cabot claims first to have noticed.[17]
In the inscription, No. 8, which treats of Newfoundland, it says: “This
country was discovered by John Cabot, a Venetian, and Sebastian Cabot,
his son, in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ, MCCCCXCIV. [1494] on the
24th of June, in the morning, which country they called ‘primum visam’;
and a large island adjacent to it they named the island of St. John,
because they discovered it on the same day.”[18]
A fac-simile of this map was published in Paris by M. Jomard, in Plate
XX. of his _Monuments de la Géographie_ (begun in 1842, and issued
during several years following down to 1862), but without the legends
on its sides, which unquestionably belong to the map itself; for those
which, on account of their length, are not included within the interior
of the map, are attached to it by proper references. M. Jomard promised
a separate volume of “texte explicatif,” but death prevented the
accomplishment of his purpose.[19]
[Illustration: PART OF THE SEBASTIAN CABOT MAPPE MONDE, 1544.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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