The following pages, intended to show the claim of discovery in
America by Verrazzano to be without any real foundation, belong to a
work, in hand, upon the earliest explorations of the coast which
have led to the settlement of the United States by Europeans. They
are now printed separately, with some additions and necessary
changes, in consequence of the recent production of the map of
Hieronimo de Verrazano, which professes to represent this discovery,
and is therefore supposed to afford some proof of its authenticity;
in which view it has been the subject of a learned and elaborate
memoir by J. Carson Brevoort Esq.
Certain important documents in relation to Verrazzano, procured from
the archives of Spain and Portugal by the late Buckingham Smith, on
a visit to those countries a year or two before his death, are
appended. They were intended to accompany a second edition of his
Inquiry, a purpose which has been interrupted by his decease. They
were entrusted by him to the care of his friend, George H. Moore
Esq., of New York, who has placed them at our disposal on the
present occasion.
The fragmentary and distorted form in which the letter ascribed to
Verrazzano, appeared in the collection of Ramusio, and was thence
universally admitted into history, rendered it necessary that the
letter should be here given complete, according to its original
meaning. It is, therefore, annexed in the English translation of Dr.
Cogswell, which though not entirely unexceptionable is, for all
purposes, sufficiently accurate. The original Italian text can,
however, be consulted in the Collections of the New York Historical
Society, accompanying his translation, and also in the Archivio
Storico Italiano, in which it is represented by the editor to be
more correctly copied from the manuscript, and amended in its
language where it seemed corrupt; but such corrections are few and
unimportant. In all cases in which the letter is now made the
subject of critical examination, the passages referred to are given,
for obvious reasons, according to the reading of the Florentine
editor.
We are indebted to the American Geographical Society of New York for
the use of its photographs of the Verrazano map, and to Mr. Brevoort
for a copy of the cosmography of Alfonse, from which the chart of
Norumbega has been taken. And our thanks are due to Dr. J. Gilmary
Shea of New York, for valuable assistance; and to Dr. E. B.
Straznicky of the Astor Library, Mons. O. Maunoir of the Societe de
Geographie of Paris, Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull of Hartford, Hon. John
R. Bartlett of Providence, and James Lenox Esq. of New York, for
various favors kindly rendered during the progress of our
researches.