Part 11 (1/2)
Pick up this book and nail it to the wall, where it may be observed by all, for it was the very beginning of Vespucci's posthumous troubles.
We have read the letter and known it to have been a plain, unvarnished account of Vespucci's third voyage, in which he chanced to say that he thought he had discovered the fourth part of the globe, and proposed to call it _Mundus Novus_, or the New World. He was quite right, and within bounds, when he did this, for he was thinking only of that portion of the _southern hemisphere_ which he had found, and not of the entire western hemisphere. He did not extend the term to cover the northern regions, discovered by Columbus, for the latter had no idea that they pertained to a new world; in fact--as we know--believed to the last that they belonged to Asia or India.
”At no time during the life of Columbus, nor for some years after his death,” says a learned historian, ”did anybody use the phrase 'New World' with conscious reference to his discoveries. At the time of his death their true significance had not yet begun to dawn upon the mind of any voyager or any writer. It was supposed that he had found a new route to the Indies by sailing west, and that in the course of this achievement he had discovered some new islands,” etc.
We must, then, acquit Vespucci of any intention of depriving Columbus of his laurels, when he said he believed he had found a new world, for he referred only to that portion of South America now known as Brazil.
Nor, so far as we know, was he either responsible for, or aware of, the publication of his letters to Medici and Soderini--for those to the latter were afterwards translated and printed--as he was, at that time, on the ocean. In truth, as the letters were merely epistles to friends, who would naturally be interested in his discoveries, and of course overlook any defects of diction, he openly stated that he was only waiting leisure for improving and elaborating them for issue in pamphlet form. He never acquired this leisure, and the world, tired of waiting, seized upon his material and brought it out in print, without so much as saying ”by your leave.”
The second person to take liberties with Vespucci's name was one Matthias Ringmann, a student in Paris, who was acquainted with Friar Giocondo, and of course saw the _Mundus Novus_, which he published in Strasburg in 1505. That same year he was offered the professors.h.i.+p of Latin in a college at Saint-Die, a charming little town in the Vosges Mountains, which had long been a seat of learning. It is said to have been strangely a.s.sociated with the discovery of America, from the fact that here was written, about 1410, the book called _Imago Mundi_, which Columbus read and probably took to sea with him on his first great voyage. In a double sense, this obscure town and college, nestling in a little-known valley of the Franco-German mountains, is known in connection with the name America, as will now be shown.
Young Professor Ringmann found at Saint-Die a select and distinguished company of scholars, composed of Martin Waldseemuller, professor of geography; Jean Basin de Sendacour, canon and Latinist; Walter Lud, secretary to Duke Rene, patron of literature, and especially of the college of Saint-Die, which was to him as the apple of his eye. He was the reigning Duke of Lorraine, and t.i.tular ”King of Sicily and Jerusalem,” but had never strayed far from his own picturesque province, though he had won a great victory over Charles the Bold in 1477. He is, no doubt, worthy an extended biographical sketch, but in this connection can only be referred to as the patron of these great teachers in Saint-Die, who, soon after the appearance of Ringmann among them, conceived the plan of printing a new edition of _Ptolemy_.
One of them, Walter Lud, was blessed with riches, and as he had introduced a printing-press, about the year 1500, the college was amply equipped. So many discoveries had been made since the last editions of _Ptolemy_ had appeared, that the Saint-Die coterie felt the need of new works on the subject, and sent Ringmann to Italy hunting for the same. He, it is thought, brought back, among other ”finds” of great value, the letter written by Vespucci to Soderini from Lisbon, in September, 1504, a certified ma.n.u.script copy of which was made in February, 1505, and printed at Florence before midsummer, 1506.
No extended explanation is needed now to elucidate the scheme by which Vespucci's letters were incorporated in the treatise published by those wise men of Saint-Die, ent.i.tled _Cosmographie Introductio_, or ”Rudiments of Geography,” and taken from the press on April 25, 1507.
It was a small pamphlet, with engravings of the crudest sort, but it made a stir in the world such as has been caused by but few books since. But one copy of this first edition is said to be extant, and that is in the Lenox Library, New York City. It caused a flutter in cosmographical circles, not alone at the time of its issue, but for centuries thereafter, for in it first occurs in print the suggestion that the ”fourth part of the world,” discovered by Amerigo Vespucci, should be called AMERICA.[15]
Professor Martin Waldseemuller was the culprit, and not Amerigo Vespucci, for he says, in Latin, which herewith find turned into English: ”But now these parts have been more extensively explored and _another fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespucius_ (as will appear in what follows): _wherefore I do not see what is rightly to hinder us from calling it Amerige, or America--i.e., the land of Americus, after its discoverer, Americus, a man of sagacious mind_, since both Europe and Asia have got their names from women. Its situation and the manners and customs of its people will be clearly understood from the twice two voyages of Americus, which follow.”
It was a suggestion, merely, and by one who was a perfect stranger to Vespucci; but it promptly ”took,” for the word America was euphonious, it seemed applicable, and, moreover, it was to be applied only to that quarter in the southern hemisphere which had been revealed by Amerigo Vespucci. It was a suggestion innocently made, without any sort of communication from Amerigo himself, intended to influence the opinion of contemporaries or the verdict of posterity.
[Ill.u.s.tration: NORTH AMERICA FROM THE GLOBE OF JOHANN SCHoNER]
”But for these nine lines written by an obscure geographer in a little village of the Vosges,” says Henry Harrisse, ”the western hemisphere might have been called 'The Land of the Holy Cross,' or 'Atlantis,'
or 'Columbia,' 'Hesperides,' 'Iberia,' 'New India,' or simply 'The Indies,' as it is designated officially in Spain to this day.” ... ”As it was, however,” says another writer, ”the suggestion by Waldseemuller was immediately adopted by geographers everywhere; the new land beyond the Atlantic had, by a stroke of a pen, been christened for all time to come.”
The full t.i.tle of the _Cosmographie Introductio_ reads: ”An Introduction to Cosmography, together with some principles of Geometry necessary to the purpose. Also four voyages of Americus Vespucius. A description of universal Cosmography, both stereometrical and planometrical, together with what was unknown to Ptolemy and has been recently discovered.”
Notwithstanding the name was ”promptly adopted” by the geographers, at the same time it ”came slowly into use,” for geographical knowledge was then in an inchoate state, especially as respected the New World.