_ Appendix. No. XXXII.
"Navigatione del Re de Castiglia delle Isole e Paese Nuovamente Ritrovate."
"Naviagatio Chrisophori Colombi."
The above are the titles, in Italian and in Latin, of the earliest narratives of the first and second voyages of Columbus that appeared in print. It was anonymous; and there are some curious particulars in regard to it. It was originally written in Italian by Montalbodo Fracanzo, or Fracanzano, or by Francapano de Montabaldo, (for writers differ in regard to the name,) and was published in Vicenza, in 1507, in a collection of voyages, entitled "Mondo Novo, e Paese Nuovamente Ritrovate." The collection was republished at Milan, in 1508, both in Italian, and in a Latin translation made by Archangelo Madrignano, under the title of "Itinerarium Portugallensium;" this title being given, because the work related chiefly to the voyages of Luigi Cadamosto, a Venetian in the service of Portugal.
The collection was afterwards augmented by Simon Grinaens with other travels, and printed in Latin at Basle, in 1533, [387] by Hervagio, entitled "Novus Orbis Regionum," &c. The edition of Basle, 1555, and the Italian edition of Milan, in 1508, have been consulted in the course of this work.
Peter Martyr (Decad. 2, Cap. 7,) alludes to this publication, under the first Latin title of the book, "Itinerarium Portugallensium," and accuses the author, whom by mistake he terms Cadamosto, of having stolen the materials of his book from the three first chapters of his first Decade of the Ocean, of which, he says, he granted copies in manuscript to several persons, and in particular to certain Venetian ambassadors. Martyr's Decades were not published until 1516, excepting the first three, which were published in 1511, at Seville.
This narrative of the voyages of Columbus is referred to by Gio. Batista Spotorno, in his historical memoir of Columbus, as having been written by a companion of Columbus.
It is manifest, from a perusal of the narrative, that though the author may have helped himself freely from the manuscript of Martyr, he must have had other sources of information. His description of the person of Columbus as a man tall of stature and large of frame, of a ruddy complexion and oblong visage, is not copied from Martyr, nor from any other writer. No historian had, indeed, preceded him, except Sabellicus, in 1504; and the portrait agrees with that subsequently given of Columbus in the biography written by his son.
It is probable that this narrative, which appeared only a year after the death of Columbus, was a piece of literary job-work, written, for the collection of voyages published at Vicenza; and that the materials were taken from oral communication, from the account given by Sabellicus, and particularly from the manuscript copy of Martyr's first decade. _