The voyage of Verrazzano

From the opening

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.

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