The American Historical Review/Volume 23/Reviews of Books/Vespucci Reprints, Texts and Studies
This series, as explained in each of these five scholarly volumes, had its origin in the gifts to the Princeton University Library, by Mr. Cyrus H. McCormick, of eight tracts relating to Vespucci, all formerly in the famous Hoe Collection. Because of the need for inexpensive and reliable copies of prime sources, authority was granted for the publication of any of the McCormick gifts in facsimile together with other basic documents, in order that they might be used in the training of the critical faculty in students of American history. The definite subject-matter of the first volume of the series, which is not yet published, has not been announced. Volume III. will be a facsimile of the Florence Manuscript of the Soderini Letter. Provision has also been made for the publication of as many as possible of the various editions of the Latin text of the Mundus Novus or Medici Letter, together with a critical bibliographical study of them by Mr. George P. Winship; the Von der new Gefunden Region; the Latin version of the Soderini Letter, etc. The five volumes already published are a distinct contribution to Vespucciana, and the student of the early origins of America will await with impatience the remaining volumes of the series. Their scholarly and dignified appearance and their mechanical excellence, coupled with their very moderate price, should all combine to give them a wide circulation. The three facsimiles, admirably reproduced by the photographic method, offer students sources as valuable as the rare originals, indeed more valuable, because of the inaccessibility of the originals.
Of the original of Lettera di Amerigo Vespucci delle Isole Nuovamente trovate in Quattro Suoi Viaggi, the famous Soderini Letter, probably printed not later than January, 1506, there are but five known copies, one only of which is in the United States. This last, formerly the Quaritch and Kalbfleisch copy, has been reproduced in photographic facsimile several times, so that the actual document has been fairly accessible. The Soderini Letter was also published, but not in photographic facsimile, by Bandini (1745), Canovai (1817), and Varnhagen (1865), but each of these editions contains serious faults. There is also the wellknown Latin version by Martin Waldseemüller, Cosmographiae Introductio (St. Dié, 1507), with its many reissues and translations. The jumbled Ramusio version is rather a curiosity than a thing of permanent value, when compared with other versions of the letter. The many English translations are a further proof of the lasting interest of Vespucci to the historian. The Princeton facsimile of this letter is above criticism except in one point—and this is true of the other facsimiles made from the same copy of the original—namely the blemish in the types on page 10. The same blemish—the smashing or dropping out of several letters, so that two words are illegible—may or may not occur in the other four known copies of the original. If it does, a note should have been added to the volume. If not, that page or a portion of it should have been photographed from one of the other copies, and a note added in regard to it—which could have been inserted at the end or in a preface without destroying the unity of the old print. The same criticism might be offered in regard to the facsimile of the compilation of voyages, Sensuyt le Nouveau Monde. Pages 171 and 182 should each have been photographed from one of the other original copies, in case one be whole, in order to preserve the four obliterated lines of the Princeton copy. The above book is the French translation of the Paesi Novamente Ritrovati, a compilation of early voyages by Montalboddo Fracazio, among the narratives being a version of the Mundus Novus of Vespucci. The three facsimiles would have been improved, so far as their use is concerned, had they been accompanied by bibliographies. It has evidently been the aim of the editors to issue the facsimiles, as far as possible, exactly in their old form without extraneous matter, and it may be the intention to present a complete Vespucci bibliography before the end of the series is reached, as well as the announced bibliography of the Mundus Novus. It is hoped that this will be done, for the Vespucci bibliography is as yet by no means complete, despite the researches of Varnhagen, Harrisse, and others.
The other two volumes, both translations by Professor George Tyler Northup, of Toronto University, will undoubtedly have a wider use than the facsimiles, for the majority of historians, as well as of other people, will go to a good translation rather than to the original. Those few who prefer the originals will find it convenient to use the translations side by side with them. Volume V. presents probably the best translation into English that has yet been made of the Mundus Novus. This has been made from the Latin version published at Vienna in 1504, for the original Italian manuscript has probably been lost, but Professor Northup has been able to use previous translations. This letter has been published in several languages and in many editions. The promised Winship bibliography will be a welcome addition to the tools of the historian.
But of all five volumes, the fourth, the translation of the famous Soderini Letter, with its admirable introduction, offers most interest and value. Here is a work replete with the best that scholarship can offer. In his painstaking labor, Professor Northup has done what few men would care to do, for this is work that demands not only a certain training and acquirement, but a certain temperament as well. This is, in fact, more than a translation. Professor Northup has done what Napione, Gustavo Hughes, and Uzielli dreamed over—constructed a critical text of this most perplexing Vespucci letter—and his work will not have to be done oyer again. The problem he set himself was philological not historical.
Vespucci's writings … have suffered at the hands of translators, copyists, printers, and even, it is to be feared, at those of modern editors. The texts on which we base our judgments are vastly different from those which left the author's hand. The extant versions of these must be critically examined, collated, and classified; critical texts must be established before historians can hope to form accurate judgments based upon Vespucci's writings.
There has been no attempt before to furnish something better than the confessedly erroneous texts that have been used. Professor Northup's
aim is first to describe the three extant versions in which this narrative has come down to us; next, to work out their filiation and trace their descent; then, to state the principles of textual criticism which should be employed in deciding between variant readings. After this will follow an English translation … not based like previous translations upon a single text, but upon all three, following the better readings and supplying omissions.
The three texts selected are the Florentine print, which is labelled "P", the Magliabecchiana MS., labelled "M", and the Waldseemüller translation into Latin, the Cosmographiae Introductio, labelled "H". The first probably more nearly approaches the half-Spanish, half-Italian original, and the second is an eighteenth-century copy of a copy made in 1505 from a manuscript source differing somewhat from that from which "P" was printed. Professor Northup's attempt to construct the original text of the letter as it reached the hands of Piero Soderini in 1504 is ingenious, and his reasoning will generally be accepted as sound. He has proceeded on the theory that when two of these three versions agree as against the third the two have the correct reading. When all three are different, the one that is in accord with known facts or with common sense is the correct reading. In the case of the most delicate differences where facts and common sense cannot come to his aid, he has frankly fallen back on subjective impression, assuming that reading to be the correct one because it seems to be correct. Obviously this is the only one of the three methods on which there can be much difference of opinion and it constitutes the only weak point in the building up of the critical text. But the original text is not reached, according to Professor Northup, by a mere comparison of the three versions. He believes that "P" and "M" proceeded from a common ancestor, each deriving through one or more intermediate forms. The immediate common ancestor of these two versions and of "H" in turn proceeded from another common ancestor, which itself proceeded from the original, with the possibility of one or more intermediate forms at each stage. Professor Northup does not attempt to construct the barbaric text of the original, but does try to give the original text in an English translation, and probably with fair success. For instance, he concludes, as most historians already have, that "Parias" is the correct reading as against the reading "Lariab" of the "F" version, because found in both "M" and "H". Many of the passages of "H", which have quite generally been considered to be interpolations by Waldseemüller, he decides are part of the original, as some of them are found also in "M", and others seem probable though in neither "P" nor "M". In his translation, he shows by the mechanical devices of brackets and italics the readings adopted from "M" and "H", and at the end of the volume, he gives the variants of the three versions in the language of the version.
With Canovai and Harrisse, Professor Northup believes that the Vespucci documents have not come down to us in the form in which Vespucci penned them, and that the Soderini Letter was at least partly based on a Spanish original. The only wholly autograph letter by Vespucci that has come down is written in correct Spanish, and this Professor Northup accepts as trustworthy evidence that Vespucci was well versed in that language—a not oversound reason, as Vespucci might easily have employed a Spaniard to write the letter for him and have later copied it himself. With better reasoning he believes it unlikely that Vespucci, who had left Italy so late in his life, could have forgotten his native language so thoroughly as to write the bastard jargon of the Soderini Letter. The earliest form of this, he thinks, was a report in Spanish to his Spanish patron, to whom he quite naturally would write first. Later, to save himself time and trouble, he had someone else copy it into Italian. The result was the Soderini version, which was made by a careless translator, whose work often becomes a mere transliteration. However, as Professor Northup admits, the matter is not to be settled in a moment, but should be passed on by a jury of competent Romance philologists. Of real help is the treatment of the Hispanisms (he uses the inharmonious term "hispanicisms") of the letter, which have been mentioned by other critics of Vespucci. These he has carefully collected and classified. He divides them into three classes: first, words reported by others as Hispanisms, but which are really old Italian or dialectical forms; second, undoubted or probable Hispanisms; and third, less certain instances in which it is impossible to say whether the word belongs to the one language or the other. Most students will accept his statement that the letter shows no Portuguese influence, since the so-called Portuguese forms may be resolved into Spanish or Italian. The whole introduction is well worthy a careful study with constant reference to the original and the translation. Professor Northup has performed a service which it is hoped will prove an incitement to other scholars, for there is still much work necessary to be done on the earliest sources of American history.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1939, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 84 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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