Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/211
Rycharde Chaunceler.
A learned descourse of dyuers voyages.
The voyages of the Portugales.
The worlde hangyng in the ayre.
so much vnto vs as doth the viage attempted to Cathay by
the north seas, and the coastes of Moscouia, discouered in
our tyme by the viage of that excellent young man Rychard
Chaunceller, no lesse learned in al mathematicall sciences,
then an expert pilotte, in the yeere of our Lorde 1554. As
concernyng this viage, I have thought good to declare ye
communication which was betweene the sayd learned man
Galeatius Butrigarius,[1] and that great philosopher and noble
gentleman of Italie named Hieronimus Fracastor, as I fynd
written in the Italian histories of nauigations. As they were
therefore conferryng in matters of learnyng and reasoning of
the science of cosmographie, the saide learned man, hauyng
in his hand an instrument of Astronomie, declared with a
large oration howe much the worlde was bound to the kinges
of Portugale, rehearsing the noble factes done by them in
India, and what landes and Ilandes they had discouered, and
howe by theyr nauigations they made the whole worlde to
hang in the ayre. He further declared of what partes of the
ball, the earth remayned yet vndiscouered; and sayde, that
1 It was upon a conjecture, and that an erroneous one, that Eden connected Galeazzo Botrigari with this conversation in the house of the poet Fracastoro. Ramusio, who was Fracastoro's friend, and present at this conversation, describes the occurrence in the following words: — "Mi par convenevole di non lassare per modo alcuno che io non racconti un grande ed ammirabile ragionamento che io udi questi mesi passati insieme coll' eccell. architetto M. Michele da San Michele nell' ameno et dilettovo luogo dell' excellente Messer Hieronimo Fracastoro, detto Caphi. In questo luogo essendo andati a visitar detto eccellente Messer Hieronimo, lo trovammo accompagnato con un gentil' huomo, grandissimo philosopho et mathematico, che allhora gli mostrava uno instrumento fatto sopra un moto de cieli trovato di nuovo, il nome del quale per suoi rispetti non si dice." That this "gentil' huomo" could not have been Galeazzo Botrigari, who was Bishop of Gaeta, and is elsewhere referred to by Eden himself, as the pope's legate to the court of Spain (see Dec. 2, cap. 1), is shown by the fact, that the latter died in 1518 (see Ughelli, Italia Sacra); whereas the conversation occurred some years after the embassy of Paulo Centurione from Pope Leo X. to the court of Russia, which was in 1520. — See post, fo. 188.
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