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PREFACE OF AMORETTI,
'Tranjlator of the Voyage into modern Italian and into French .
r T~'HE Treatife on Navigation, which, in our manufcript is found at the end of the-L Voyage, is not affuredly a work calculated for the inftruction of navigators of theprefent day *, neverthelefs it deferves publication in my efteem, as much on account ofthe honor it does its author, as its ferving.to throw light on the hiftory of the humanmind, by fhewing the progrefs made in the art of navigation at the commencement ofthe fixteenth century.
All, acquainted with the fciences, at this time know the method by which the latitudeand longitude are determined any where, even in the open fea, and are alfo apprized ofthe variation of the magnetic needle ; but in the time of Pigafetta the knowledge ofthefe matters was a myftery to all except the higher clafs of the learned. The nauticalinftruments were the aftrolabe and the compafs, of the variations of which latter evenpilots, in general, were ignorant, as is deduced from the fpeech of Magellan to hisfquadron *. Regiomontanus had indeed already invented his meteorofcope f, to deter-mine the diftances of places from each other, as well in longitude as in latitude ; and bymeans of a fimilar inftrument it was that Amerigo Vefpucci, in 1499, after a tempeftin which the whole of thofe on board his veffel had loft their reckoning, afcertained hispofition in midft of the Atlantic Ocean , by an obfervation of the conjundtion of themoon with Mars, which had been calculated by Regiomontanus himfelf for the latitudeof Ferrara J. But the ufe of thefe inftruments, as well as fuch calculations, were folittle known, that Vefpucci was regarded by the Ihip’s company as a wonderful man, towhom, in confequence, they gave the command of the veffel: he was afterwards en-trufted with other grand enterprizes, in one of which he found occafion to give hisname to the new continent.
Now, thefe methods, with which few perfons at that time were acquainted, and ofwhich Pigafetta had made himfelf matter, are nearly the fame as thofe now in ufe. Thelatitude of a place is afcertained by taking the elevation of the pole at night, and byobfervations of that of the fun at noon. The elevation of the pole is found by that offome ftar the latitude of which is known, generally the polar ftar, which, in the fpaceof twenty-four hours, defcribes a fmall circle round the pole. This circle was knownto Pigafetta ; and he was not affuredly very wrong in his ftatement, for its radius was3° I 7 / 37 // > notwithftanding it is now but 1° 46', the polar ftar approaching graduallytowards the pole, after a rate which, in the lapfe of fo many years, has occafioned thisdifference. In order to find the vertical diftance of the polar ftar from the pole, as now,it was the cuftom then to obferve the pofition of fome ftar about the polar, under the
* See Book ii. of the Voyage of Pigafetta, page 323.
+ See the Introdu&ion to above Voyage, parag. iii. and note.
X Bartolozzi Ricerche critiche fulla vita d’ Amerigo Vefpucci.
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