pigafetta ’s voyage round the world. 393
uf voyages publifhed by him in Dutch , under the general title of * A Collection of thetaoft memorable Voyages and Travels to the Eaft and Weft-Indies at the beginningof the fecond volume, page vii. while fpeaking of the inducements by which Colonwas prompted to attempt his difcoveries, remarks, c< he was confirmed in this opinion byMartin Van Boheeme, a Portuguefe of the ifland Fayal, his friend, and a greatgeographer f. It perhaps would be difficult to find in any other author fo great anumber of errors in fo frnall a fpace.” Still this ftatement has been copied byRobertfon.
Wagenfeil, as appears from a paffage in a letter written by him from Leibnitz , toBurnet J, in 1697, intended to have given to the world fome memoirs relative to MartinBehaim ; but it is fair to prefume that, without the advantage of reference to the au-thentic documents intruded to me, he would have produced little that could be new.
It is furprifing that Mr. Robertfon fhould have wilhed to deprive Germany of thehonor of having given birth to the Cavalhero Behaim ; and that he fhould affirm himto be a Portuguefe, called Martino de Boemia, merely becaufe Herrera § fpeaks of acertain Martino de Boemia, as a particular friend of Colon; and becaufe Gomera |(fays that the King of Portugal pofleffed a globe made by this Martin of Bohemia ; andthat on fuch flender authority he fhould make the extraordinary conclufion “ thatthe Germans were probably induced to infer from the name of this artift, (Martin, ofBoemia), that he was born in Bohemia , and on this conjecture founded their imaginaryclaim.”
If a writer would give a hiftory of America , it is fit he fhould firft be acquainted withthe treatife of Stuvenius. That miftakes may be avoided fimilar to what I have noticed°f Robertfon, I have communicated the refult of my enquiries to Mr. Ruffel, who isBow employed on a hiftory of America , in which many errors of Mr. Robertfon willhe corrected ; and in the critique which Mr. Forfter is about to publifh on the work ofRobertfon, the grofs miftake I have noticed will no doubt excite his attention.
As in repeating the words of Behaim , I fhall frequently have occafion to refer to histerreftrial globe, I conceive it neceffary to preface what I have to deliver by a defcrip-tiQ n of it, after firft faying a few words of the globes and charts of the ancients.
Prom a paffage of Ptolemey we may conclude that, a hundred and fifty years beforeJhe Chriftian asra, Hipparchus traced the figures of ftars on a globe **. Still, the firftJJ)ventor of a terreftrial globe is unknown ; probably it was Anaximander , a difciple ofI hales, for in a paffage of Diogenes Laertius (Bookii. chap, i.) he ftates, fpeaking ofhint, that “ he marked the confines of the land and feas upon a globe.” Globes ofthis defcription, that is to fay, terreftrial globes, are feen on ancient medals, and inPaintings of antiquity ft. Demetrius Poliorcetes caufed a terreftrial globe to be repre-e nted on his royal mantle J j. Xiphilin fays, after Dion, that Domitian ordered Metius
ft a ^ ei ‘f a meling der gedenkwaardigfte zee-en-land-riflen na Ooft, en Weft Indien 30 deelen in 8°. Am-
I 7° 6 *
j, T -Oeeze meining wierd hem door Martin Van Boheeme, van t’eyland Fayal geboortig, een Portugees ,I | ltr * v nend, een groote weereldkun diger, beveftigd.
K r" ate led to expedt the memoirs of a gentleman of Nuremberg, reputed to have known America , t tote Clnt^r. A/t_ w—„r,:i ,1,;, hv him. (P era
i Colon. Mr. Wagenfeil fpeaks of this at leaft in a work of geography publiihed by him7 “*! Synops. Geog . p. 105.)
» Decad.i “ ' " ~
11. cap. xix.
> lib. i. cap. ii. et Decad. ii. lib.
II Hiftoria General de las Iildias, ch. xci.
Note xvii. Book 2d of his Hiftory of America.
** Montucla. Hilloire des Mathematirpes, tome 1. p.tt Pitture d’Ercole, tome xx. tav. 8.
VOL. XI. 3 E
274.
Pompoftanus