405
And ftill lefs probable is it that he was a fcholar of Beroald, who never quitted Italy except on occafion of a fcort vifit to Paris ; for it is merely conjectural that BehaimI'eally went, as he once propofed, to Venice , in 1457, as alfo that he remained there tillM76 > and the conjecture, as I have found by the correfpondence he maintained withhis uncle Leonard, is altogether ungrounded, feeing the • interval between 1455 and*479 fa circumftance hitherto not generally known) was fpent by him, as was commonenough among the nobility of that time, in commerce. Later than the date of thelafl: of his letters from Antwerp , in the Low Countries, the 8>h June, 1479, nothing isfound refpech’ng him. It is highly probable that in the year 1481 he had repaired toPortugal , where then reigned Alphonfo V.
Before I proceed farther it may be proper I ffiould controvert the tale which theWriter of a German Dictionary * has endeavoured to accredit, that it was Martin Be-haim who, in 1460, difcovered, under Ifabella, widow of the Duke Philip IIL of Bur-gundy, theifland of Fayal, and that he peopled it with a colony in 1466. Thefe fadsar e rather attributable to Job de Huerter, Lord of Moerkirchen, and father in-law toour Behaim , as he exprefles with fufficient perfpicuity on his globe f. It was only in*467 that Ifabella became a widow ; and her fon, Charles the Bold , then thirty-fouryoars of age affumed the reins of government immediately after his father’s death.■How i s j t poffible then that Ifabella, as regent, could have caufed a veffel to be fittedout by Martin Behaim , who, in 1479, was ftill carrying on the linen trade, as appearsoy his letter of the 8ih of June before quoted ?
It was undoubtedly the Normans who firft failed to the Azores in the ninth century ;an d, according to the Prefident De Thou, it was Jean de Betancourt who difcoveredthefe iflands, to which afterwards the names Ter.ceres was given, the Flemifh Iflands,an d the Iflands of Gofs-hawks, (Ilhas dos Aijores.)
_ The Portuguefe, in 1418, difcovered Porto Santo , and in 1420, Madera, the two^nunate Iflands.
In 1433 they doubled Cape Bojador, in Africa , before then regarded as the Ne plusU hra of navigation. The Azores Iflands were difcovered in the following order :—
Santa Maria, the 15th Auguft, 1432, by Gonzalez Velho Cabral. It was the firftPort made by Criftoval Colon, on the 13th February, 1493, when affailed by atempeft°n his return from America .
San Michael, difcovered likewife by Cabral, on the 8 th May, 1444.
Tercera, difcovered in the interval between the years 1444 and 1450.
Saint George, and La Graciofa, in 1450 and 1451.
It is not poffible to fix with precifion the date of the difcovery of the iflands FloresCarvo ; but it is afcertained that they were known in 1449.
Pico and Fayal were difcovered by mariners from St. George and La Graciofa. The^ t colony by which thefe iflands were peopled was compofed of Flemings, who werer °nght to Pico by Job de Huerter, whofe daughter Jane of Macedo afterwards be-Cai ? e the wife of Martin Behaim .
. ~ ar ros the chief hiftorian of the voyages of the Portuguefe, who knew nothinglt: her of Stuvenius §, or Tozen ||, his opponent, fays, on fpeaking of the proprietory• of
Nurenbergifchen Gelehrte Lexicon und Munzbeluftigungen.
+ f! ee P a g. e 39 6 -
+ ecada i. lib. ii. cap. i. _ , ,
17,. o'’^ ret ^‘ Stuvenius, de vero novi orbis inventore, differtatio hfftorico-critica. Francof. ad Mcenum,
' 1 ovo.
I! Chiiftoval Colon, the firft who really difcovered the new world, defended againft the unfounded pre-
tenfions