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pigafetta’s voyage round ti-ie world.
to have been a fcholar of Regiomontanus . Notwithftanding this poffible error, thatwriter appears to have had more knowledge of the Cavalhero Behaim than Ro-fcertfon.
In proportion to the truth of the fad that Martin Behaim participated in the inven-tion and adaptation of the aftrolabe for obfervations at fea, is the falfity of the tale,founded on a badly interpreted paflage in the chronicle of Schedel, that it was he whofirft difcovered the Azores , and conducted thither a colony of Flemings on his fecondvoyage to the Atlantic Ocean ; that he failed as far as to the Strait of Magellan ; andthat he, owing to a chart of his, feen by Magellan in the cabinet of the King of Por-tugal , gave origin to the voyage in which this ftrait was explored.
This fuppofed fad was firft bruited by Wagenfil, in his Sacris Parentalibus B. GeorgioFred. Behaimo dicatis (Altdorfii, 1682, infol. p. 16, 17.); but more efpecially in hisPera librorum juvenelium. (Synops. Hiftorim Univerfalis, partiii. page 527. Norib.1695, in 8vo.) in which he fays,—
“ Chriftopher Columbus, of a Placentine family, born at Paleftrella, but afterwardsan inhabitant of the Genoefe territories, when firft he vifited the ifland Madera, wherehe occupied himfelf in planning and delineating geographical charts, whether of hisown accord, as he was a man well informed in what regards aftronotny, cofmography,and phyfics, whether aduated by fome intimations from Martin Bohem, or as theSpaniards affirm, from a pilot named Alphonfo Sanchez de Helba, who by accidenthad touched at an ifland, afterwards called Dominica , meditated a voyage to WefternIndia.
“ The preceding paragraph I adduce, in common with Ricciolus in his excellentwork of Geographia et Hydrographia reformats *; and here an apt opportunityoccurs of publishing a pleafing fad hitherto in concealment, which adds to the cele-brity not only of Nuremberg , my birth-place, and one of the firft of cities, but alfo ofall Germany ; and of which to keep the world longer in ignorance would be a cul-pable negled. Of a certainty, this Martin Bohem, who Ricciolus thought it probablehad generated in Columbus the projed of that fortunate expedition which terminated inthe difcovery of the iflands of the new world, was a citizen of Nuremberg , of theancient and noble family of Behaim , a family which others have been accuftomed andftill are wont to pronounce Bohem, and the Item of which has lately been raifed tobaronial dignity. He was the fon of Martin and Agnes, the daughter of SebaldSchopper. As from his earlieft youth, he had been accuftomed with the moft diligentattention not only to trace the furface of the earth, and the difpofition of its lands andfeas, but alfo to contemplate the heavens and the ftars, he framed at length the refultof his ftudies into a work which he tendered to Ifabella, the daughter of Juan King ofPortugal, who, after the death of her hulband Philip of Burgundy , furnamed theGood, had the adminiftration of affairs ; he even obtained from her a fhip, in which,after navigating beyond the utmoft boundaries then known of the weftern ocean, hefirft difcovered the ifland Fayal, called thus from tKe abundance of beech-trees foundupon it, which in the Portuguefe language have the term fayas. He alfo afterwardsexplored the more diftant iflands, and gave to the whole the denomination Azores ,from the number of hawks which built their nefts there (the Portuguefe calling thefebirds by that name); in thefe iflands he left colonies of Flemings, whofe defendantsare yet found in the iflands : hence the Azores have likewife been called the FlemilhIflands. Proceeding further over the Atlantic Ocean , he arrived at thofe iflands which
* Lib. iii. c 3 f| 22, Bonon. 1661, in folio.
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