time ambassador for his Republic to His Majesty; and, having asked him how it could be, he, who was a great philosopher and learned in Greek and Latin literature, so that for his singular learning and rare excellence, he was afterwards promoted to much higher rank, gave this explanation: That it could not have fallen out otherwise, as they had travelled for three years continuously and always accompanied the sun, which was going westward. And he told him besides, that those who sailed due westwards towards the sun, lengthen their day very much, as the ancients also had noticed. Now, the book of the aforesaid Peter having disappeared, Fortune has not allowed the memory of so marvellous an enterprise to be entirely lost, inasmuch as a certain noble gentleman of Vicenza called Messer Antonio Pigafetta (who, having gone on the voyage and returned in the ship Vittoria, was made a Knight of Rhodes), wrote a very exact and full account of it in a book, one copy of which he presented to His Majesty the Emperor, and another he sent to the most Serene Mother of the most Christian King, the Lady Regent. She entrusted to an excellent Parisian philosopher called Jacomo Fabre, who had studied in Italy, the work of translating it into French.[1]
This worthy person, I suppose to save himself trouble, made only a summary of it, leaving out what seemed fit to him; and this was printed, very incorrectly, in France, and has now come into our hands; and along with it a letter from one called Maximilianus of Transylvania, a secretary of His Majesty the Emperor, to the most Reverend Cardinal of Salzburg. And this we have wished to add to this volume of travels, as one of the greatest and most remarkable that there has ever been, and one at which those great philosophers of old, hearing of it, would have been stupified and beside themselves. And the city of Vicenza may well boast, among the other cities of Italy, that in addition to its nobility
- ↑ It was written in French. See Introduction.
