Cèllere Codex

B. J. Hoffman's suggestion as to the Codex being the root work of all the later manuscript copies

The Cèllere Codex is one of three surviving copies of a manuscript originally created in 1524 describing the navigation of the East Coast of the United States by Giovanni da Verrazzano. Verrazzano was an Italian who lived in France, and his voyage was undertaken in the service of that country's King, Francis I. The King, prompted by the French mercantile community charged Verrazzano to discover whether there was a direct passage from the Atlantic to China and Japan, who were important trading partners—particularly in silks and spices— for most European nations The Codex is considered by scholars to be the most important of the three copies, although there is debate as to how much weight should be given to some of the detail it provides. Over twelve pages, the Codex describes how Verrazzano sailed due west from Madeira in December 1523, and in little over a month had arrived at North Carolina. From there they journeyed south—in some danger, as the Spanish Empire reached Florida. Verrazzano then turned northwards again and, hugging the coast, passed Virginia, New Jersey, and entered New York Harbour. He then continued north around New England, to Newfoundland, where, with provisions by now running low, he turned eastwards. Verrazzano and crew returned to Dieppe in July 1524. The great degree of detail the Codex possesses compared to the other versions is probably due to the fact that it was probably originally transcribed by Verrazzano's brother, and then further annotated by Verrazzano himself. It was sent via a series of letters to colleagues of Verrazzano in France and thence to Italy, where it then remained undiscovered in a Viterbo library until the early twentieth century. Until its discovery there had been some doubt as to whether Verrazzano had ever made the voyage at all.

Background

Girolamo de Verrazzano's 1529 map of his brother Giovanni's 1524 voyage along the East Coast of America.

Christopher Columbus had discovered the New world in 1492, and over the next thirty years, the three major European powers—the British, Portuguese and Spanish—investigated the new continent as well as claiming land where possible. In September 1522 the first global circumnavigation was achieved by Sebastiano Elcano, and the following year the king of France, Francis I, was persuaded to also send an expedition under the command of the Italian Giovanni da Verrazzano in order to seek out a westward-passage to China, avoiding the Straits of Magellen. A newer, shorter such passage would protect and increase the French city of Lyon's lucrative trade with Cathay. Francis was a willing backer, although no Royal commission survives for the expedition: he was frustrated that Portugal, Spain, and the Papacy had effectively divided the globe as they knew it between them. More immediately, his financial situation was in sufficient trouble to make an expedition worthwhile—provided it discovered new wealth. It has been suggested that Verrazzano too was intending to profit personally from his voyage of discovery. Not only were the Lyonnais merchants also Florentine, like him, but records dating from March the previous year suggest that he had joined a syndicate—while the expedition was still at the planning stage—which had the declared aim of dividing both the investment and the profit from the voyage among them; they are described as tous marchans florentins.

Verrazzano left France ship provided and paid for by the King a 100-ton caravel called Le Dauphine. He had a crew of 50 men, materiel and provisions sufficient for eight months at sea in December 1523. Verrazzano chose a course across the mid-Atlantic, perhaps aware that by now Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon had mapped the area as far north as 33° 30' and that Ponce de Lyon had extended Spanish influence from South America up to Florida. This course ensured him the best chance of discovering a western passage while avoiding the Spanish fleet.Ater forty days sailing they reached and landed at Cape Fear in North Carolina. This land—North America—he called "Francesca", after his King. He knew he had not reached China, as he described it as "a new land which had not been seen before by any man, either ancient or modern".

The Codex

Giovanni da Verrazano

The Cèllere Codex is a manuscript attributed to Verrazzano held in the library of Count Guido Macci of Cèllere in 1908, from whence it receives its name. It was discovered by Italian scholar Alessandro Bacchiani critically examined who published it the following year. It was originally written on 8 July 1524 and addressed to a business associate of Gerolamo, Bonacorso Ruscellay. Written in Verrazzano's native Italian, the Cèllere Codex was transcribed, multiple times until a satisfactory into French for the King. It is unique among the surviving copies in being annotated by Verrazzano himself, and dated from 8 July 1524. It is possible that he wrote another version of the letter later, although this appears not to have survived. The Codex appears to have been given to either Leonardo Tdaldi or Thomaso sartini, Lyonaisse merchants, and thence to a Roman banker, Bonacorso Ruscellay, a relative of Verrazzano's. Within thirty years it was in the possession of noted Italian antiquarian Paolo Giovi, and eventually resurfaced hundreds of years later in the Cèllere library.

The Codex states at the very beginning how King Francis' instructions were to "discover new lands" and especially a new route to Cathay. In its various forms it is the only primary source historians' possess regarding Verrazzano's 1524 navigation of the north-east, and American historian Lawrence C. Wroth called it "the earliest geographical, topological and ethnological survey" stretching from Newfoundland to Florida. Indeed, the degree to which historians have relied on the Codex as informing them evidentially on subjects as diverse as flora, fauna, navigation, vegetation patterns, aboriginal relations, native food ("very wholesome"), and native boats ("a single log" carrying between 10 and 15 men of around 20 feet (6.1 m) to 30 feet (9.1 m) long). The reliance historians of the period have sometimes placed upon it—Seymour I. Schwartz, for example, has described it has holding a "nuclear position" in twentieth-century scholarship—has been criticised in some quarters. Luca Codignola has blamed this phenomenon on a dearth of contemporary sources apart from the Codex, and has condemned what he identifies as a tendency to take the manuscript "at face value", treating it as "a sort of sixteenth-century encyclopaedia".

Scholars were already aware of two other copies of Verrazzano's letter in existence, although the Codex is generally considered the best quality version; Phelps Stokes described the Codex as an "accurate and full embodiment of Verrazzano's famous lost letter" to the King, and "one of the most important documents dealing with the topography of the North-East Coast" of the United States, particularly Manhattan island, which had been up until Verrazzano's arrival undiscovered.

It has been described as the "most significant" and the "definitive document" of Verrazano's voyage on account of its "semi-autobiographic" nature. The Cèllere Codex was written before Verrazano sent his King, Francis I, an official report, but after he had returned from the New World. Verrazzano devotes about one-third of the Codex to the natives he found on the new continent, especially their appearance, customs and society. Other areas of particular interest were the landscape, including climate and vegetation.

Description

All three surviving copies of Verrazzano's letter appear to be based upon three separate originals. The Codex was titled A Discourse upon the Indies in the late seventeenth-century when it was first transcribed for public consumption. It is formed of 12 numbered sheets of paper, with text on both sides, measuring 11.375 inches (28.89 cm) x 8.5 inches (22 cm). It is written in the cursive court hand of the period, probably by a secretary. It is copiously annotated with marginalia, in a different, more hurried, hand to the prose, and has left ink blots and erasures over the pages. Bernard Hoffman explaine what Verrazzano's text demonstrates about him:

The text itself shows that we are dealing with the work of a man of letters. The humanistic culture of the Renaissance is everywhere in evidence, particularly in the cosmographical appendix, in which Verrazzano's empirical philosophy appears with great clarity.

— Bernard J. Hoffman, 1961

Margaret Eisendrath, on the other hand, has highlighted the author's "detachment" from his subject. She particularly notices it in his description of their failed kidnapping of a young woman and the successful kidnap of the boy: "what is most striking about this description", she suggests, "is the way it conveys the natives' terror in the same tone as that in which it praises the material richness of the place".

A photographic facsimile of the original document was created and published in 1916 by I. N. P. Stokes. The Cèllere Codex is now held by the Morgan Library and Museum as MS MA 776.

Voyage description

They were surprised that the climate was, in May, 'somewhat' colder than Rome, the latter being on the same parallel — an observation that was to become all too familiar to northern explorers and settlers.}

The Codex begins by describing Verrazzano's departure from France with four ships, of which two were lost almost immediately in a storm. The remaining two, Dauphine and Le Normandie were forced to return to Brittany, where, "after a brief period interfering with Spanish shipping" off the coast, the Dauphine sailed alone to Madeira. Verrazzano left from the far-west of Madeira—around Porto Santo—on 17 January 1524. He travelled westwards along the 32nd parallel (approximately 150 miles north of Columbus' route) and eventually—sighting "a new land never before seen by anyone"—landed at Cape Fear. The Codex describes how he sailed 160 miles south to Florida in search of a harbour. Finding none, he returned to Cape Fear and disembarked, making their first steps upon the new continent. A few days later the Dauphine sailed again, this time north-easterly—always within sight of the coastline—passing Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey—"on a sea characterised by enormous waves"—where he recorded seeing Navesink Highlands, which he called "little mountain by the sea"., New York (which he named Nova Gallia, Latin for Little France) and Rhode Island coastlands; he described Staten Island and Brooklyn as "two small but prominent hills...[either side of] a very wide river". They then tracked the coast of New England, where in Casco Bay, Maine, they first met natives who were by then experienced in trading with Europeans.

Verrazzano's route in 1524

From there they travelled up to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland (which the Codex calls "Bacalaia"). The Dauphine had returned to Dieppe by early July 1524. However, Codignola notes that although most places can be generally identified, the narrative of the journey "is vague at best", and there are some areas, such as Chesapeake Bay and the Bay of Fundy, which he could not have missed, yet go unmentioned altogether.

Verrazzano navigated the mouth of the Delaware River and named it the "Vandoma"; he did not, Phelps Stokes noted, name the Hudson River, merely describing it as "a very great river". Martha's Vineyard he termed "Aloysia". The Codex is also the only version of Verrazzano's letter to contain a reference to the—"false sea" (imaginary)—Isthmus of Verrazzano, which is unmentioned on any other contemporary maps of his voyage. This is described in the Codex as "an isthmus one mile wide and about two hundred miles long" (and which Verrazano annotates as being so long they could "see the eastern sea from the ship"—i.e., the Pacific Ocean), and which they thought stretched "around the tip of India, China and Cathay". Thomas Suarez has discussed Verrazzano's reaction to discovering the supposed-isthmus as "bizarre": "after claiming to have unearthed the 'holy grail' of navigators, Verrazzano apparently made no attempt to cross the 'isthmus', either on land or through any of the inlets he reported, inlets which one of his longboats would have had little difficulty maneuvering. Nor does Verrazzano appear to have made an attempt to return to his promising isthmus".

Travelling approximately 160 miles northwards, Verrazzano sent a landing party ashore at around what is now Worcester County, Maryland, or Accomac County, Virginia. On account of the "beauty of the trees"—he described the coast as "very green and forested, but without harbours"—he called it Arcadia. While ashore, the French kidnapped a native boy. Another 300 miles north brought the Dauphine to Sandy Hook, New Jersey. They soon came to "a wide river between two prominent hills and took a small boat up-river to a densely populated land. At that point, the river widened to a lake". Verrazzano named one of the peaks "Angoleme" (King Francis' had been Count of Angouleme before ascending to the throne in 1515) and the other he named "Santa Margarita", after the king's sister, Margaret of Valois. Other headlands were named after members of the French nobility such as the Duc d'Alençon, seigneur de Bonnivet, the Duc de Vendôme and the Comte de St-Pol. Verrazzano and his crew had discovered New York Harbour; the dropped anchor at what is now called The Narrows, after which event the Verrazano–Narrows Bridge was named. The lake he saw was actually Upper New York Bay, but they did not sail far enough up the river for this to become apparent. He described the many New Yorkers they saw as "dressed in birds' feathers of various colours, and they came toward us joyfully uttering loud cries of wonderment".

"These people," wrote Verrazzano of the Rhode Islanders, "are the most beautiful and have the most civil customs we have found on this voyage. They are taller than we are; they are a bronze colour, some tending towards whiteness, others to a tawny colour; the face is clear-cut, the hair is long and black".

Verrazzano continued to Rhode Island, where they stopped at Newport, and then sailed another 450 miles, which brought them to Cape Cod. This was a particularly dangerous region for explorers, and Schwartz notes the irony in Verrazzano's naming the area after the "intensely disliked papal official", Francesco Armellini. The final leg of the journey took them to Newfoundland, or what he termed "the land which the Britons once found, which lies in 50 degrees".

Historical significance

The most important aspect of the voyage Verrazzano described in the Codex, to contemporaries, was that he had disproved the knowledge handed down by the ancients, who had taught that the Atlantic touched both Europe and Asia with nothing in between. As Verrazzano himself reported that the "New World which above I have described is connected together, not adjoining Asia or Africa (which I know to be a certainty)". The Codex is, Verrazzano continued, "the most accurate and the most valuable of all the early coastal voyages that has come down to us". It also led to the creation of what would be the definitive map of the world, Gerolamo's map of 1529 and the Lok Map of 1582. Robertus de Bailly used Gerolamo's map as the basis for his 1530 globe, and all of them included Verrazzano's imaginary isthmus.

Until the Codex was discovered, nineteenth-century historians had no proof that Verrazzano had ever made his voyage in 1524, as no other record of it was found to exist in either French or Italian archives. Until then, there was some doubt among scholars as to whether his voyage had taken place at all, and, indeed, the nineteenth-century antiquarians Buckingham Smith and H. C. Murphy "plausibly argued" that not only had Verrazzano never reached America but that the letter of 8 July 1524 was not even his.

References

Bibliography

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• Harris Sacks, D. (2014). "The Blessings of Exchange in the Making of Early English Atlantic". In Antunes, C.; Halevi, L.; Trivellato, F. (eds.). Religion and Trade: Cross-Cultural Exchanges in World History, 1000-1900. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 62–90. ISBN 978-0-19937-921-7. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Hoffman, B. G. (1963). "Account of a Voyage Conducted in 1529 to the New World, Africa, Madagascar, and Sumatra, Translated from the Italian, with Notes and Comments". Ethnohistory. 10: 1–79. OCLC 1043625931. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
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• Suarez, T. (1992). Shedding The Veil: Mapping The European Discovery Of America And The World. New Jersey: World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-4505-79-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Wroth, L. C. (1970). The Voyages of Giovanni Da Verrazzano, 1524-1528. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-30001-207-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)