Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1962, Page 84

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TÍMARIT ÞJÓÐRÆKNISFÉLAGS ISLENDINGA
he was a Carmelite and could not
thus be the author of the Inventio
whom our sources identify as a Mi-
norite.12 It has been suggested on the
basis of a statement by John Dee
that a Fransiscan, Hugh of Ireland,
who was a contemporary of Nicho-
las wrote the Inveniio.13 Again there
is no further evidence and all we
know of Hugh is that he was a
mathematician who travelled wide-
ly and wrote a book on his travels.
But then he is an Irishman and is
so designated but our author is al-
ways called English. We can only
say the author of the Inveniio For-
iunaia is an unkown Fransiscan
friar of the fourteenth century.
In the foregoing we may have got
ahead of ourselves in considering the
author before examining the earl-
iest extant references to the work
itself. This is not a lengthy task. The
first recorded allusion to the Inven-
iio is in a letter, only recently dis-
covered, and which may be dated
1497.14 It is from an English mer-
chant John Day, and is addressed to
the Lord Grand Admiral of Spain
(conjectured by some to be Colum-
bus himself). In it John Day writes
“Your Lordship’s servant brought
me your letter. I have seen its con-
tents and would be most desirous
and most happy to serve you. I do
not find the book Inveniio Foriun-
ata, and I thought that I (or he)
Mercaior's map of ihe polar region 1569
was bringing it with my things, and
I am very sorry not to find it be-
cause I wanted very much to serve
you. I am sending the other book
of Marco Polo . . .”15 This establishes
beyond question the existence of the
Inveniio but tells us nothing about
it.
Other sources do tell us a bit more
of its contents and origins. On his
world map dating from 1507 Ruysch
has as his source for four legends
the Inveniio Foriunaia.16 Fernando,
the son of Columbus, cites it in the
life of his father which he wrote
before 1539.17 And Las Casas repeats
the reference in his History of the
Indies.18 Mercator who knew both
the Inveniio Foriunaia and the De-
scripiion of Greenland (to be men-
tioned later), certainly used the for-
mer in the compilation of his chart
12. Taylor, “A Letter”, p. 67.
13. Cf. loc. cii.
14. L. A. Vigneras, “New Light on the 1497 Cabot Voyage to America”, Hispanic
American Hisiorical Review, XXXVI (1956), 503-506; ibid. “The Cape Breton
Landfall,” p. 226.
15. Ibid, p. 226.
16. A. E. Nordenskiöld, Facsimile Atlas, Stockholm 1889 (Repr. New York 1961),
No. XXXII. Cf. Taylor, “A Letter”, pp. 63-64.
17. Hisioria del S. D. Fernando Colón, Venice, 1571, cap. ix, 21.
18. Bartolomeo de Las Casas, Hisioria de las Indias, Mexico, 1951, I, 67.