Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/136

126 own observations and experiences on shore a good deal of hearsay, sometimes gathered from careless witnesses among the soldiers and sailors. However, there is no little material of value in his accounts of the natives seen, and it is all most interesting, even where not to be accepted implicitly.

As stated, this is the first complete version in English of this relation; and it is, moreover, the most complete and accurate presentation of the Pigafetta manuscript and the data appertaining to it that has ever been made in any language. In the introduction and in his excellent bibliography, Mr. Robertson has brought together the most complete array of data on the subject yet available. He has given the history of the four oldest manuscripts of this relation and extracts from them illustrating the variance of the three French manuscripts (from which the early English versions of Pigafetta were drawn); also an account of the early printed versions of this relation in Italian, French and English, dating back to the first half of the sixteenth century; and has justified his adherence to the manuscript in the Ambrosian Library as, though, in all probability, not the original itself, at least the nearest to it and the manuscript from which the other and more or less altered versions were drawn. The Pigafetta relation has suffered, even more than most such documents, from the "editing" of its various versions; even the Amoretti edition of Pigafetta in Italian and French, taken "directly from the Ambrosian manuscript as late as 1800 which has commonly passed as authoritative, has an "edited" and altered text, so that Lord Stanley's translation for the Hakluyt Socjgty, besides other defects, was thereby vitiated. In the Italian government publications for the Columbus celebration (Raccolta di Documenti e Studi, Rome, 1894) Andrea da Mosto edited the first complete version of the Ambrosian manuscript, but he altered punctuation, spelling, etc. The editor of this version made the transcript himself at Milan, and took pains to preserve the original in literal form, with all peculiarities of abbreviation, punctuation, etc. This text is presented exactly as copied in the work before us, page for page with the translation into English.

In fact, one must repeat the word "painstaking" as the best characterization of the way in which the editor has performed his task; and must add that it was evidently a labor of love and enthusiasm with him. The annotations are most copious, drawing much help from the Mosto edition, and comparing the text passage for passage with the older Paris manuscripts, the Eden version (as published by Arber) and other variant readings. A most elaborately made index accompanies the work.

The volumes are handsomely presented, in silk bindings, on deckle-edged paper, with gilt tops. Pigafetta's charts of the islands visited, more than a score in all, are photographically reproduced from the originals at Milan, and there are other appropriate illustrations.

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