Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/530

504 .504 SPANISH COLONIAL POLICY. PART 11. of the Spaniards kindled a generous emulation in their Portuguese rivals, who soon after accom- plished their long-sought passage into the Indian seas, and thus completed the great circle of mari- time discovery. ^^ It vt^ould seem as if Providence had postponed this grand event, until the posses- sion of America, with its stores of precious metals, might supply such materials for a commerce with the east, as should bind together the most distant quarters of the globe. The impression made on all. He derives it from Gaul, though not giving it the technical appellation of wiorfo/s Gallicus ; and Martyr, it may be observed, far from confining himself to this, al- ludes to one or two other names, showing that its title was then quite undetermined. In regard to the second objection, Dr. Thiene does not cite his authority for limiting the introduction of Greek at Sal- amanca to 1508. He may have found a plausible one in the account of that university compiled by one of its officers, Pedro Chacon, in 1569, inserted in the eighteenth volume of the Semanario Erudite, (Madrid, 1789.) The accuracy of the writer's chronology, however, may well be doubted from a gross anachronism on the same page with the date referred to, where he speaks of Queen Joanna, as inher- iting the crown in 1512. (Hist.de la Universidad de Salamanca, p. 55.) Waving this, however, the fact of Barbosa being Greek pro- fessor at Salamanca in 1488 is di- rectly intimated by his pupil the celebrated Andrew Resendi. "Ari- as Lusitanus," says he, " quadra- ginta, et eo plus annos Salmanticae turn Latinas litteras, tum Graecas, magna cum laude professus est." (Responsio ad Quevedum, apud Bar- bosa, Bibliotheca Lusitana, torn. i. p. 77.) Now as Barbosa, by gen- eral consent, passed several years in his native country, Portugal, be- fore his death in 1530, this asser- tion of Resendi necessarily places him at Salamanca in the situation of Greek instructer some time be- fore the date of Martyr's letter. It may be added, indeed, that Nic. Antonio, than whom a more com- petent critic could not be found, so far from suspecting the date of the letter, cites it as settling the period when Barbosa filled the Greek chair at Salamanca. (See Bibli- otheca, Nova, torn. i. p. 170.) Martyr's epistle, if we admit the genuineness of the date, must dis- pose at once of the whole question of the American origin of the ve- nereal disease. But as this ques- tion is determined quite as conclu- sively, though not so summarily, by the accumulated evidence from other sources, the reader will prob- ably think the matter not worth so much discussion. ^ This event occurred in 1497, Vasco de Gama doubling the Cape of Good Hope, November 20th, in that year, and reaching Calicut in the following May, 1498. La Cl^de, Hist, de Portugal, torn. iii. pp. 104-109.