cting documents for a more detailed description in
my letters, when I shall be at leisure to write.

For I am not ignorant that our Admiral, Columbus,[8] with four ships
and a crew of seventy men furnished him by the sovereigns, has
explored during the year 1502 the country extending about one hundred
and thirty leagues west between Cuba and the continent; an island rich
in fruit trees, which is called Guanassa. The Admiral always followed
the coast towards the east, hoping by this manoeuvre to regain the
waters of Paria, but in this he was disappointed. It is claimed that
the western coasts have also been visited by Vincent Yanez, of whom
I have previously written, Juan Diaz Solis de Nebrissa and sundry
others, but I have no precise information on this point.[9] May God
grant me life, that you may some day learn more upon this subject. And
now you farewell.

[Note 8: This refers to the fourth voyage of Columbus; consult
_Storia del Fernando Columbo_; Navarrete, i., 314, 329, 332; ii., 277,
296; iii., 555, 558. Also the _Lettera rarissima_, written by Columbus
from Jamaica, July 7, 1503, to the Catholic sovereigns; Washington
Irving, _Columbus and his Companions_.]

[Note 9: Consult Gaffarel, _Les Contemporains de Colomb_;
Vespucci, _Quatuor Navigationes_.]

The Second Decade

BOOK I

PETER MARTYR, OF MILAN, APOSTOLIC PROTONOTARY AND ROYAL COUNSELLOR TO
THE SOVEREIGN PONTIFF LEO X

Most Holy Father,[1] Since the arrival at the Spanish Court of
Galeazzo Butrigario of Bologna sent by Your Holiness, and Giovanni
Accursi of Florence, sent by that glorious Republic, I have
unceasingly frequented their company and studied to please them,
because of their virtues and their wisdom. Both take pleasure in
reading various authors and certain books which have fallen by chance
into their hands, works treating of the vast regions hitherto unknown
to the world, and of the Occidental lands lying almost at the
Antipodes which the Spaniards recently discovered. Despite its
unpolished style, the novelty of the narrative charmed them, and
they besought me, as well on their own behalf as in the name of Your
Holiness, to complete my writings by continuing the narrative of all
that has since happened, and to send a copy to Your Beatitude so that
you might understand to what degree, thanks to the encouragement of
the Spanish sovereigns, the human race has been rendered illustrious
and the Church Militant extended. For the