PIETRO BEMBO'S UHISTOIRE DU NOUVEAU MONDE CECIL H. CLOUGH THE third volume of Giovanni Battista Ramusio's Delle Navigationi et Viaggi was first published in Venice by Giunti in 1556.' It included an account of the first Spanish descent ot the River Amazon made during 1542.- This account was written by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo y Valdes (1478-1557), and sent as a letter to Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470- 1547),^ the distinguished humanist, who from 1530 until his death was the official historian as well as the librarian of the Venetian Republic."^ It was Bembo, a friend of Ramusio, who undertook to have translated into Italian what appears to be this very letter presumably so that Ramusio could include it in his projected volume.^ However, while Ramusio's third volume includes such primary material as Oviedo's letter, it contains also extensive extracts from histories.^ It is legitimate to wonder, therefore, why Ramusio omitted from his Navigationi Bembo's information found in Book VI of his History of Venice concerning the discovery of the New World and likewise that relating to the Portuguese voyages to the east." The voyages to the Orient had been well covered in Ramusio's first volume, published in Venice in 1550,** but Columbus finds no place in Ramusio's third volume, where one expects him,^ so to that extent Bembo's narrative would not have been super- fluous. The letter of Columbus on the discovery of America, to use its familiar title, had been first printed in Castilian and in Latin in 1493, while translations in Italian and in German were printed by 1497 ;^*' the Latin and Italian versions of this letter in particular had been popular immediately after their first appearance, if the number of reprints is any guide." Ramusio may have judged Columbus an all too familiar theme to his readers, who in any event could refresh their memories with Bembo's History^ which he could presume many would own. One may wonder, though, if Ramusio simply missed what appears to be the earliest description of Eskimos provided by Bembo in the book following that which detailed the explorations already mentioned.'- Seven of the Eskimos (of course that word is not used)'^ were found in a small boat off the English coast by a French vessel apparently in the summer of 1508,'^ and Bembo provides information concerning their boat, dress, and way of eating. In the early 1530s Bembo was engaged in accumulating source materials for his history, which at the time of his death in 1547 was completed in Latin as well as in his own Tuscan version.''' The Latin text, with the changes that were insisted upon by the Venetian government, was first published under the title Rerum Venetarum Historiae Libri XH in 8 Venice, Apud Aldi Filios, in 1551."^ Soon afterwards in that same year a pirated edition appeared printed in Paris by the press of Michael Vascosan/? ^^^ j^ ^^^^ ^nd in 1547 had printed a French translation of Bembo's Gli Asolani}^ The author's own version in Tuscan of his history, Delia Historia Vinttiana, amended to coincide with the authorized Latin text and also with the Tuscan altered to the taste of an editor, was printed by Gualtiero Scoto in Venice in 1552.'^ Certainly there was interest in Bembo's narrative of the discovery of the New World and of the Portuguese voyages, for in the year of Ramusio's third volume, 1556, there appeared a small volume entitled UHistoire du Nouveau Monde decouvert par les Portugalays; its author was claimed as 'Pierre Bembo'. Two editions are known, both of that year 1556, and both printed in France. The evidence of the date 28 September 1556 on the privilege in the volume with the Lyons imprint of Ian d'Ogerolles supports the claim made on its title-page to be the 'Premiere Impression',-*^ particularly as the Paris edition, published by Estienne Denyse and printed by Olivier de Harsy, includes a privilege with the later date of 12 November 1556.^' Moreover, the text of Bembo's narrative in the Paris edition follows that of Lyons, even to the promise of more to come; and the fact that the Paris edition actually reproduces poetry found in that of Lyons (poetry which was dedicated to Francois de Villars, who had authorized the privilege for Ian d'Ogerolles, but not that for Estienne Denyse, which was signed by a certain Mosnier) makes it certain that the Paris edition derives from that of Lyons." It is worth remarking that the Paris edition was legitimate, since while the privilege granted to d'Ogerolles gave him printing rights for the work for two years from the date of the signature of de Villars, the exclusiveness was limited to the city of Lyons,-^ just as that granted to Denyse for two years was limited to the city of Paris.^ The bibliographical description of the first edition is as follows :^^ L'HISTOIRE / DV NOVVEAV / MONDE DESCOV- / VERT PAR LES / PORTVGALOYS, / ESCRITE PAR LE SEIGNEVR / PIERRE BEMBO. / (Fleuron) / Premiere Impression. / (Vignette) / A LYON, / PAR IAN D'OGEROLLES. / 1556. / Auec Privilege pour deux ans. / 12 leaves. A-C'^. Octavo. 24 pp. italic type; marginal notes in roman type; 22 lines to a page, text 126x73 mm. The title and verso (unnumbered: pp. [i] and [2]); privilege on the verso of the title to Ian d'Ogerolles, dated: Lyon^, 28 September 1556, signed T. de Villars'. 'Aux lecteurs' (unnumbered: pp. [3] and [4]). Poetry dedicated to Fran(;:ois de Villars (unnumbered: p. [5]). A page containing a hr^t fleuron (unnumbered: p. [6]). Text (numbered pp. 7-24). On p. 24 at the end of the text is a notice: 'Tu prendras cecy [lecteur) engre, en attendant Ie residu: lequelapres auoir recouuert {a quoy mettronspeine) teferons voir Dieu aidant.'' Both this and the Paris edition are of the highest rarity. Two copies exist of the Lyons edition, one of which is in the British Library (C.97.aa.3, formerly ii97.b.26)^^ and the other in the Bibliotheque de la Ville, Grenoble (E. 28, 535)-^ There are two copies of the Paris edition in the United States of America.^^ It is worth stressing that the author of UHistoire du Nouveau Monde is indeed Pietro Bembo, as The British Museum: General catalogue of printed books currently in use indicates the work as pseudonymous,'^ and this may account for its omission under Bembo's name in the Dizionarw biografico degli italiani.^^ The British Museum purchased the volume in April 1845 from the bookseller Rodd, who had acquired it for ^^4/12 at Sotheby's on 4 March 1845 in a sale of books from the library of Benjamin Hey wood Bright (1788- 1843) of Chelsea;'' where Bright obtained it is not known. The scepticism of the cataloguer in the British Museum concerning the author appears to go back to the time of the Museum's acquisition of the volume and rests on the fact that it was 'not mentioned by Mazzuchelli'.-^' The Short-title catalogue of books printed in France . now in the British Museum (London, 1924) following the original cataloguer merely stated that the work was pseudonymous,-^^ but Geoffroy Atkinson in his La litterature geographique de la Renaissance: Repertoire Bibltographique (Paris, 1927) appears to have had some doubts about this claim, since he placed a query after it.^'* Brunet, who records only the Paris edition, appears to have believed that Bembo was the author, and this may have caused Atkinson to omit any reference to the pseudonymous nature of this Paris edition when he listed it in the second volume of his bibliography published in 1936.^^ The card dated 1942 which is reproduced in The National Union Catalog: Pre-ig56 Imprints bleakly mentions the work as being 'translated from Book VI of his [Bembo's] Historia Veneta'.^^ This is correct, as a sample parallel of the Latin and the French text will readily demonstrate. Below is provided the Latin of Bembo's Rerum Venetarum Historiae as found in the Paris edition of 1551. While the title-page of this edition claimed it to be 'CVM PRIVILEGIO\ none is actually printed, and there is little doubt that it was a pirated printing. Few copies of this edition exist, a point that supports the supposition that it was printed without authority, and possibly some of the stock was destroyed, as required by the privilege in the name of King Henry II of France and dated 18 June 1548, which was granted to Bembo's literary executor. Carlo Gualteruzzi.^^ One may remark that Renouard in his Annalesde TImprimerie des Aides zppczrs to provide evidence that the Aldine edition of 1551 itself bears testimony to the existence of this pirated edition of Paris.^^ Renouard stated that some copies of the Aldine edition have on the title-page the famous printer's mark of the anchor (which Bembo had devised as a young man for Aldo),^*^ and below it the words and the date: 'Cum privilegio summi Pontificis & Illustriss. Senatus Veneti. VENETIIS, APUD ALDI Fitios. M.D.LL' Other copies, he said, have a reset title-page with a hrge fleuron, which represents Hermes with a caduceus and Athena carrying two spears, and below it merely: 'Cum priuilegiis. VENETIIS M.D.LI.' Moreover, the latter bear on the verso of the title-page (blank in the first-mentioned copies) details of the five privileges for fifteen years, granted by various powers, including the king of France, to Carlo Gualteruzzi as the publisher."**• The implication, therefore, is that there were two issues, the second of which (with the privileges in some detail) being the publisher's response to the Paris pirated edition.