john and sebastian cabot - Cristo Raul

JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT 159
In apology for him it
may
be said that he was
possibly influenced by the Verrazano map,
or rather
by a copy of a portion of the same, which not only
showed a Ocean great (Mar de Verrazano) to the
West of that strip of Eastern seaboard which was the
whole of North America then known, but depicted this
Western Ocean as
communicating
with the Atlantic
by a narrow channel a little to the north of Florida.
True the Verrazano map itself, in an inscription at
this point, carefully
stated that an isthmus of land six
miles across separated the two seas, and thus left no
doubt as to the c continental
and unbroken character
of the North American Atlantic seaboard ;
but this in
scription was omitted in the earliest copy we possess, 1
which also substituted a connecting strait for a dividing
tongue of land. In many respects the Harleian map
here referred to bears a striking resemblance to the
Cabotian planisphere of 1
544
quite as close a likeness,
in fact, as is borne to that same planisphere by the
Desliens map of 1541 ;
and the probability is strong
that Cabot was acquainted with both. But in any
case, it may be said, the story of Sebastian s actual
coasting of that seaboard as far as Florida would be
disproved by this Apology, for then Sebastian would
have known enough to contradict, from personal
knowledge, the mistake suggested by his interrogator,
1
See the portrayal of this feature (the isthmus) in the Harleian
map of circa 1536 to 1540, which is the oldest existing known
specimen of Dieppese cartography.