[Cortar & Editat] Artigo - BOXER, C.R - Portuguese Roteiros, 1500-1700_removed

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PORTUGUESE ROTEIRAS, I500-J700
and was published by Gabriel Pereira in his Roteiros portugueses
da viagem de Lisboa a India, nos seculos XVI e XVII, Lisbon,
I 8 9 8. Linschoten in his Itinerario has likewise preserved for us
a translation of part of Rodriguez's Roteiro-whether the first
or second is open to some doubt. Commander da Costa supposes
it to have been the former; but it is equally possible that
it may have been the latter, as Vicente Rodriguez lost his life
in the ship Bom Jesus which disappeared on the homeward
voyage in I592 as her earlier namesake had done in I533; this
being the case, his last Roteiro must have been written before
I 59 I, so that there would have been plenty of time for Linschoten
to secure a copy before the publication of his work in
I 596. Incidentally, it may not be out of place here to remark
on the excellence of Linschoten's monumental treatise, which
has preserved for us, in contemporary translation, so many
Portuguese Roteiros of the period which would otherwise have
been lost. If all the printed and manuscript copies of Portuguese
Roteiros which are known to exist were to disappear,
leaving only Linschoten's Itinerario, this would still be more
than sufficient to establish the fame and efficiency of those pilots.
Linschoten, as he himself tells us, took especial pains during
his seven years' residence at Goa to seek out and secure the
Roteiros of the best Portuguese pilots, and although he himself
was never east of Cape Comorin, yet so successful was he in his
efforts to secure trustworthy Portuguese portulans and Roteiros,
that John Saris, sailing from Japan to China after the first visit
of an English ship to the land of the Rising Sun in I 6 I 3, noted
that he found" Jan Huyghen's booke to be very true, for thereby
wee directed ourselves setting forth from Firando." It is well
known that copies of Linschoten's work were carried on board
all English and Dutch East-Indiamen sailing to the East, for
many years, and the Itinerario is indeed a worthy monument,
not only to the industry and acumen of the learned Hollander,
but also to the ability of the sixteenth-century Lusitanian pilots.
Particularly noteworthy in Linschoten's work are his transcriptions
of Roteiros of the Japan and China coasts, which
occupy sixty folio pages in the English edition of I 598, and are
remarkable for their accuracy of detail. No copies of any of