M INTRODUCTION OST HOLY FATHER, when the Augustinian Sacred College of Cardinals, left Spain after accomplishing his mission as legate a latere, he commanded me, in the name of Your Holiness and in his own, to add to my three decades already written all the marvels the ocean has produced. These decades began in the year 1492, and closed with the year 1516. I have delayed somewhat, because many futile particulars, unworthy of remembrance, were recorded. Our Royal Council for Indian Affairs daily received letters devoid of interest, written by correspondents bereft of intelligence, from which I was able to draw little material. The one boasted of having discovered the finger of a hand, another a joint of that finger; and they glorified themselves far more proudly and vociferously for having found new countries and accomplished great deeds, than did the true discoverers of the entire continent. They resemble the ant, which believes itself to be crushed beneath a heavy burden, when it has taken one grain from an immense heap of wheat sown by another, and dragged it to its underground storehouse. I mean by a finger of the hand or a grain of wheat, all the neighbouring isles which dot the sea about Egidio Antonini was sent to Spain on a mission in 1518 by Leo X. He was a native of Viterbo, who became general of the Augustinians in 1507; was afterwards Patriarch of Constantinople, and was created Cardinal in 1517. He was learned in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Chaldean; he died in Rome in 1532. |