Note 172 — PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO

MS. 5,650 reads: “now at the stern, now at the windward side, or otherwise.” Amoretti changes this passage completely, reading: “According to our measurement of the distance that we made with the chain astern, we ran from sixty to seventy leagues daily.” Many basing themselves on this passage of Amoretti, have believed that the log was in use at the time of the first circumnavigation. Dr. Breusing (Die Catena a poppa bei Pigafetta und die Logge, in “Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin,” 1869, iv, pp. 107–115) believes that the “stern chain (catena poppa) is not the log properly so-called, but an instrument for determining the angle of the ship’s leeway, an opinion accepted also by Gelcich in his La scoperta d’America e Cristoforo Colombo nella letteratura moderna (Gorizia, 1890). L’Vzielle (Studi bibliogr. e biogr. sulla storia della geogr. in Italia, Roma, 1875, part ii, introduction, pp. 294–296), combats that opinion, as well as the idea that the log is meant. The difficulty of the passage, he says, hinges on the word ho and whether it is interpreted as a verb or a conjunction. If it be a conjunction then the passage, means “estimating by sight, the rate of the ship from the ‘bow catena,’ or at the stern” (‘catena’ being a beam perpendicular to the ship’s axis at the point near the bow where it begins to curve inward; that is, at such a point that from that place to the stern, the direction of the apparent way is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the ship) his ship made fifty, sixty, or seventy leagues.” One might suppose, if ho be regarded as a verb, that Pigafetta called catena a cross beam of the stern (the passage reading “the catena that was at the stern”); or that the disjunctive ho, “or” is used in place of e, “and,” and that Pigafetta, dividing the distance between the stern and the bow catena by the time necessary for a fixed point of the sea to pass from the elevation of the bow to that of the stern, thus deduced the ship’s rate. See Mosto, p. 66, note 1. L’Vzielli’s opinion is the most probable, for although the log is mentioned by Purchas as early as 1607, its use did not become general until 1620. An instrument used to measure the rates of vessels is mentioned as early as 1577, but it was very deficient.