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Martin Fernandez de Enciso's Suma de Geographia I. NATURE OF THE WORK W HEN Martin Fernandez de Enciso, bachelor of laws and veteran of the Indies-where he had fought under Ojeda's orders and worked on Ojeda's behi'lf-sat down to draft his Suma de Geographia, first published in Seville in 1519 (and reprinted in 1530 and 1546), he was well aware of its originality. This was no journal, or relation, no mere letter or series of letters on this or that newly discovered land. The Suma de Geographia is not only the first book on America printed in Spanish, 1 it is a general treatment not just of the West Indies but of the whole world; it does not refer directly to any voyage in particular and does not even mention which lands were discovered earlier and which later. The whole world is one datum, the object of the geographer's measurements and descriptions. The whole world comes under his gaze; but the date, the dedication to the emperor, the author's own life and the wording on the title page, promising a description of "all the parts and provinces of the world, especially of the Indies," confirm that the author's prime interest is in the lands newly discovered in the West, in the hemisphere that Enciso unhesitatingly asserts to be one of the two parts which go to make up the world, "one Eastern ... the other Western," the former divided into three parts "as our ancestors divided it up, namely: Asia, Africa, and Europe," and the latter into two parts, the first comprising the few lands discovered to the northwest of the island of Hierro (westernmost of the I. Harrisse. Bibliotheca Americana. p. 168. following Obadiah Rich. Andres Bemaldez. the parish priest of Los Pdlacios. had of course told the story of Columbus's first two voyages on the basis of the Admiral's papers and possibly the writings of Dr. Chanea (Jane. op. cit.. p. 87: Sanchez Alonso. HistoriofiraJia espanola. I, 401, 446). but his Historia was published only in 1856. Enciso's Suma thus remains "the first Spanish book which gives an account of America" (Encyclopedia Britannica. 11th ed., XI. 625) and "a cornerstone in the history of navigational literature" (Boies Penrose, Travel and Discoven- in the Renaissance [Cambridge, Mass., 1925], p. 95: cf. pp. 265-66, 294). 76 Martin Fernandez de Enciso 77 Canaries), in other words, Labrador and the "Bacallaos," the other the vast regions to the southwest of that island, the West Indies. 2 The remarkable accuracy shown by Enciso, who was wrItmg, we must remember, at a time when nothing was yet known of Mexico or Peru and very little of the coastline around Panama (xxix), is the fruit of an unusual combination of cultural background and broad experience. Enciso was a scholar, a man of letters and a lawyer, familiar with the classics and skilled in astronomy; and he had been in the Indies, where he had acted with varying success as lawyer, royal official, financial backer, conquistador and peacemaker, and speculator on the metal market. 2. ENCISO AND BALBOA Enciso was the "first conquistador to take up his pen with educational intent." 3 Partner and companion of Alonso de Ojeda, founder of Santa Marfa de la Antigua , the first Spanish city on the American mainland, and the first person to bring food-producing plants and domestic animals to that inhospitable region,4 Enciso had been with Balboa in Darien. He was ousted by Balboa, because he was "too great a rival to him," and embarked in a waterlogged bergantine that Balboa hoped would sink,S and his goods confiscated. But he regained his freedom and promptly scuttled off to Spain to complain about his wrongs, managing to persuade the king to punish Balboa. When Balboa found himself recalled to Europe he realized that if he was going to regain the sovereign's favor he would have to come up with some spectacular discovery or conquest in the very near future; and 2. Of the three early and complete editions of the extremely rare Suma de Geographia I have seen only the last (1546), "newly revised and corrected and purged of certain faults that it contained." In this edition the last ten pages (those following p. Ix) are erroneously renumbered from xlix to Iviii: in quoting from this 1546 edition I shall refer to these repeated pages with "bis" numbers. I have not seen the French...

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