Apologia delle Ricerche istorico-critiche circa quali puo servire d’Agguinta scritta da Francesco Bartolozzi in confutazione della Lettera Seconda allo stampatore data col nome del Padre Caonvai delle scuole pie. Florence, Gaetano Cambiagi, 1789.
First Edition. 4to (195 x 143 mm), pp. 40, two gatherings slightly misbound but text complete, printed on thick paper with wide margins, in the original carta rustica wrappers.
An important work in the Vespucci controversy, this is the first edition of Bartolozzi’s spirited defence of his Richerche istorico-critiche circa alle scoperte d'Amerigo Vespucci con l'aggiunta di una relazione del medesimo fin ora inedita, Florence, Gaetano Cambiagi, 1789. Bartolozzi’s publication was the first printed version of Vespucci’s Letter from Lisbon, 1502, which is itself a continuation of the letter started in Cape Verdi. Bartolozzi divides the present work into six parts: a general examination of the second letter to the printer, a survey of opinions about trade in the time of Vespucci, a discussion about the island of Haiti (’Isola Antiglia’), an examination of Vespucci’s error in his location of the ‘Cape of Cattigara’, a new examination of Vespucci’s methods in determining longitude and a final discussion of some interesting facts which are revealed in the ‘Letter to the Printer’.
Sabin 3799.