page_title: Columbus's letter on the first voyage
section_title: Italian verse and German translations
hierarchical_section_title: Columbus's letter on the first voyage / Editions of the letter / Italian verse and German translations
caption_attribution_description: TITLE: [Ferdinand II, King of Spain, pointing across Atlantic to where Columbus is landing with three ships amid large group of Indians] CALL NUMBER: Illus. in Rare Book Div. [Rare Book RR] REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ62-43535 (b&amp;w film copy neg.) Rights status not evaluated. For general information see "Copyright and Other Restrictions..." (http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/print/195_copr.html). MEDIUM: 1 print&#160;: woodcut. CREATED/PUBLISHED: 1493, Title page to Lettera delle isole novamente trovata by Giuliano Dati, a translation into verse of a letter from Columbus to Ferdinand of Spain. NOTES: Reference copy filed in P&amp;P Biog. File under Fernando V. This record contains unverified, old data from caption card. Caption card tracings: Shelf. REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA DIGITAL ID: (b&amp;w film copy neg.) cph 3a52282 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a52282 CARD #: 2003677145
context_page_description: Columbus's letter on the first voyage is the first known document announcing the results of the first voyage of Christopher Columbus that set out in 1492 and reached the Americas. The letter was ostensibly written by Columbus himself, on February 15, 1493, aboard the caravel Niña, while still at sea, on the return leg of his voyage. A post-script was added upon his arrival in Lisbon on March 4, 1493, and it was probably from there that Columbus dispatched two copies of his letter to the Spanish court.
  The letter was instrumental in spreading the news throughout Europe about Columbus's voyage. Almost immediately after Columbus's arrival in Spain, printed versions of the letter began to appear. A Spanish version of the letter, was printed in Barcelona by early April 1493, and a Latin translation was published in Rome around a month later. The Latin version was swiftly disseminated and reprinted in many other locations—Basel, Paris, Antwerp, etc.—still within the first year of his arrival.
context_section_description: The Latin letter to Gabriel Sanchez, either the first or second Roman editions, was translated into Italian ottava rima by Giuliano Dati, a popular poet of the time, at the request of Giovanni Filippo dal Legname, secretary to Ferdinand II. The first edition of the Italian verse edition was published in June 1493, and went quickly through an additional four editions, suggesting this was probably the most popular form of the Columbus letter known at least to the Italian public. A translation of the Latin letter into German prose was undertaken in 1497.
  12. First Italian verse edition, La lettera delle isole novamente trovata, First edition of the Italian verse version by Giuliano Dati, published by Eucharius Silber in Rome, and explicitly dated 15 June 1493.
  13. Second Italian verse edition, La lettera dell'isole che ha trovate novamente il re dispagna, revised verse translation by Giuliano Dati, printed in Florence by Laurentius de Morganius and Johann Petri, dated 26 October 1493. It has a famous woodcut on its title page, which was later re-used for a 1505 edition of Amerigo Vespucci's Letter to Soderini.
  14. Third Italian verse edition, Questa e la hystoria delle inventioe delle diese isole Cannaria in Indiane, reprint of Dati verse edition. Undated and printing location unknown.
  15. Fourth Italian verse edition, La lettera dell'isole che ha trovata novamente, reprint of Dati verse, by Morganius and Petri in Florence, dated 26 October 1495.
  16. Fifth Italian verse edition, Isole trovate novamente per el Re di Spagna, reprint of Dati verse, undated and unnamed (post-1495), lacks title woodcut.
  17. German translation, Ein schön hübsch lesen von etlichen Inslen, translated into German in Strassburg, printed by Bartholomeus Kistler, dated 30 September 1497.
caption: Woodcut on the title page of the Italian verse edition by Giuliano Dati, published in Florence, October 1493 (second ed.).
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