Ocean affronteth there is a craggie high mountaine a thing very admirable wholly consisting of the same matter he meaneth yron CARPETANIA THis region lies in the very heart of Spaine which Plinie Liuie call Carpetania The people called Carpetani were knowen vnto Strabo and the Carpitani with .i. by Ptolemey Polybius calles them Carpesios and so doth Liuie in some places Their chiefe citie is Toledo The description whereof you may reade in Nauagierus Pedro de Medina and George Brunus All Carpetania is not set downe in this Table but that part only from Toledo Eastward Concerning Toledo because I haue not read it in any other authour I will adde that which Roger Houeden in the second booke of his Chronicle of England reporteth He calles it Tulette and these be his words In this city there is an hill out of which are daily taken aboue a thousand camels loads of earth and yet it neuer decreaseth for though you dig neuer so deepe an hole yet by the morow if any raine fall it will be filled vp againe The earth taken out of this hill is transported to the neighbour prouinces and sold to wash mens heads and their apparell aswell Christians as Pagans The said Roger liued about the yeere 1200. CARPETANIAE PARTIS DESCR 1584. Cum priuilegio Imp. et Belgico ad decennium GVIPVS COAE REGIONIS TYPVS Vardulorum siue HANC INSVLAM PERLVSTRABAT ET SVA MANV DEPINGEBAT GEORGIVS HOEFNAGLIVS ANTVERPIAN BELGA Dum extendar FRANCE ALl that tract of land from the riuer of Rhene included by the Ocean the Pyreney mountaines the sea Mediterran and mount Appennine as farre as Ancona the ancient Writers by one generall name called Gallia For Westward by the Pyreney hilles it is disioyned from Spaine North it borders vpon the French and British Ocean East the riuer Rhene and the Alpes from sea to sea include it in like maner as the Pyreney mountaines doe West South it is accoasted by part of the Mediterran sea ouer against Prouence It was called Gallia in regard of the peoples whitenesse for the high mountaines and the heauens rigour exclude the heat of the Sunne from this part hereof it comes that their white bodies change not colour Wherefore the Graecians name the Gaules or ancient inhabitants of France Galatas in regard of their milke-white colour for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Greeke signifieth Milke from which name the Latines haue called them Gallos This deriuation the greatest parts of Writers doe approue yet some there are that deride it supposing them rather to be so called of raine which in Hebrew is Galah and in the olde British language Glau as who should say A most ancient nation rain'd vpon and drenched in the very floud of Noah This region of theirs was of olde diuided into Gallia Cisalpina which in regard of vs lieth beyond the Alpes being that part of Italie which at this present is called Lombardie and Transalpina which is included within these fiue bounds namely the riuer Rhene the Ocean the Pyreney mountaines the Mediterran sea and the Alpes This Gallia Transalpina by Caesar in his Commentaries is diuided into three parts Belgica Celtica and Aquitanica Belgica which is enuironed by the Ocean sea and the riuers of Rhene Marne and Senie vsing most part the Dutch tongue and at this present called the Low-countries Celtica or Lugdunensis which is comprehended within the riuers Garomne Marne Senie and Rhosne It is now called France For the Celtae were subdued by the Francks of Germany so that at length they were named Westerne Francks from whom the prouince it selfe is denominated Aquitanica before named Aremorica which extendeth from the riuer Garomne to the Ocean and to the Pyreney mountaines West and by North it is confined with that part of the Ocean which is called the Bay of Aquitane Westward it hath Spaine North Celtica or France properly so called and South the country of Prouence It is now called Gascoine and the inhabitants differ both in stature and language from the residue of France These are the ancient limits of the Gaules Howbeit the countrey of the French which at this day beares the title of a Kingdome and is commonly called the Kingdome of France hath not so large extension but towards the North only is so much the narower as it is cut off by an imaginary line from Strasbourg vpon Rhene to the port of Calais and it comprehends all that tract of land which is conteined within this line the Ocean sea the Pyreney mountaines the sea Mediterran and the Alpes Postellus in his booke of the whole world reckons vp the peculiar Shires or Prouinces of this Kingdome in maner following In the East it hath Prouence Sauoie Swisserland Bressia Borgogne Lorraigne Champanie Henault Cleue and Flanders on the North Picardy Normandy and Bretaigne on the West Bretaigne Aniou Poictou Xantoigne and Gascoigne and on the South Gascoigne Bearne Roussillon Dauphnie Vellay Forest Auuergne Limosni Perigort and Angolesme East of Poictou lie the prouinces of Bourges Bourbon Beaioulois Lionnois the Countie of Burgundy Auxerrois Niuernois Berry Tours Vendosme beyond Aniou le Beaulse Gastinois Valois beyond Sens and not farre off le Perche Druise and le Mans neere Bretaigne And thus at this present are these Prouinces named But albeit Postellus accounteth Sauoy Swizzerland Loraigne Henault Cleue and Flanders among the Prouinces of France yet are they not now vnder the gouernment of this Kingdome for all of them haue peculiar princes not subiect to the crowne of France Concerning the French King Villa Nueua reports two memorable things First That in the Church of Rhemes there is a vessell full of neuer-decaying oile sent from heauen to anoint the Kings of France at their coronation Secondly That the same Kings doe heale the disease called in English The Queenes euill only with touching the place affected All France is described in a large volume by Robert Caenalis reade also concerning the same argument Gilbert Cognatus Nazorenus Iohannes Marius Chassanaeus in his twelfth booke De gloria mundi Postellus in his booke Of the whole world Aimon in the beginning of his storie of the Franks Sebastian Munster Belleforest Theuet and other Describers of the world Touching this region also and the disposition of the inhabitants you may learne somewhat out of the second booke of Laonicus Chalcocondylas of Athens Of ancient Writers Caesar surpasseth all Diodorus Siculus in his fifth booke and Ann. Marcelinus in his fifteenth booke haue many notable things concerning this region Likewise Claudius Champier of Lions wrote in French a Treatise of the first originals of the principall townes in all France Symphorianus father to this man discourseth of the riuers and the miracles of waters and fountaines in France The city of Paris is described in verse by Eustathius à Knobelsdorf and the city of Lions by Champier GALLIAE REGNI POTENTISS NOVA DESCRIPTIO IOANNE IOLIVETO AVCTORE Candido lectori S.D. Gallia tota iam
vse certaine lawes or ceremonies I cannot passe them ouer with silence First their tables are very low and they drinke by turnes no man euer skipping his course so that if any man shall call for wine out of order that is before his turne come about it is held for a very vnmannerly part He that can fill wine best holdeth the wine potte and he alone filleth out for the rest in order as it commeth to their course In those their drinkings they vse a certaine little kind of glasse without a foote so that it cannot be set downe but euery man must drinke all out and may not leaue one drop in the glasse Sometime they challenge one another to drinke after the Dutch fashion and then they embrace one another and hold hands and one kisseth the hand of him to whom he drinketh and first layeth it vpon his forehead then he stroaketh and kisseth both his cheeks but in this kind of drinking they obserue no order as afore And because they drinke a very strong wine and that in small draughts and so do heate themselues very much they haue alwaies by them a great tankerd full of water whereof they drinke euery foote large draughts to coole themselues againe for otherwise they should scarsely be able to alay their thirst No women may be present at their drinkeings The old custome vsed of the heathen of mourning for the dead is still obserued at this day all ouer Greece and countries neere adioining which is a very foolish maner for as soone as one is dead the women meet together in a certaine place and at the breake of day they begin a kind of lamentation or howling striking their breasts tearing their cheekes twiching and pulling their haire they keep a pitifull and ruefull adoe to see to And that these ceremonies may be done more solemnely they hire one woman aboue the rest with a most shrill loud voice to lead the rest and guide their voices that their rests or pauses as they call them and the accents may better be distinguished and in this mournfull song they set out the praises and vertuous qualities of the party deceassed from his cradle euen to the last houre of his death c. These we haue taken out of the first booke of P. Bellonius his obseruations where thou maiest see many things more worth the noting Amongst the old writers Strabo and Mela described this country but Pausanias more curiously and with greater diligence Of the latter Nicolas Gerbelius and Wolfangus Lazius who also citeth one Antony Vrantz Bishop of Agria who had trauailled it all ouer and hath lately set out a more late description of the same with the moderne names and appellations of places To these you may adde the Hodoeporicum Byzantium Hugonis Fauolij and the Orientall obseruations of S. Nicolaij Andrew Theuet Peter Bellone c. Peter Gill hath most exactly described Bosphorus the Latines call it Stretto di Constantinopoli the Greekes now Laimon the Turkes Bagazin and the city Constantinople Appian also in his fourth booke of Ciuill warres hath many things which make much for the description of Thrace GRAECIAE VNIVERSAE SECVNDVM HODIERNVM SITVM NEOTERICA DESCRIPTIO Iacobo Castaldo Pedemoniano Auctore Cum priuilegio ILLYRICVM ILlyricum or which pleaseth others better Illyris is a country vpon the coast of the Hadriaticke sea opposite to Italy The bounds of this prouince according to diuers authours are diuers For Pliny doth assigne it but a narrow roome between the riuers Arsia and Titius And Ptolemey he extendeth the confines of it as farre namely from Histria vp as high as Macedonia all along by the sea coast and his vpland or more inner parts he maketh to reach euen vnto the skirts of Pannonia and Moesia the higher Pomponius Mela and Dionysius Alexandrinus do yet make it farre greater ascribing to Illyricum all that tract of the Hadriaticke sea that is between Tergestum and Montes Ceraunij and affirmeth withall that the Illyrij do dwell beyond the riuer Danaw For Mela doth account the riuer Danaw amongst the riuers of Illyricum Strabo also in his seuenth booke of his Geography saith that the Illyrij do border vpon Macedonia and Thracia But Appianus Alexandrinus doth yet make it more large then any of those former writers for thus he writeth of the Illyrij The Greeks saith he do call all those Illyrij which dwell between Chaonia and Thesprotis beyond Macedonia and Thracia vp as high as the riuer Ister for this is the length of this prouince The breadth of it is the space betwixt Macedonia and the mountaines of Thrace euen vnto Paeonia and the Ionian sea and so butteh vpon the Alpes which is about fiue daies iournies length His length is thrise as great as the breadth c. And a little after the same authour hath these words The Romans do generally comprehend vnder that of the Illyrij not only those before cited but also the Paeones beyond them together with the Rhoeti Norici and Mysij which inhabit Europe and whatsoeuer Nations els do border vpon these which they leaue vpon the right hand that saile vp the riuer Ister and againe that they may distinguish the Hellines from the Greekes they call them by their seuerall and proper names otherwise generally they are by one name called Illyrij For euen from the head of the riuer Ister vnto the Ponticke sea they commonly terme them Illyrici Thus farre Appianus Suetonius in the life of Tiberius Caesar testifieth in like maner that the bounds of Illyricum are thus large at the left Sextus Rufus who liued in the time of Valentinian the Emperour ascribeth seuenteen prouinces to Illyricum Two of the Norici the two Pannonies Valeria Sauia Dalmatia Moesia the two Dacias Macedonia Thessalia Achaia two Epirus Praeualis and Creta Some do thinke that these countries were so named of Illyrius the sonne of Polyphemus others of Illyrius the sonne of Cadmus Strabo writeth that all the sea coast of Illyricum with the ilands adioining is furnished with many good hauens when as contrariwise the whole coast of Italie ouer against this hath none at all It is a hot country as Italy is and very fertile of many sorts of graine famous for oliues and vines except certaine places which are altogether rough and vntoiled The high country which is aboue this is altogether mountainous cold and snowie especially that which is toward the North. The country people in old time were much giuen to robberies and theeuing but now they be somewhat more ciuill They dwell for the most part in houses of timber thatcht with straw excepting only a few marine cities in which their buildings are a little better Thus farre Strabo Amongst the which the chiefe is Ragusi anciently called Epidaurus a city famous for the Mart aswell as for the politicke gouernment of their common-wealth Not long since it was a free city now it is tributary to the Turkes and for that as Nicolaus Nicolaius
ac proprio idiomate vtuntur Haec saxa hoīm iumentorúm camelorúm pecorumque caeterarumque rerū formas referentia Horda populi gregis pascentis armētaque fuit Que stupenda quadam metamorphosi repente in saxa riguit priori forma nulla in parte diminúta Euenit hoc prodigium annis circiter 300. retro elapsis Cum priuilegio TARTARIA OR THE EMPIRE OF THE MIGHTIE CHAM HE that will take vpon him to describe TARTARIA he must needes speake of a great number of nations farre asunder and remote one from another For all that huge tract and portion of the Maine land is now called Tartaria that is between the East sea or as he calleth it Mare Mangicum the sea of Mangi or of Sin a country all the World ouer and vulgarly knowen by the name of China and the South countries Sin or China that part of India which is beyond Ganges the country of the Saci the riuer Iaxartes now they call it Chesel the Caspian sea Mar delle Zabacche Maeotis palus it was called of the ancient writers and Westward vp as high almost as the Moscouites For all these countries well neere the Tartars did possesse and in these places they were seated So that it comprehendeth that country which the old Historiographers called Sarmatia of Asia both the Scythiaes and Seria the country where the Seres dwelt which now I take to be named Cataio The name of this Nation was neuer heard of in Europe before the yeare after Christs incarnation 1212. They are diuided in stead of shires into Hordaes that is as the word amongst them doth signifie into companies or couents But as they do inhabite large and wide countries farre distant and remote one from another so in manners and kind of life they are as farre different They are well limmed men broad and fatte faced scowling countenanced and hollow eied shauen all but their beards which they neuer cut low they are strong and of able bodies and do eat horse flesh and other beasts howsoeuer they come to their deaths only hogges excepted from which they wholly abstaine they can more easily endure hunger and thirst than other men a little sleepe doth serue them moreouer when they ride if they be very hungry and thirsty they vse to pricke the veines of their horses vpon which they ride and by drinking of their bloud to slacke their hunger and thirst And because they roue vp and downe and haue no certaine place of abode they guide their course and iourney by the stars especially by the obseruation of the North pole starre which they in their language call as Sigismund Herberstein testifieth Seles nicol that is the iron clubbe naile or sterne They stay not long in one place taking it to be a signe of ill fortune to dwell long vpon one plotte They obserue no maner of iustice or law The people especially the poorer sort are very rauenous and couetous alwaies gaping after other mens goods They haue no maner of vse either of gold or siluer In this country thou seest TANGVT a prouince from whence all the Rheubarbe that is spent and vsed in all the world is brought vnto vs and other places Heere also is the country CATAIA whose chiefe city is Cambalu which as Nicolaus de Comitibus writeth is eighteen Italian miles about or as M. Paulus Venetus thirty two It is of a square forme in ech of whose corners there are castles built foure miles in compasse where continually the Emperours garrisons are kept But Quinzai a city of the prouince Mangi which is from hence Eastward vpon the Eastern sea is thought to be farre bigger than this For this as the same M. Paulus Venetus affirmeth who dwelt there about the yeare after the birth of Christ 1260. is in compasse an hundred miles The same is also auouched by Odericus of Friuli de foro Iulio who nameth it Cansay It is situate in a lake of fresh water There are in it 1260. bridges whereof many are of such great height that shippes full laden may go vnder them and neuer strike saile Heere the Great Cham hath a standing garrison of 12000. trained souldiers continually resident It is a wonderfull stately and pleasant city whereupon it obtained that name for Quinzai they interpret The city of Heauen The Tartars call their Emperour Cham which signifieth the same that Princeps a Prince hereupon Cambalu is interpreted The seate or city of the Prince Sigismundus of Herberstein writeth that the Tartars do call themselues Besermanni The Tartars together with their manner and course of life are most liuely described by Sigismund of Herberstein and Martine Broniouius as also in the Historicall Glasse or Mirour of histories writen by Vincentius Beluacensis in the 30. 31. and 32. bookes of the same See also the commentaries of Hungary written by Antonio Bonfinio M. Paulus Venetus who it is certaine liued long there amongst them and the Iournall or Trauells of Iosapha Barbarus a Venetian Of their originall read Matthias of Michou Haiton the Armenian Caelius secundus Curio his Saracen history and the letters of Iacobo Nauarcho a Iesuite Of the Tartars there be many things worth the reading in the trauells of two Friars which about the yeare 1247. were sent into these quarters by Pope Gregory the fourth in the thirtieth chapter of Nicephorus his eigteenth booke Laonicus also hath many things in diuers places of his workes of the Tartars vnder the name of the Scythians the like hath Gregoras another Greeke writer Lastly Dauid Chytraeus in his Saxon chronicle hath written much of this nation But no man hath more fully and amply set out the maners and life of the Tartars then William Rubricius a Friar of the order of S. Francis a copy of whose trauells into these parts in the yeare of Christ 1253. I haue by me in written hand TARTARIAE SIVE MAGNI CHAMI REGNI tÿpus Continet haec tabula oēm Tartariam cum reliqua Asiae Orientalioris vsque Oceanū Eoum parte Magno Chamo obediente Cuius imperium Obij fl Kataia lacu Volga fl Mari Caspio Chesel flu Vssonte monte Thebet regione Caromoram fluuio Oceano terminatur Cum Priuilegio CHINA BErnardinus Scalantus hath in the Spanish tongue set out a peculiar description of this country in a seuerall tract out of whom we haue gathered these few lines This huge kingdome of China the inhabitants do call TAME and themselues TANGIS but of the bordering nations it is named CHINA and is that Tein or Sin which Auicenna so many hundred times mentioneth and commendeth for rare simples and plants of soueraigne vse in Physicke and is the same no doubt with SINAE or Sinarum regio a country for rich commodities much talked of amongst all ancient Cosmographers This country on the East bordereth vpon the East sea vulgarly called Mare Cin the sea of China on the South vpon the prouince Cauchinchina on the West it is bounded by Bramas on the North
before namely the furnace or hearth the panne or kettle with the trefeet the tunnell the drinking cuppes or earthen pots the spoones and the boxes wherein they keep the hearb and the powder made of the same These things they set little lesse store by than we do heere in Europe by rings beset with pretious stones or bracelets of the best and most orient pearles Their houses for the most part are framed of timber to auoid the danger of earth-quakes which heere are very frequent and often although that some haue their houses very artificially and stately built from the foundation vpward of a very faire kind of stone They haue many goodly Churches and Monasteries both of men and women very rich and sumptuous The language of all these ilands is one and the same but so diuers and manifold and of such different dialects that it may not vniustly be said to be many For they haue of one and the same thing diuers and sundrie names of which some are vsed in scorne and bad sense others in good sense and honourable vsage other phrases and words are vsed by the Nobility others by the common people others are spoken by the men others by the women Moreouer they speake otherwise than they write and in their writing there is a great variety for they write their priuate letters vnto their friends one way and bookes and such like another way They haue diuers bookes very fairely written both in verse and in prose Againe their letters are such as in one and the same character they do expresse and signifie sometime one word sometime two or more Lastly the Iaponian language is of indifferent iudges preferred before the Latine either in respect of the elegancy and smoothnesse of pronunciation or copy and variety of the same therefore it requireth both great time and labour to learne it They are a very warlike people and much giuen to follow that kind of life the chiefe men of dignitie which haue the command of the kingdome and gouernment of the same they generally call Tonos although amongst those there are also certaine degrees as there are amongst our Nobility Princes Dukes Marquesses Earles and Barons Another sort of men there are amongst them which haue the charge and managing of matters of their Church these are shauen all ouer both head and beard these may neuer marrie but do vow perpetuall chastity There are diuers and sundrie sects of these religious persons amongst them some there are which after the maner of the Knights of the Rhodes do iointly professe armes and religion together but they are generally called by one name Bonzij They haue in many places diuers great schooles such as we call Vniuersities The third state or sort of people amongst them are the citizens and other degrees of gentry next vnto these are the retalers hucksters factours and shop-keepers with artificers and handiecraft-men of diuers occupations very ingenious and skilfull in their trades They haue many kinds of armours and warlike weapons made of sundrie makings and excellent temper They haue also the vse of Printing with letters and stamps not much vnlike our maner inuented and practised heere in Europe The last sort and state of people in these ilands are the husbandmen and labourers Generally it is a very subtile wittie and wise Nation and of singular endowments and good parts of nature both for acute iudgement aptnesse of learning and excellency of memorie It is no shame or reproach to any to be accounted poore Slaunderous and railing speeches theeuing robberies and that vngodlie kind of rash othes and swearing with all kind of dicing and gaming they do vtterly abhorre and detest Any offendours against the Law of what degree soeuer are punished by no lesse punishment than banishment confiscation of goods or death Those which are to be executed are for the most part beheaded suddenlie before they are aware Notwithstanding it is the maner in some places to cary such as are taken for robberies in a certaine kind of carre round about the city in the face of all the people and to hang them vp without the wals of the towne In the seruice of God which is the chiefe point of iustice and vertue they do miserably erre and swarue from the right tract Their guides and great masters of religion to informe the rest are those which I say they name Bonzij Amongst their saints which they worship the chiefe are those which they call Amida and Xaca other idols they haue of lesse estimation and note amongst them whom they pray vnto for health recouery in sickenesse children money other things belonging to the body these they call Camis All Iaponia or the people of that name were subiect in time past vnto one Emperour whom they called Vo or Dair this was his title of honour and dignity vntill such time as he growen effeminate and giuen to pleasures and ease became to be scorned and contemned by the Lieutenants and Nobility especially of the Cubi for so they called the two chiefest Princes vnto whom the gouernment of the country was committed of which afterward the one did kill the other therefore the Lieutenants of the seuerall shires with the military men hauing for a time endured such a carpet Knight by and by began to loath his gouernment and at last wholly shaking off the yoke of subiection seised euery man into his owne hand the prouince ouer which he was set as gouernour vnder the Emperour so at an instant that vnited body and maine Empire of so large command was shattered as it were into many parts and pieces yet so as notwithstanding a kind of soueraigne authority doth euen to this day remaine in the Dair of distributing and giuing the titles of honour to the Nobility which eftsoones are altered according to the diuersity of the degrees and are designed by certaine notes and badges The chiefe and most mightie of all the Princes of Iaponia is he that gat either by force or policy Meacum and the best kingdomes neere to the same which they generally by one name do vulgarly call Tensa Those places were lately possessed by Nubunanga that tyrant which I spake of before this King being slaine by treason about two yeares before and his children murdered or banished one Faxiba a chiefe captaine of the rebels by force and violence stepped into his regall throne and tooke vpon him to sway the scepter of that kingdome The honour and credit of the first entrance of this Iland certaine Portugals do challenge and take vnto themselues but I do rather giue credit to Antonio Gaualno who reporteth in that booke which he wrote of the descries of the New-found world that Antonâ—o Mota Francisco Zeimoro and Antonio Pexoto in their iourney as they sailed from the city Dodra in Sion to passe for China they were caried by a contrary wind to the Ilands of the Iaponians about two and forty yeares before that time All this we haue extracted out
of the forenamed Maffeius who handleth them more at large with many other things of these Ilands of Iaponia Of the same there are heere and there many things in the Iesuites Epistles INDIA THat there is not a more goodly and famous country in the world nor larger comprehended vnder one and the same name than INDIA almost all writers iointly with one consent haue affirmed It was so named of the riuer Indus The whole compasse of India by the iudgement of Strabo and Pliny is thus limited vpon the West it hath the riuer Indus on the North the great mountaine Taurus on the East the Eastern sea wherein those famous Ilands the Moluccaes do lie on the South it hath the Indian sea In the middest it is diuided into two large prouinces by the goodly riuer Ganges Of which that which is on the West side of Ganges is called India intra Gangem India on this side Ganges that on the East India extra Gangem India beyond Ganges That in holy Scripture it is called EVILAT or Hauila this latter some writers call SERIA the country of the Seres as Dominicus Niger testifieth M. Paulus Venetus seemeth to diuide it into three prouinces the Greater the Lesser and the Middlemost which he saith they name Abasia This whole country generally not only for multitude of nations of which as Herodotus writeth it is most populous and best stored of any country in the world and for townes and villages almost infinite but for the great abundance of all commodities only brasse and lead excepted if one may giue credit to Pliny is most rich and fortunate It hath very many riuers and those very great and faire These running to and fro and in many places crossing and watering the same do cause it as in a moist soile where the sunne is of force to bring forth all things most plentifully It storeth all the world with Spices Pearles and Pretious stones as hauing greater plenty of these commodities than all the countries of the whole world besides There are neere vnto this country many goodly ilands which heere and there lie scattering in the maine Ocean so that it may iustly be tearmed the World of Ilands But especially IAPAN which M. Paulus Venetus calleth Zipangri situate in this sea is worth the noting which because it is not many yeares since that it was knowen to few or none I thinke it not amisse to say something of it in this place It is a very large and wide iland and hath almost the same eleuation of the Northren pole and position from the South with Italy The Ilanders and people heere inhabiting are much giuen to learning wisedome and religion and are most earnest and diligent searchers out of the truth in naturall causes They vse to pray and say seruice oft which they do in their Churches in the same maner as the Christians do They haue but one King vnto whom they are subiect and do nothing but according to his behests and lawes Yet he also hath one aboue him whom they call Voo to whom the ordering of Ecclesiasticall matters gouernment of the state of the Church is soly committed This peraduenture we may not vnfitly compare to the Pope as their King to the Emperour To their Bishop they commit the saluation and care of their soules They worship only one God protraitured with three heads yet they can shew no reason of this act They baptize their infants by fasting in token of penance they labour to bring downe their bodies They crosse and blesse themselues with the signe of the crosse against the assault of Satan so that in religion certaine ceremonies and maner of liuing they seeme to imitate the Christians yet notwithstanding the order of the Iesuites labour by all meanes possibly they can not refusing any paines and trauell to reduce them wholly to Christianity Heere are also the MOLVCCAE certaine ilands famous for the abundance of spices which they yearly yeeld and send into all quarters of the world In these is bred the Manucodiatta a little bird which we call the bird of Paradise a strange fowle no where els euer seen More neere the coast of India is SVMATRA or rather Samotra for so the King himselfe of that country writeth it in his letters vnto his Maiesty this Iland was knowen to the ancient Geographers and Historians by the name of TAPROBANA There are also diuers other Ilands heereabout of great estimation and fame as Iaua Maior Iaua Minor Borneo Timor c. as thou maist see in the Mappe but we cannot in this place speake of euery thing particularly and to the full Thus farre the religion of Mahomet is professed and from Barbary ouer against Spaine euen vnto this place is the Arabicke language spoken or vnderstood The Moores from Marrocco Ambassadours to our late Queene some fiue yeares since we saw and heard them speake that tongue naturally in which also their commission or letters patents were written From Achem in Samotra and Bantam in Iaua Maior our Merchants this other day brought letters vnto his Highnesse so fairely and curiously written in that character and language as no man will scarcely beleeue but he that hath seen them especially from so barbarous and rude a Nation Of the ancient writers Diodorus Siculus Herodotus Pliny Strabo Quintus Curtius and Arrianus in the life of Alexander haue described the Indies So hath Apuleius also in the first booke of his Floridorum Dion Prusaeus in his 35. oration hath written much of this country but very fabulously There is also extant an Epistle of Alexander the Great written to Aristotle of the situation of India Of the latter writers Ludouicus Vartomannus Maximilianus Transsiluanus Iohannes Barrius in his Decades of Asia and Cosmas Indopleutes whom Petrus Gyllius doth cite haue done the same But see the Iesuites Epistles where thou shalt find many things making much for the discouery of the I le Iapan But if thou desire a full and absolute description of the same I would wish thee to haue recourse vnto the twelfth booke of Maffeius his Indian history Iohn Macer a Ciuillian hath also written bookes of the history of India in which he hath much of the ile Iaua Moreouer Castagnedo a Spaniard hath written in the Spanish tongue a discourse of the Indies Of the ilands which lie scattering heere and there in this ocean read the twentieth booke of the second Tome of Gonsaluo Ouetani written in like maner in the Spanish tongue INDIAE ORIENTALIS INSVLARVMQVE ADIACIENTIVM TYPVS Cum Priuilegio The kingdome of PERSIA OR The Empire of the SOPHIES THe Empire of the Persians as it hath alwaies in former ages been most famous so at this day still it is very renowmed knowen farre and neere and conteineth many large and goodly prouinces For all that whole tract of Asia comprehended between the great riuer Tigris the Persian gulfe the Indian which of old writers was called mare Rubrum the Red sea the riuers
ancient name and were called Israël Againe the later part after the captiuity of Babylon was diuided into two prouinces Samaria and Galilee Samaria the Metropolitane or chiefe city of which the country tooke the name was the seat of the Kings of Israel But Galilee was possessed and inhabited by forreners and strangers 3. King 9. and 4. King 17. and therefore grew to be much enuied and despised of the rest of the Iewes so that they did vse to speake all villany and reproachfull speaches of the people of this prouince The North part of this in scorne was called Galiley of the Gentiles and in respect of the situation the Higher Galiley the other part of it toward the South was called the Lower Galiley Therefore afterward euen vnto the time of Christ and his Apostles and so foorth the land of Chanaan or Israel was diuided into three parts and called by three distinct names The Higher country toward Sidon and Tyre they called Galiley the Middle Samaria the Lower toward the South and Arabia Petraea was properly called Iudaea Iewrie as is manifest out of the second chapter of Saint Matthew and the fourth of Saint Iohn This later did containe onely two Tribes Iuda and Beniamin Although also all the land of Canaan euen as high as the mountaines of Thracon neere Antioch and the country of Ammon was called Iudaea as is euident by the ninteenth chapter of Saint Matthew and the tenth of Saint Marke and therefore also Pliny mentioneth Iudaea citerior Iewry on this side Iordan Strabo in his sixteenth booke and Lucane in his second booke do also call the same Iudaea which name as we said before had the originall from the Tribe of Iuda Ptolemey and others call it Palaestina of the Palaestini which according to the propriety of the Hebrew pronunciation in the Holy Scriptures are named Philistiim Phelistines this Nation indeed both for their great command and warres made with their neighbours for certaine yeares together were very famous Herodotus in Polymnia and Dion in his seuen and twentieth booke calleth that part of Syria which is next to Aegypt Syriam Palaestinam Palaestina of Syria Ptolemey calleth it Palaestinam Iudaeam Palaestina of Iewrie or Palaestinam Syriae Palaestina of Syria Because that Palaestina is a part of Syria as Pomponius Mela thinketh who calleth it Syriam Iudaeae Syria of Iudaea Many places of this Palaestina are expressed in that his Mappe and therefore heere they are omitted OF AEGYPT The country situate between Syene or the Catarractae Nili the fall or mouthes of Nilus through the middest of which this riuer runneth and by his yearely inundation and ouerflowing watereth all the grounds of the same in old time was called CHAM of Cham the sonne of Noe to whose lot this country fell when the world was diuided presently after the confusion at Babel Psalm 78. v. 51. 105. v. 23. and 106. v. 22. Afterward it was called Misraim of Misraim the sonne of Cham Gen. 5. and 10. Iosephus in the twelfth chapter of his first booke calleth it Mersin which name doubtlesse is made of Misraim either by contraction or short kind of speaking depraued by custome or fault of the writer Herodotus in Euterpe affirmeth that Aegypt was sometime named Thebes Of some it was called Aëria or Aëtia as some copies write it Marmolius Theuer and Pinetus affirme that the Turkes and country people in and about Aegypt do now call this country Chibth Elchibet or Elchebitz And indeed the Arabs that turned Genesis the first booke of Moses into Arabicke in the 45. and 46. chapters for Aegypt hath Elchibth from whence no doubt the Greekes and Latines fetched their Aegyptus like as of Phrat the Hebrew name is made Euphrates Aegypt had three speciall prouinces or shires the Higher which was called Thebaica the Middle and the Lower Thebaica and the Middleshire of Aegypt which the mountaines of Aethiopia and the vtter section or parting of the riuer Nilus at Sebemytus do define are called the Higher Egypt through the middest of which the riuer Nilus doth iointly runne in one maine channell and is both vpon the East and West enclosed with high and steep mountaines The other Prouince from thence euen vnto the Aegyptian sea is called the Lower Egypt This alse they call Delta for that this country or part of Egypt which is conteined between the parting of the riuer at Sebemytus Canopus and Pelusium or the two mouthes of the same riuer where it falleth into the Mediterran sea neere these townes is in fashion three cornered or triangular representing the forme of the Greeke Capitall letter Δ. These countries by the discreet aduise of Alexander the Great were diuided into ÎΟΜΟΩΣ that is Shires for by Nomòs NomÄ— and NomarchÃa the Greekes do vnderstand a shire and ward ouer the which is set Nomárches a Lieutenant or Lord-warden Thebes comprehended tenne shires and the middle prouince sixteen shires so that in all the Higher Egypt conteined six and twenty shires But in the Lower Egypt or Delta there were onely tenne Egypt is very often mentioned in the holy Scripture and the places where it is spoken of are very famous and memorable Gehon that is as some do expound Nilus Gen. 2.13 Bethshemeth the Sunnes house Heliopolis the Greekes call it Gen. 41. and 46. Esa 19. This also is called On Ezech. 30. Gessen or Gosen a country or prouince of Egypt Gen. 45.47.50 Exod. 9. Phitom Exod. 1. a city of store situate vpon Nilus This the Israelites were forced to build Ramesse or Raemses Gen. 47. Exod. 1.12 which also was built by the Israelites in their bondage when they were slaues and serued the Aegyptians Sucoth Exod. 12.13 Etham Exod. 12. Piachiroth Magdalum Beelsephon The red sea Exod. 14. Migdal or Migdalum Ierem. 44.46 Taphnis Ierem. 2.43.44.46 Exod. 30. Phatures Paturos Pathros Ierem. 44. Ezech. 19.30 Tanis Num. 13. Esa 19. Ezech. 30. Psalm 77. This Iosephus calleth Protanis Alexandria Ierem. 46. Ezech. 20. Pelusium and Bubastus Ezech. 30. Memphis called of the Hebrews Noph and sometimes Moph and Migdol Esa 19. Ierem. 2.44.46 Ezech. 30. Ose 9. This was the seat of the Kings of Egypt where they ordinarily kept their court and was the Metropolitane city of all that whole kingdome PALAESTINAE SIVE TOTIVS TERRAE PROMISSIONIS NOVA DESCRIPTIO AVCTORE TILEMANNO STELLA SIGENENSI Dominus Deus tuus introducet te in terram bonam terram rivorum aquarumque et foncium in cuius campis montibus erumpunt fluviorum abyssi Terram frumenti ordei ac vinearum in qua ficus malogranata oliveta nascuntur terram olei ac mellis Vbi absque ulla penuria comedes panem tuum rerum omnium abundantia perfrueris OF ARABIA This country the Hebrews call Arab that is a misture hotchpotch or dwelling of diuers and sundrie Nations together in one and the same country as is probably to be gathered out of the six and twentith chapter of
of colour but also to marke them with diuers kinds of pictures and counterfeits of sundrie sorts of liuing creatures and to go naked least they should hide this their painting I read in Herodian Listen thou shalt heare Solinus speake the same wordes The countrie is partly possessed by a barbarous and wild people which euen from their childhood haue by certaine cutters men skilfull that way diuers images and pictures of liuing creatures drawen and raised vpon their skinne and so imprinted in their flesh that as they grow vnto mans estate these pictures together with the painters staines do wax bigger and bigger neither doth the wild people endure any thing more patiently and willingly than that their limbes by meanes of those deep cuts and slashes may so deepely drinke in these coloures that they may sticke long by them Amongst the Goddesses as I learne by Dion they worshipped Andates for so they call Victoriam victory who had a temple and sacred wood where they vsed to do sacrifice and performe their religious seruice and worship to her Beside her they had another which was called Adraste whether this were the same with Adrastia which some did take to be Nemesis the Goddesse of reuenge which the ancient Grecians Romans did worship I leaue to others to determin Caesar saith that in former times the Druides a kind of superstitious priests dwelt also amongst this people who affirmeth that their discipline and religion was first heere inuented and from hence caried beyond sea into France That they continued vntill the time of Vespasian the Emperour of Rome in Mona or Anglesey it is apparent out of the 14 booke of Cornelius Tacitus his Annals Frō them doubtlesse this nation had their knowledge of the state immortality of the soule after this life for this was the opinion of those Druides as Caesar and others haue written of them But of the Druides we will God willing speake more in our Old France or Gallia as it stood in Caesars time That the Britans did so greatly esteeme and wonderfully extoll the art Magicke and performe it with such strange ceremonies that it is to be thought that the Persians had it from hence I haue Pliny for my patron who mightily perswadeth me The forenamed Bunduica also doth seeme to iustifie the same who as soone as she had ended her oration vnto her army cast an hare out of her lappe by that meanes to gesse what the issue of that iourney would be which after that she was obserued to goe on forward all the company iointly gaue a ioifull shout and acclamation To sacrifice and offer the blood of their captiues vpon their altars and to seeke to know the will and pleasure of their Gods by the entrails of men as the Romans did by the bowels of beasts these people held it for a very lawfull thing Thus farre Tacitus and thus much of Albion now it remaineth that we in like manner say somewhat of Ireland HIBERNIA Or IRELAND VPon the West of Britaine in the vast ocean the Latines call it Oceanus Virginius that is as the Welch call it Norweridh or Farigi as the Irish pronounce the word lieth that goodly iland which all ancient writers generally haue called by one and the same name although euery one hath not written it alike an ordinary and vsuall thing in proper names translated into strange countries For Ptolemy and vulgarly all Geographers which follow him calleth it HIBERNIA Orpheus the most ancient Poet of the Greekes Aristotle the Prince of Philosophers and Claudian IERNA Iuuenall and Mela IVVERNA Diodorus Siculus IRIS Eustathius in his Commentaries vpon Dionysius Afer WERNIA 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and BERNIA the Welch-men or ancient Britans YVERDON the Irish themselues from whence all the rest were fetched ERIN whereof also the Saxons by adding the word Land signifying a countrey or prouince as their manner is haue framed IRELAND by which name it is not only knowen to the English but generally at this day it is so called of all Nations whatsoeuer Thus farre the learned Clarencieux who also thinketh it so to haue beene named by them of their Irish word Hiere which signifieth the West or Western coast or country Like as the Celtae whose language he proueth to be the same with this for the same reason and of the same word named Spaine Iberia which afterward the Greekes in their language interpreted Hesperia In Festus Auienus who wrote a booke intituled Orae maritimae the sea coast it is named INSVLA SACRA The Holy Iland who moreouer addeth that it is inhabited of the Hierni that is of the Irish-men Isacius in his Commentaries vpon Lycophron calleth it WEST BRITAINE Plutarch in his booke which he wrote Of the face in the sphere of the Moone calleth it OGVGIA but why we know not yet read him if you thinke it worth the while you shall heare many an old wiues tale The latter writers as S. Isidore and the reuerend Beda our countriman call it SCOTIA of the Scottes which seated themselues in the West part of this I le about the yeare of our Lord 310. from whence within a very few yeares after being called in by the Picts they came into Brittane and indeed Paulus Orosius Beda and Egeinhardus authors of good credit wrote that it was inhabited of the Scots It is in length from South to North 400. miles in breadth scarse 200. The soile and temperature of the aire as Tacitus affirmeth is not much vnlike that of England It breedeth no snake or serpent nor any venemous creature fowle and birds heere are not very plentifull and as for bees no man euer saw one in the whole country yea if so be that any man shall strew dust grauell or small stones brought from hence amongst the hiues the swarmes will presently forsake their combes as Solinus writeth Yet we know by experience that this is all false for such is the infinit number of bees in this country that they are not only to be found heere in hiues and bee-gardens but also abroad in the fields in hollow trees and holes of the ground The temperature of the aire saith Pomponius Mela is very vnkind and vnfit for the ripening of corne and graine but the soile is so good for grasse not only great and ranke but also sweet and wholesome that their heards and cattell do fill themselues in so short a time that if they be not driuen out of the pasture they will feed while they burst Solinus affirmeth the same but in fewer words Furthermore he calleth it an inhumane and vnciuill country by reason of the rude and harsh manners of the inhabitants And Pomponius Mela termeth the people a disordered and vnmannerly nation lesse acquainted with any sort of vertue then any other people whatsoeuer yet they may in some respect be said to be louers of vertue in regard that they are very religious and deuout Strabo saith that they are more rusticall and vnciuill then the
Caliabria Calucula Carabis Carbulo Careo Carruca Castax Castra gemina Castra vinaria Cedrippo Certima Cimbis Cinniana Cisembrium Colenda Colobona Coplanium Cotinas Crabalia Cusibi Danium Dia Dumium Eiscadia Erisane Fabreseense Gemella Gruâ—nus Helingas Hellenes Hippo Hippo Carausiarum Ibem Ilipa minor Ilipula Laus Illurco Ilucia Indica Ipasturgi Ituci Iulia cognomine Concordia Iul. Constantia Iul. Contributa Iul. Fidentia Iul. Restituta Lancia Transoudana Lenium Magala Malia Marcolica Massia Moron Merucra Nobilia Nuditanum Olitingi Olone Onoba Opsicella Osintigi Ossigi Ossigitania Oxthraca Sacvuna Saepona Saon Segeda Segestica Serippo Sicane Silpia Sitia Soricaria Soritia Tabeta Tarscium Transsucunus Tribola Turba Turobrica Tutia Velia Ventisponte Vergentum Vergium Vescelia Vesciveca Vesperies Victoria portuo Vrbicuà Vxena MONTES Sacer Ydrus FLVMINA Chalybs Silicense FONTES Tamarici et quaedam Antonini item Avieni Horum omnium situm quamvis ignorarem abesse tamen ab hac tabula iniquum putari In omni enim vetere historia veterem voco ad Caroli Magni usque tempora omnium huius regionis locorum vocabula exprimere valui ni fallor â—â—pressi Si quae autem doctori in en deesse videbuntur erunt fortassè horum querundam synonyma de quibus omnibus in nostro Thesaure geographico Without the limits of the maine land or continent of Spaine there is a part of this country called INSVLARIS or BALEARIVM that is The Spanish iles or the Baleares For this part of Spaine consisteth altogether of ilands The names of those which do lie in the Ocean or Maine sea are these GADES now Caliz IVNONIS insula GERYONIS monumentum S. Pedro a little ile betweene Caliz and the maine land LONDOBRIS ouer against Portugall now knowen by the name of Barlinguas CORTICATA AVNIOS DEORVM insulae peraduenture those which they now call Islas de Baiona and the faigned CASSITERIDES in this tract For these famous ilands are indeed those which our seamen call The Sorlings belonging to the crowne of England as we haue shewed before In the Midland sea are these following the two BALEARES the Greater and the Lesser MALLORCA and MENORCA the two PITYVSAE to wit EBVSVS now Yuica or as some terme it Ibissa and OPHIVSA SCOMBRARIA Cabo di Palos COLVBRARIA Moncolobrer CAPRARIA Cabrera TIQVADRA Coneiera PLVMBARIA PLANESIA and MAENARIA all of them except only the Baleares and Gades small ilands and of none account Gades was much renowmed and famous long since by meanes of the fables of Hercules and Geryon feigned by Poets to haue been acted heere as also for that the long liued king Arganthonius who was before his death 300. yeares old did sometime keepe his court heere The Baleares were much talked of by reason the Ilanders were counted good slingers best experienced and skilfull in that weapon called by the Romanes Funda But especially it was much spoken of by meanes of the great famine and dearth that there was caused by conies of which there was sometime in these Ilands such wonderfull store and abundance that old stories do testifie that the country people were forced to entreat of Augustus Caesar a military aid and band of men to helpe to destroy them keepe them from breeding and spreading any further Pliny compareth the winds of these Ilands with the best that are made of Italian grapes I do verily beleeue that Seruius vpon the 7. booke of Virgils Aeneids did mistake the matter when he writeth that Geryon did rule as king of the Baleares and the Pityusaes For all other writers do affirme that he reigned and kept his court about Gades Except in defence of Seruius one should alledge this saying of Trogus In parte Hispaniae quae ex insulis constat regnum penes Geryonem fuit that is In a part of Spaine which consisteth altogether of ilands Geryon swaied the scepter and ruled as soueraigne king But that he spake this of Gades and the iland not farre from it in the maine sea the wonderfull pastorage and rankenesse which he ascribeth to these is a sufficient argument and proofe which by no meanes may be verified of the Baleares Againe Solinus plainly testifieth for me that Bocchoris and not Geryon did reigne in the Baleares But his owne words may perhaps please thee better therefore listen thus he speaketh Bocchoris regnum Baleares fuerunt vsque ad euersionem Phrygum cuniculis animalibus quondam copiosae In capite Baeticae vbi extremus est NOTI ORBIS terminus insula à septingentis passibus separatur quam Tyrij à Rubro profecti mari ERYTHRAEAM Poeni sua lingua GADIR id est sepem nominarunt In hac Geryonem habitasse plurimis monumentis probatur tametsi quidam putent Herculem boues ex alia insula abduxisse quae Lusitaniam contuetur Thus rudely in English The Baleares where Bocchoris vntill the ouerthrow of the Phrygians raigned and held his court were sometime wonderfully full of Conies In the entrance and head of Baetica which is the outmost bound of the KNOVVEN WORLD there is an iland which is distant from the maine land threescore and tenne pases This the Tyrians come from the Redsea called ERYTHRAEA or The Red iland but the Poeni or Carthaginians in their language named it GADIR that is The hedge Heere Geryon did sometime dwell as monuments and antiquities do strongly prooue although some do thinke that Hercules did cary the Oxen from another iland which lieth ouer against Lusitania Thus farre Solinus Obserue heere that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gader in the ancient language of the Iewes and Giadir in the moderne tongue of the farre-conquering Arabians doth signifie an hedge enclosure or fence Beside these forenamed ilands knowen to the ancient and best writers Sextus Rufus Auienus reciteth others by these names OESTRYMNIDES ARCHALE POETANION AGONIDA CARTARE STRONGILE and LVNAE These because no man else doth seeme to know or take notice of peraduenture may be some of those which Pliny termeth mari vadoso paruas Small ilands or shelues in the shallow sea and are in number well neere twenty What if to these I should adioine CROMYVSA and MELVSSA certaine ilands vpon the coast of Spaine as Stephanus citeth out of Hecataeus his Cosmography Of TRANSFRETANA or TINGITANA Hispania that other part I meane of Spaine beyond the streights called Tingitania because it did only in name and vsurpation not indeed and of right belong to Spaine as also for that it is thus Pomponius Melawriteth of it Regio ignobilis vix quidquam illustre sortita paruis opidis habitatur parua flumina emittit solo quam viris melior segnitiae gentis obscura Abase country and hath scarce any good thing in it worth the speaking of It hath no famous cities but small ragged townes and villages The riuers which runne through it are very small and not nauigable yet the soile is better than the men For the slouththfulnesse and cowardice of the people hath made the country the more obscure I will speake nothing
soile is very fertile when they plow their ground do dig vp any sort of earth so that it be at least 3 foot deep and spreading ouer it a sandy kind of earth a foot thick do battle and harten their lands as others do with dongue or marle Marcus Varro in the 9 c. of his 1. book of Husbandrie In Gallia beyond the Alpes vp higher into the country about the Rhein I came to certain countries where neither vines nor oliues nor apples did grow where they compassed their grounds with a kind of white chalke digged out of the earth Virgil in the 1. booke of his Georgickes Belgica vel molli meliùs feret esse da collo Lucan in his 1. booke Et docilis rector rostrati Belga couini Martial in his Xenia Cantarena mihi siâ—t vel massa licebit De Menapis lauti de petasone vorent BELGII VETERIS TYPVS Ex Conatibus Geographicis Abrahami Ortelij HAC LITTERARVM FORMA VETVSTIORA PINXIMVS Quae paulò erant recentiora his notauimus Nulla autem antiquitate illustria hoc charactere Accentissima verò Sis vernarulis ab alys distinximus Prisca vetustatis Belgoe monumenta recludit Ortelius priscas dum legit historias Collige prima soli natalis semina Belga Et de quo veteri sis novus ipse vide Fauolius caneb S.P.Q.A. PATRIAM ANTIQVITATI A SE RESTITVTAM DEDICABAT LVB MER. ABRAHAMVS ORTELIVS CIVIS 1594. Cum privilegio Imperiali et Belgico ad decennium GERMANIE I Thinke there is no man studious of ancient historie that is ignorant that this countrey was called of the most ancient writers especially the Graecians CELTICA and the people therof CELTI or CELTICA From whence the word Kelt doth remaine amongst them whereby they yet do vsually call one another in their familiar speech and communication Some there are which thinke them to be called by Iosephus ASCHANARI whenas notwithstanding he sayth that these are interpreted of the Graecians to be the Rhegini better perhaps and more truly Rheini as it were the borderers vpon the Rhene who also of Stephanus are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tacitus reporteth that the word GERMANIA had not beene long vsed and to be but lately heard of The same authour addeth that this name was inuented by themselues Wherefore I do more easily assent to them which deriue the originall of this word from the etymon of the countrey it selfe than from the Latines For it is much more likely that a nation should impose a name vpon it selfe deriued from that language which it vnderstood than from a forren and strange tongue whereof it was altogether ignorant I thinke therefore they erre which thinke this name to be made à germine that is of buds or yong sprouts by reason of the great fertilitie and plenty of all things here growing Of this opinion are Festus and Isidorus Those also which deriue the name from the Latine word germanus signifying a brother as Strabo doth as who would say brethren to the Gauls or French men from whom as he sayth they little differ in my conceit are as farre wide from the trueth Our countrey man as Rhenanus and others doe thinke it to be compounded of gar and man to wit garman that is all man or manlike Our Goropius of ger and man comming neerer to the writing or letter of geâ—en which signifieth to gather as scraping together a booty or pray And the same man in another place deriueth it of ger which saith he amongst our ancesters signifieth warre which I see also pleaseth Iustus Lipsius best I know that gerre or rather guerre in the latter French tongue signifieth warre but whether it signifieth so in our ancient Germane tongue I know not I doe easily beleeue that this nation first wrote and named it selfe werman of wer with e long a mere Germane word which signifieth any weapon whereby we smite or offend our enemie From hence weren signifieth to defend himselfe against the enemie and we call euery man fit to beare armes weerman or weerbaerman that is a warlikeman Insomuch that they all called themselues wermanos or wermannos that is warlike men And Cesar and Tacitus besides others are most sufficient witnesses that this name doth altogether agree with the nature and disposition of this nation As also Dionysius Afer who surnameth these Martialists or warlike men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But the cause is plaine why these do call and write themselues Germanes because they wanting the digamma or W in stead of it haue substituted the G. which also we see elswhere done of them in the like case as for Wilhelmus they write Gulielmus for Waltherus Galtherus for Walfridus Galfridus c. So also it is likely that for Walli they wrote and pronounced Galli For euen we Germanes on this side Rhene retaining the ancient language doe yet name these Galli by no other name than Walen The Galli also themselues romanizing the libertie and ancient tongue being lost doe vnto this very day imitate this change of letters These few words out of many are for an example for they vsually both write and pronounce vin for wijn Guesp for Wesp Gand for Wandt Guedde for Weedt by which they meane Wine a Wasp a Gloue and Woad So also I finde in a manuscript Guandali for Wandali If any man shall obiect that Strabo Dionysius Afer Ptolemaeus and some other Graecians who knew the digamma Aeolicum that is the W haue notwithstanding written it with a single V I answer that this nation was knowen to these men in times past only vnder the name of Celtae and that this word Germane was first vsed of Cesar or the other Latines in their writings from whom the Grecians imitating this writing haue translated this word into their language But if any man desireth to reade more of the etymology and reason of the word Germanie let him peruse H. Iunius his Batauia in the one and twentieth chapter There are some historians that doe verily beleeue that all the Germanes were in latter times called Alemanes Vopiscus so persuading them in the life of Proculus Yet it is manifest out of Aelius Spartianus who reporteth that Antoninus Caracalla the Romane Emperour both nations by him being subdued tooke him the surname of them both and was intituled both by the name of GERMANICVS and ALEMANNICVS that these were two diuers nations Moreouer this same thing is to be seene in the marble inscriptions of the Emperours Valens Valentinian and Gratian as also in the titles of Iustinian the Emperour Againe Ammianus in his 26 booke writeth that the Almanes brake thorow the borders of Germanie whereby it is as clere as the noone day that they were diuers But that was the name of one family or people this of the whole stocke or nation Notwithstanding although this Alemannie of Stephanus Ammianus and other writers of that age was accounted only a part of Germanie namely of that which lieth about the
read that euery one of his mouthes whereby it emptieth it selfe into the sea are so wide and great that it is affirmed to ouercome the sea for forty miles in length together and that so farre the waters may be perceiued to be sweet amid the brackish surges of the salt sea Polybius in his fourth booke to these adioineth that by the violent and swift fall of the waters of this riuer into Pontus Mar maiore there are certaine knols hils or shelfs which the sea-men call Stethe that is breast bones made of the gathering together of such things as the riuer bringeth downe with it and are more than a day saile off from land vpon which oft times the seamen falling by negligence are in great danger of shipwracke Strabo also maketh mention of the same They which desire to know more of this riuer his name nature quality fountaine mouthes and streames which do runne into it let him read the commentaries of William Stuckius written vpon Arrianus Periplus of the Euxine sea for there he hath most plentifully and learnedly descr bed all these things Of the Thracians Moesians Getes Dakes and other countries nations and people of this mappe read the seuenth booke of Straboes Geography and the Epitome of the same PONTVS EVXINVS now called MAR MAIORE THe sea which heere we purpose to describe famoused of ancient writers by meanes of the Argonantes and fabulous story of the golden fleece was called as we find recorded by diuers and sundrie names first it was called PONTVS by the figure Synecdoche then PONTVS AXENVS that is inhospitale the harbourlesse sea but afterward it was named PONTVS EVXINVS hospitale mare the good harborough as Pliny Ouid and others do witnesse Strabo Tacitus Plutarch Ptolemey and Iornandes do call it PONTICVM mare the Ponticke sea without any addition at all Lucretius nameth it PONTI mare the sea of Pontus of the country Pontus abuttant vpon it For the same reason it is of Valerius Flaccus Ouid and Martianus named SARMATICVM and SCYTHICVM mare the Sarmatian and Scythian sea of Claudian AMAZONIVM of Herodotus and Orosius CIMMERIVM of Festus Auienus TAVRICVM of the Sarmatians Scythians Amazones Cimmerians and Tauri certaine Nations dwelling vpon the coast of this sea Of the prouince Colchis neighbour vnto it vpon the East Strabo nameth it COLCHICVM mare of the mountaine Caucasus which heere beginneth Apollonius intituleth it CAVCASEVM of the riuer Phasis which vnloadeth it selfe into this sea or towne of that name situate vpon that riuer Aristides calleth it PHASIANVM mare Procopius saith that it was sometime named Tanais vnfitly and falsly as I thinke Almost all ancient writers haue likened this sea or more truly this bay or gulfe vnto a Scythian bow when it is bent so that the string doth represent the South part of it namely from the streights of Constantinople vnto the further end of it Eastward toward the riuer Phasis for excepting only the promontory Carambis Cabo Pisello all the rest of this shore hath such small capes and creekes that it is not much vnlike to a right line The other side or North part doth resemble an horne that hath two crooked ends the vpper end more round the lower more straight which proportion this our mappe doth very precisely expresse This sea also hath two promontories one in the South then called Promontorium Carambis now Cabo Pisello the other in the North Ptolemey nameth it Criou metopon Arietis frons the rammes head Paulus Diaconus calleth it Acroma and now it is knowen by the name Famar These two capes are opposite one against the other and are distant one from another about 2500. furlongs as Ammianus and Eustathius do testifie which although they do make 312. Italian miles yet they are distant only 170. miles as Pliny saith or as Strabo reporteth so much as a ship will saile in three daies notwithstanding to those which do saile either from the East to West or from West to East they seeme to be so neere one to the other that one would thinke that there were the end of the sea and that Pontus Euxinus were two seas but when you shall come in the middest between these two capes then the other part appeareth as it were a second or another sea The compasse of it round about by the shore Strabo maketh to be 25000. furlongs Polybius but 22000. and yet from this Ammianus taketh 2000. and that by the authority of Eratosthenes Hecataeus and Ptolemey as there he affirmeth Herodotus an eie-witnesse of the same writeth that he measured the length of it and found it to be 11100. furlongs and likewise he found the breadth of it where it was furthest ouer to be 320. furlongs This measure Strabo and Pliny in the twelfth chapter of his fourth booke do more distinctly partly out of their owne and partly out of other mens opinions set downe Strabo writeth that about 40. riuers do vnloade themselues into it Yet this our mappe doth shew many more Antiquity doth hold that this sea of all our seas was by farre the greatest heere hence I suppose that the Italians haue giuen it that name of Mar maiore the Great sea and that heere as there at Caliz without the straits of Gibraltar was the end of the World and that it was innauigable both for the huge greatnesse of it as also by reason of the barbarous nations which daily did annoy the shore and vse all maner of cruelty and inhumanity toward strangers and aliens From hence arose those epithites and adiuncts giuen by the ancient poets to this sea of Pontus vast and rough Virgil and Catullus call it Ouid infinite and terrible Lucane a deuouring and dangerous sea Silius raging Statius an vncertaine and swelling sea Valerius Flaccus perilous Manilius horrible spitefull and furious Seneca mad and churlish Festus Auienus raucisonum making a hoarse ill fauoured noise Thus farre of the Names Forme and bignesse of this sea of the Situation and Nature of the same although Herodotus Pomponius Strabo Pliny Ouid and Macrobius that I may say nothing of others haue spoken much yet in mine opinion no man hath done it more exactly and diligently than Ammianus in his 22. booke whom he that listeth may adioine to this our discourse and if he be not satisfied with these he may to them adde a whole booke written by Arrianus of this sea together with the large commentaries of Struckius vpon the same As for vs we will content our selues in this place with a few peculiar obseruations of this sea gleaned heere and there out of the ancient monuments of learned writers of former ages It is sweet or at leastwise more sweet than other seas moreouer the waters of it are more light than others and do neuer ebbe and flow but alwaies keep one and the same stint of running one way as Lucrece Macrobius Pliny and Ouid do witnesse Which I take to be the cause that sometime it hath all been frozen
which is from the head or fountaine of this riuer directly vnto the North Ocean it is diuided from Asia according to the opinion of Glarean And thus it beares the shape of a Peninsula which signifies a place of the earth almost disioyned and cut from the Continent and so well neere on euery side enuironed with waters as in the Table it selfe is manifest The head hereof Rome was whilome conqueresse of the earth The regions thereof as they are now called are Spaine France Germanie Italie Slauonia Greece Hungarie Poland with Lithuania Moscouia or more significantly Russia and that Peninsula which conteineth Norway Sweden and Gotland Among the Isles thereof the first place is due to Britany conteining England and Scotland then followes Ireland Groenland Frisland and Island all situate in the maine Ocean In the Mediterran sea it hath Sicilia Sardinia Corsica Candia Maiorica Minorica Corfu Negropont and others of lesse note the particular names and situations whereof are to be seene in the Table This our Europe besides the Roman Empire reuerenced of all the world hath in all if you adde those foureteene which Damianus à Goes reckens vp only in Spaine eight and twentie Christian Kingdomes whereby you may estimate the worthinesse of this region It is a place out of measure fruitfull and the naturall disposition of his aire is very temperate For all kindes of Graine for Wine and abundance of Woods it is inferior to none but comparable to the best of the others It is so pleasant and so beautified with stately Cities Townes and Villages that for the courage and valour of the people and seuerall nations although it be lesse in quantitie and circuit yet might it well be accounted and indeed of all ancient Writers hath it euer beene accounted superiour vnto the other parts of the World most renowmed also hath it beene both in regard of the Macedonian Empire and the great command and power of the Romans The praises thereof you may reade in Strabo who in his third booke and seuen bookes following hath most learnedly and excellently described it Peruse also other ancient Geographers Of late Writers amongst other things by the way Volateranus Sebastian Munster Dominicus Niger Georgius Rithaimerus in their Geographies haue endeuoured to paint it out in his colours But Pius the second Christopher Cella and Anselmus his brother haue described it a part and by it selfe Diuers Iournals ouer all Europe in a maner together with the distances of places haue beene committed to writing by Cherubin Stella John Herbacius and George Mayerus The like hath beene done by William Gratarolus in the end of his booke which is entitled De regimine iter agentium or A direction for trauellers AFRICA THis the Ancients haue diuersly distinguished but at this present it is diuided by Iohn Leo of Africa into foure chiefe parts Barbarie Numidia Libya and the Land of Negros BARBARIE which is accounted the best they circumscribe with the Atlantick Mediterranean seas with mount Atlas with the region of Barcha bordering vpon Aegypt NVMIDIA called by the inhabitants Biledulgerid and abounding with Dates for which cause the Arabians call it by no other name but the Date-bearing region is bounded Westward by the Atlantick Ocean Northward by mount Atlas it stretcheth East as farre as the citie Eloacat which is an hundred miles distant from Aegypt and the sandie Deserts of Libya embrace it on the South LIBYA the third part is named in the Arabian tongue Sarra which word signifies a Desert It beginnes East from Nilus and thence runneth West as farre as the Atlantick sea Numidia lies to the North of it and the Land of Negros to the South Now followeth the fourth part which they call NIGRITARVM terra either from the inhabitants which are of a blacke colour or from the riuer Niger that runneth thorow the countrey It is confined North by Libya South by the Aethiopick Ocean West by Gualata and East by the Kingdome of Gaoga And here we are to note that according to this their diuision all Africa is included within the Mediterran Atlantick and Aethiopick seas and the riuer Nilus wherefore Aegypt and Aethiopia are accounted parts of Asia which we notwithstanding thinke more properly to belong to Africa For the true Aethiopia containes at this day Presbyter Iohns Empire which by all late Writers is ascribed to Africa We therefore with Ptolemey iudge that it ought to be bounded by the Mediterran and Ocean seas rather than by any riuer whatsoeuer and so it hath the forme of a Peninsula being ioyned to Asia by an Isthmos or small neck-land which lies betweene the Mediterran sea and the gulfe of Arabia The South part hereof was vnknowen to our ancestours till the yeere 1497 whereas Vasco de Gama first doubling the Cape de buona speranza or of good hope and sailing about Africa came to Calicut in East India This Southern part by the Persians and Arabians is called Zanzibar At the foresayd Cape of good hope the inhabitants are exceeding blacke which we thought in no wise to omit because all men suppose the cause of blacknesse to be heat and the nearenesse of the Sunne wheras here the Sunne scorcheth no more than about the Streight of Magellan if we measure the heat of the place according to the position of the heauens and distance from the Equinoctiall line where notwithstanding the people are reported to be maruellous white But if we will needs ascribe this blacknesse to the scorching heat of the Sun let vs consider what makes the Spaniards and Italians looke so white whenas they are equally distant from the Equinoctiall with the inhabitants of the foresayd Cape namely the one towards the South and the other towards the North. Presbyter Iohns people are of a browne colour in Zeilan and Malabar the inhabitants are coale blacke yet all in one the same distance from the aequator and vnder the very same parallele of the heauens * And on the contrary why did Herodotus and Pindarus describe such as inhabited the same climate with themselues namely Colchis to be of a blacke colour and curled haire Herodotus in his Thalia makes the Indians blacke like the Aethiopians which the experience of our times confirmeth I know Herodotus will haue the cause hereof to be the seed of the parents which he sayth is not white as that of other people but blacke To whom Postellus also subscribeth and imputeth the originall of this blacknesse vnto Chams curse Against which opinion I haue nothing to allege Let the trueth of the matter rest vpon the authours credit But this a man may thinke more strange that in all America there were no blacke people found besides a few only in one place called by them Quareca What then is the efficient cause of this colour Is it the drinesse of the heauen or of the earth Is it perhaps some hidden propertie of the soile Or a kind of qualitie inherent to the nature of men
to name places after the same Saints vpon whose daies they finde them I haue nothing to adde saue that Theuet is mistaken in that he falsly and carelesly ascribes the same mountaine vnto S. Michaels Isle which we haue truly and fully described in Pico Of these Isles somewhat you may read in the Historie of Ierome Conestagio touching the Vnion of the Kingdome of Portugale to the crowne of Castile And also in the 97. Chapter of Iohn Huighen van Linschoten his East-Indian iournall AÇORES INSVLAE Priuilegio Imp. et Reg. Maiest necnon Ordinum Belgicor ad decennium Longitudo huius descriptionis sumta est à meridiano I Ptolemaei Occidentem versus Has insulas perlustrauit summà que diligentia accuratissimè descripsit et delineauit Ludouicus Teisera Lusitanus Regiae Maiestatis cosmographus SPAINE SPAINE is resembled by Strabo vnto an Ox-hide spred vpon the ground It is around inuironed by the sea saue only where it is diuided from France by the Pyreney-mountaines On the East it hath the said Pyreney-mountaines which from the Temple of Venus or the Promontory stretched foorth neere Illiberis now Colibre runneth along to the British Ocean and this is the very narrowest part of Spaine insomuch saith Vaseus that when I trauelled thorow Biscay I remember that from the hill of S. Adrian if my sight deceiued me not I saw both seas namely the Ocean neere at hand and as farre off as I could discerne the foame-white waues of the Mediterran sea North it is bounded by the Biscain sea West by the Western sea and South by the Streight of Gibraltar and part of the Mediterran sea Spaine is diuided into three Prouinces Baetica Lusitania and Tarraconensis Baetica on the North is inclosed with the riuer Anas now called Guadiana West with that part of the Atlantick Ocean which is betweene the mouth of Guadiana and the Streight of Gibraltar South with part of the Mediterran sea called of olde Mare Balearicum extending from the Streight last mentioned to the Promontory of Charidómus now called Cabo de Gata and Eastward it is bounded by an imaginary line drawen from the said Promontory by the towne of Castulo to the riuer Guadiana It is called Baetica of the famous riuer Baetis which cuts the whole Prouince in twaine This riuer springing out of the wood or forest anciently called Saltus Tygensis runneth into the Atlantick-ocean and is at this day called by an Arabian name Guadalquibir that is to say The great riuer This prouince of later times of the Vandal inhabitants was called Vandalicia at this present by the same word corrupted Andaluzia Lusitania conteines Algaruc and the greater part of Portugale Lusitania confineth North vpon the riuer Duero from the very mouth thereof to the bridge ouer against Simancas West it bordereth vpon that part of the Atlantick-ocean which ebs and flowes betweene the outlets of Duero and Guadiana South vpon Andaluzia and East it fronteth Hispania Tarraconensis now called Castilia c. euen from the ancient Oretania to the foresaid bridge ouer against Simancas Lusitania was thus named from Lusus the sonne of Bacchus and Lysa one of Bacchus his companions whereupon it is somtimes called of Lusus Lusitania and somtimes againe of Lysa Lysitania The residue of Spaine pertaineth to the prouince called Tarraconensis of the city Tarracona which is the head of all that prouince a city saith Strabo most notably fit for princes in their trauels to retire themselues and here the Emperors kept their chiefe iurisdiction This prouince containeth the kingdome of Murcia likewise Valencia and Arragon with Catalonia also Castilia Vieja the kingdome of Nauarre part of Portugale between the riuers Duero and Minho the kingdome of Gallicia Asturia and all Biscay Hitherto Vaseus in his chronicle of Spaine who intreateth of this argument more at large Read also Marinaeus Siculus Marius Aretius Damianus a Goës Francis Taraffa the bishop of Gerundo Annius Viterbiensis and in Spanish Florian del campo and after him Ambrosio Morales with all those other Writers of Spaine that Vaseus in the fourth chapter of his Chronicle doth recite Stephan Garibayo in his Chronicle of Spain diuided into twenty books describes the kingdome of Nauarre Iohn Mariana likewise not long since published a volume concerning Spanish matters Among the ancient Writers you must peruse Caesar Strabo and the rest which Damianus a Goës in his booke called Hispania doth nominate also the Panegyrick speech of Latinus Pacatus and Claudianus de laude Serenae Vnto these you may adde the first booke of Laonicus There is extant also a little Trauellers Breuiate written in Spanish by Alonço de Meneses containing almost all the ordinarie voyages in Spaine wherein also are noted the distances of places Three memorable things as writeth Nauagierus are prouerbially spoken of Spaine the first A bridge ouer which the water runneth whereas it runnes vnder all other bridges namely the water-conduct at Segouia the second a city compassed with fire that is to say Madrid because the town-walles are of flint and the third a bridge whereon are daily fed ten thousand head of cattel whereby is signified the riuer Guadiana which hiding it selfe vnder ground for the space of seuen miles doth then breake forth againe Albeit this last is a thing sprung rather out of the peoples vulgar opinion than out of truth as Don George of Austria Gouernour of Harlebeck an eye-witnesse most worthy of credit hath informed me being a man conuersant in all kinde of history and a a wonderfull searcher and admirer of naturall Philosophie The islands belonging vnto Spaine wherof ancient writers haue made mention at the Celtick promontory or Cape Finister are the Cassiterides which at this present are not to be found in the ocean Also Insulae Deorum otherwise called Cicae and of late times Islas de Bayona Londobris named also Erythia and now the Burlings Gades in olde time dedicated to Hercules now commonly called Cales All these are in the Ocean In the Mediterran sea you haue Ophiusa now called Formentera As likewise the two Gymnesiae or Baleares at this present called by distinct names the one Maiorca and the other Minorca The coast of Minorca is beset round about with huge mountaines but at the entrance of the hauen the roots of these mountaines are leuelled into a plaine till they meet at so narrow a distance on the other side of the shore that no ships can enter the harbor but with a gentle gale of wind The hauen is named Mahon being a most beautifull and commodious place for it stretcheth almost foure miles in length with many inlets all which serue for the harboring of ships From hence ariseth a perpetuall ridge of mountaines on which the inhabitants cut downe great plenty of wood At the vtmost part therof on the mountain-tops is built a city Contrariwise the greater Island hath a plaine shore and most high and barren mountaines in the middest A city there is of one and
CREMA CRema a towne in the confines of Millane is a Castle place of garrison of the Venetians This as Leander affirmeth vnder the gouernment of the same Venetians hath so incresed in multitude of citizens and goodly buildings that it may well be accounted amongst the most famous places of all Italie Wherefore they vse to say in a common prouerb in their vulgar tongue Barleta in Puglia Pratum in Toscana Crema in Lombardia signifying the excellency statelinesse and richesse of these three places The Venetians haue often assaied to adorne the towne with the title of a city but the citizens fearing that whereas now it is accounted amongst the best townes it shall then be reckoned amongst the meanest cities haue hitherto withstood that their purpose It is seated in a pleasāt plaine in compasse large wide fortified with a strong wall famous for wealth very populous and abounding with all things necessary for the soile of the territorie and liberties of this towne is very fertile and yet by the great diligence and industrie of the husbandmen it is dailie bettered and amended Many brookes well stored with diuers sorts of fish do euery where water this prouince Blondus writeth that after that Fredericke Barbarossa had spoiled Cremona hee built Crema in scorne to hinder and disgrace it There are others as Leander witnesseth which do thinke it to haue beene built by the citizens of the city Parasium which was ouerthrowne rased to the ground by the Bishop of Millane for heresie which it maintained and therefore they called it Crema in memoriam Crematae patriae in memoriall of their natiue city burned and spoiled But this I leaue to the iudgement of the discreet Reader AGRI CREMONENSIS TYPVS Antonius Campus pictor Cremonensis descripsit 1579. Cum Priuilegio CREMAE DITIONIS DESCRIPTIO Lectori Ne tabula hoc loco omnino vacua extaret hoc Cremae territorium à quodam patriae studioso descriptum hic studiosis exhibere placuit The liberties of BRESCIA THe liberties of Brescia now possesseth part of that coast where in time passed the Cenomanes dwelt and extendeth it selfe in length 800. furlongs or 100. miles in bredth 400. furlongs or 50. miles as Elias Capriolus affirmeth it is situate betweene the lakes Garda and Iseo the Alpes and the riuer Oglio These fields as Iohn Planer writeth are worthily accounted amongst the most delightsome champions of Lombardie For it hath as Baptist Nazario saith Gold Siluer Brasse Lead Iron Alume Marble both Porphyrie and Serpentine as they call it barly coloured with blacke and greene Plinie calleth it Ophites and other stones of great price as also the Marchasite which aunciently hath beene called Pyrites or The fire stone The citie Brixia whereof this territorie tooke his name as yet reteineth the same his auncient name for the inhabitants do call it Brescia the which for his riches and beautie they terme in that common prouerbe of theirs The Bride of the city of Venice There is not any of the old writers either Historians or Geographers which do not make mention of this city Trogus Pompeius writeth that it was built by the Galli Senones Liuy saith that it is the chiefe city of the Cenomanes Pliny in his Epistles of this writeth thus vnto Iunius Mauricus Brixia is that city which constantly retaineth as yet much of that graue modesty and old frugalitie of our auncient Italians It hath beene graced with the title of a Duchie for so I find written in Diaconus his 5. booke of Lombardie in the 36. Chapter But because that none of the late writers that I may say nought of the more ancient haue described this citie more learnedly and eloquently than Pighius in his Hercules Prodicius thou shalt heare him speake in his owne termes Brescia which is seated at the foot of the mountaines may contend with most of the cities of Italie for antiquitie and statelinesse of buildings Iulius Caesar Scaliger a famous Poet of our age hath thus described it in this Epigramme Thou Brixia great which proudly ouerlook'st the boornes and lowlie plaine by due desert now iustlie mayst the soueraigne Empire claime Thy healthfull seat thy pleasant fertile soile thy people wise and nation stout If ciuill discord had not crosst long since had brought about That where long time thou hast beene thrall and stoop'st to others lore Thou mightest haue lorded ouer those to whom thou serud'st before For this Citie by reason of ciuill discord and dissention being subdued vnder the yoke of the French and their next neighbours the Insubres or the Millaners hath endured much miserie yet now at length vnder the peaceable gouernment of the Venetians it is growen very wealthy a great market well furnished with all things necessary very populous and inhabited of a wise and discreet nation The shire is very fertile of oile wine corne and most excellent fruites of all sorts It hath also some rich veines of Mettalls but especially of Iron and Copper whereof ariseth to this citie great gaine and commodity Liuie and other good authors report That Brescia was built by the Galli Cenomanes about the time of the Romane kings which afterward the Romanes hauing subdued all that part of the countrey of the Gaules which lieth beyond the riuer Po reduced vnder their iurisdiction It is apparant out of Liuie how firme it sometimes stood with the Romans especially in those most dangerous warres between them and Hanniball Some would haue it to haue beene made a Colonie present after the end of the League-warre when as Cneius Pompeius Strabo the father of Pompey the great planted colonies in Verona and other cities beyond the riuer Po. Not long after by the fauour of C. Caesar it together with other cities there about obtained the freedome of the city of Rome and after that it is woonderfull how it flourished vnder the Roman Emperours so long as the greatnesse of that Empire stood vnshaken This diuers monuments of Antiquitie which as yet remaine in this city and in the liberties of the same as namely many goodly inscriptions of marble statues pillars and Epitaphes of famous men do constantly auerre by which the former greatnesse of this city may easily be gathered Thus farre Pighius Baptista Nazario wrote a seuerall Treatise of this city in the which he setteth downe all the inscriptions of the auncient monuments of this country Helias Capriolus hath comprized the whole historie of this citie in 12. bookes Gaudentius Merula in his tract of the originall and antiquitie of the Cisalpines speaketh somewhat of it as also Chrysostomus Zanchus writing of the originall of the Orobij and Cenomanes likewise Leander Albertus and lately Andrete Paccius in his sixth booke of the Wines of Italie There is in this prouince a towne called Quintianum 20. miles south-eastward from Brescia neere to the riuer Ollio of the which Iohn Planer a citizen of the same wrote a small Treatise who in an Epistle of his to Paullus
againe wonne by those of Pisa Now together with the kingdome of Sicilia it is gouerned by the Spaniard MALTA sometimes called MELITA QVintinus Heduus hath passing well described this Iland and hath set forth a peculiar Treatise of the same The landing of S. Paul and his shipwrecke heere vpon this coast hath made this Iland famous But not many yeares since by the ouerthrow of the Turks huge nauy the knights of Hierusalem to their eternall fame manfully defending the assault it is now againe made more famous See also Fazellus of this I le ELBA anciently called ILVA THis Iland in these our daies is in subiection to the Dukes of Florence and by a strong castell newly built it seemeth to be very defensible and safe against the inuasions of the Turks Of the new order of knight-hood by the name of the Knights of S. Steuen answereable to those of Hierusalem in Malta instituted in the yeare 1561. by Cosmus Medices Duke of Tuscane read Caelius Secundus in his historie of the warres of Malta That this Iland had many veines of mettall it is cleare by the report of ancient Cosmographers And now Leander saith it hath a rich mine of iron where also the Loadstone is found as he writeth Matthiolus telleth that from hence Liquid alume is brought and conueied vnto vs. Diodorus Siculus in his fifth booke hath a large description of this Iland where he calleth it by the name of Aethalia CORCYRA now CORFV IT is an Iland of the Hadriaticke sea subiect to the state of Venice In it is a very strong castell of the same name where is continually maintained a garrison against the Turks Beside the ancient Geographers these later writers Volaterranus Bened. Bordonius and Nicolas Nicolay in his Eastern obseruations with others haue described this Iland ZERBI of old writers called LOTOPHAGITIS THe ouerthrow of the Christian nauie neere this Iland which happened in the yeare of Christ 1560. hath made this iland more famous Of the situation bignesse and gouernours of this Iland read Iohannes Leo Africanus in his fourth booke of his description of Africa INSVLARVM ALIQVOT MARIS MEDITERRANEI DESCRIPTIO Cum Priuilegio The Ile ISCHIA THat this Iland hath been in former times called AENARIA ARIMA INARIMA and PITHECVSA Homer Aristotle Strabo Pliny Virgill Ouid and other good writers are sufficient witnesses Now it is called ISCHIA of the name of the city there built vpon the top of an hill in forme somewhat like the Hucklebone as Hermolaus Barbarons testifieth which of the Greeks is named Ischia or rather of the strength and defenciblenes of the place as Volaterranus thinketh Although it be sure that these be but synonymes of one and the same iland yet Mela Liuie and Strabo do seeme to make Aenaria and Pithecusa two distinct iles as also Ouid may be thought to do in these verses Inarimen Prochitamque legit sterilique locatas Colle Pithecusas habitantum nomine dictus By Inarime he saileth by Prochyte ile by barren Pithecuse A town on toppe of loftie cragge where wilie Apes do vse Where by Pithecusas as I thinke he vnderstandeth the city ancientlie as also now it is of the same name with the whole iland Which although now it be obserued to be ioined to the I le yet in former ages it was called Gerunda and was apart and disioined from the I le as Pontanus a man of good credit doth testifie in his second booke which he wrote of the warres of Naples where he affirmeth that in his time it was ioined vnto the Iland by a causway made between them Prochita not farre distant from hence which Plinie doth write to haue been seuered from Pithecusa doth shew that this was sometime adioined to and sometime disioined from this Iland The same authour doth affirme which Strabo also doth approue that all these sometime were cut off from the maine continent and to haue been part of the cape Miseno This doth the forenamed Pontanus in his sixth booke confirme in these words That Aenaria saith he was cutte off from the maine continent many things do demonstrate namely The torne rocks The hollow ground full of caues The nature of the soile like vnto that of the continent leane drie and spuing out hotte springs and fountaines It breedeth flaming fires in the middest of the earth wherefore it is manifest that it conteineth much Alume Andreas Baccius in that his famous worke of the Bathes of the whole world writeth that this iland doth counterfait Campania of which it was sometime a part not only in respect of the fertility of the soile but also for likenesse and similitude of the bathes Erythraeus vpon the 9. booke of Virgills Aeneiads doth thinke it to be called Arima of a kind of people or beasts so named and that Virgill was the first that when he translated that of Homer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Ionicke preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 altering the declension and number did make the new word Inarime Yet Plinie in the 6. chapter of his 3. booke and Solinus surnamed Polyhistor are of a contrary opinion which do affirme it to be of Homer also called Inarime And as the same Pliny reporteth it was called Aenaria for the ships of Aeneas put into harborough heere Pithecusa not of the great store of Apes there found but of Coopers shops or warehouses But this opinion the same Erythraeus in the foresaid place laboureth to ouerthrow as not altogether consonant to the truth for that of tunnes made for this purpose he protesteth that he hath not read of in any authour whatsoeuer Yet Seruius in my iudgement seemeth vpon the forcited 6. of Virgils Aeneads to stand for Pliny where he saith that by Cumae there was a certaine place named Doliola that is if we should interpret it Tunnes And it is more likely that this Iland should take the name from that place with which sometime it was vnited according to the opinion of these good authours rather then of apes for I regard not the fable of Ouid of which beasts none are heere or euer were That this Iland from the beginning hath been subiect to earth-quakes flames of fire and hot waters from thence oft breaking out we are certified by Strabo and Pliny The mountaine which Strabo calleth Epomeus and Pliny Epopos now they call it S. Nicolas mount which for the same cause they report to haue burned inwardly at the bottome and being shaken with an earthquake to haue somtimes cast out great flakes of fire Heere hence arose that fable of Typhon the giant wherof you may read in Homer Virgill Silius Italicus who calleth him Iapetus Lucane and others as the same Strabo interpreteth which they fable to lie vnderneath this hill and to breath out fire and water That it is on euery side wonderfully fertile of the last writers Io. Elysius Fran. Lombardus Io. Pontanus Solenander Andreas Baccius and especially Iasolinus the authour of this
that this is but a meere fable Moreouer Frisach a very ancient towne S. Lionhart Wolfsperg c. are townes also of this country In former times the Iapydes were thought to haue dwelt heere abouts The soueraignty and secular iurisdiction of this country doth belong vnto the Dukes of Austrich but as concerning Ecclesiasticall iurisdiction it partly belongeth to the Bishop of Salczburg and partly to the Patriarch of Aquileia as Paracelsus affirmeth in his forecited Chronicle But in the same place he hath a most ridiculous etymologie of the name of this prouince which he faineth to be fetched from the Latines namely that it should be named Carinthia as who would say Caritas intima Intire loue and affection As if the first inhabitants who seated themselues heere should haue been desirous to haue their country named by a name fetcht from a forrein nation and strange language not vnderstood of them The Reader not satisfied with this heere set downe by vs let him haue recourse vnto Sebastian Munster Sabellicus Pio II. c. I vnderstand also that one Iohn Saluian hath surueied this country whose description as yet I haue not seene Goritiae palatinatus The county palatine of Gorcz belonging to the Duke of Austrich is so named of Goercz the chiefe city of this country called of the Italians for it standeth in Italie beyond the Alpes Goricia of Ptolemey Iulium Carnicum as Leander thinketh Amasaeus as the same Leander saith gathereth by diuers antiquities heere found and remaining that Noteia sometime was seated heere about It is a towne situate at the mouth of the riuer Wipach formerly called Fluuius frigidus I meane where Wipach falleth into the riuer Natiso HISTRIA or ISTEREICH IT is almost a common thing generally as Pliny saith in his naturall historie that euery man describeth best and most curiously that country in which he was borne and brought vp And within a few lines after the same authour saith thus I will follow no one man altogether but as I shall find him in all points to speake most probably and consonant to the truth And therefore heere in this place the which I do almost euery where in these discourses vpon my Maps I haue determined amongst many others that haue described this prouince to offer to the view of the Reader a great description according to the capacity of the place of Lewis Verger that country man borne This man in the Cosmography of Munster saith that this Neckland or Demi-ile from the inner bay where Trieste now standeth hard vpon the shore vnto the S. Veit a towne situate in Fanatico vpon the riuer Fiume conteineth in length better then 200. miles The whole country is not very leuell and plaine yet the mountaines are neither very high steep nor barren but plentifully replenished with vines oliues and other fruit-trees corne pastures and cattell only in that part which bendeth toward the bay Golfo di Quernero sometime called Flanatico or Fanatico it hath a very high mountaine which they commonly call Monte maior This first presenteth it selfe to the eie of the seamen which saile hitherward in whose toppe there ariseth a very goodly spring of fresh-water It yeeldeth many rare hearbs and plants of singular vertues which do make Physitions farre dwellers from hence to resort hither in time of the yeare and with great toile and danger to clamber vp the same The riuers of Histria are three Fornio Naupertus and Arsia the first the country people call Risano the second Quieto the last Arsa which falleth into the bay Quernero or Fanatico and is now the vtmost bound of Italie The cities of Histria are Mugia Iustinopolis Isola Pitano or Piran as I thinke it is named in the mappe Pumago Hemonia Parenzo Osara Rubino Pola S. Veit all of them marine cities Pinguento Montana Portulae Grisignana Bullae S. Lorenzo Doi castelli S. Vincenzo Val Adignano Pamerano Albona Fianonae Petina Galigagna Coslaco and Pisino are vpland cities The most famous city of this whole country is Iustinopolis which they commonly call Capo d' Istria the head of Histria Pliny nameth it Aegida it standeth vpon a rocke in the sea farre remote from the continent vnto which it is ioined by a long bridge This city with many other is subiect vnto the Venetians the rest are vnder the gouernment of the Duke of Austrich c. Beside the ancient Geographers read also Leander Volaterran and Dom. Niger Cassiodore in his 12. booke Variar hath much of this prouince ZARA and SEBENICO ZARA we thinke sometime to haue been called Iadera and others do affirme that his territories anciently was called Liburnia SEBENICO is that which old writers called Sicum Both are marine cities situate vpon the Hadriaticke sea vnder the iurisdiction of the Venetians In that place where in this our mappe thou seest certaine ruines of old decaied buildings Dominicus Niger saith sometime did stand the city Essesia which now lieth leuell with the ground and the place at this day is called Beribir where Epigrammes in Latine and Greeke with many other monuments of antiquity are yet to be seen The authour of this mappe whose name we know not calleth the same Bergine Of this part of Illyria read the same Dom. Niger his sixth booke of Geography M. S. Cornelius Scepper sometime Embassadour of Ferdinand Emperour of Rome vnto Soliman the great Turke in his Iournall hath these wordes At Zara we saw the church of S. Io. de Maluasia so named for that the sailours of a hoy laden with Malmesy being in foule weather in danger of shipwracke vowed that if they escaped safe to land they would build a church whose mortar should be tempered with malmesy which was accordingly performed CARINTHIAE DVCATVS ET GORITIAE PALATINATVS WOLF LAZIO auctore Histriae tabula Petro Coppo descr ZARAE ET SEBENICI DESCRIPTIO HVNGARY HVngaria which it is certaine was so named of the Hunni or Hungari a people come out of Scythia which now inhabit it conteineth almost both the Pannonies the countries of the Iaziges and the Daci now comprehending Transsyluania VValachria and Moldauia On the South it beginneth at the riuer Dra on the North it is bounded by Sarmatia Europaea now called Polonia and Getia at this day named VValagria on the West it hath Austrich sometime the head of the Higher Pannonia vpon the East it is confined with Mysia which at this day they call Rhetia Donaw Danubius of all the riuers of Europe by farre the greatest runneth through the middest of it and so diuideth it into two parts the Heather and the Farder The HEATHER HVNGARIA is that which formerly were the Pannonies the Vpper and Neather this is seuered from the further Hungaria by the riuer Dra from Austrich and Bayern by the foote of the mount Caecius from Slauonia by Dra from Bosna and Rascia by Saw The head and chiefe cities of this part is Buda often they call it the imperiall seat of their kings Other townes of great account
Indus and Iaxartes they now call it Chesel and the Caspian sea is now in these our daies possessed by the Sophies the Kings of Persia All which tract of ground Pliny in the 27. chapter of his 6. booke of the history of Nature by the iudgement of Agrippa assigneth to the Medes Parthians and Persians But Ammianus Marcellinus who liued in the time of Iulian the Apostata Emperour of Rome doth ascribe it wholly to Persia For he in his foure and twentith booke reckoneth vp these eighteen countries in this order as parts of Persia Assyria Susiana Media Persis Parthia Carmania the Greater Hyrcania Margiana the Bactriani the Sacae Scythia beyond the mount Emodus a part of the mount Taurus the Iewes call it Iethra others Moghali others Beresith as Theuet reporteth Scrica Aria the Paropamisadae Drangiana Arachosia and Gedrosia All these countries euen at this day are subiect to the iurisdiction of the Kings of Persia for ought that I can learne either by the bookes of late writers or relation of sailours and trauellers into those parts yet the names are much altered and changed as you shall easily perceiue by comparing of the moderne mappes and chartes with the descriptions of ancient Geographers Of the originall of the SOPHIES these particulars following Caelius Secundus Curio hath translated in his Saracen history out of the Decades of Asia written by Iohn Barrius In the yeare of Christ 1369. there was a certaine pety king amongst the Persians named Sophi who held the city Ardenelim in his possession This man bragged that he was descended lineally by his ancestours from Musa Cazino nephew of Alij Muhamed He the Chalife of Babylon being dead the contrary faction maintained by the Turkes suppressed by the Tartars began more boldly and freely to broach his opinions of religion and because that Hocemus the sonne Aly from whom he draweth his pedigree had twelue sonnes minding to set some marke or badge vpon his sect and disciples whereby they might be distinguished and knowen from others he ordained that they that would follow him and be of his religion should weare a tire vnder the vaile which all the Turkes do wind about their heads they call it Tulibant should be of a purple colour and should hang out at the middest of the Tulibant twelue hand breadth After his death Guines his sonne succeeded in his steed who did purchase vnto himselfe such an opinion of learning religion and holinesse throughout all the Eastern countries of the World that Tamerlanes that worthy and famous Emperour of the Parthians who ouercame Bayazet the great Turke and defeating all his forces tooke him captiue trauelling through Persia determined to visite him as a most holy and religious Saint To Guines Tamerlanes freely gaue thirtie thousand captiues which he brought thither with him these Guines afterward trained vp in his religion whose seruice Secaidar his sonne especially vsed in his warres For he after that Guines his father was dead made warre vpon the Georgians his neighbours bordering vpon his kingdome and countries a kind of people of Scythia but Christians by profession and by the help of these Mussulmanes grieuously vexed them many kind of waies c. Let this satisfie thee in this place to be spoken of the originall of the Sophies These do make continuall warre with the Turkes about the Mahumetane religion for because the Sophies do follow one interpretour of the Alkora'n and Mahometan religion and the Turkes another which interpretours and expositours do much dissent and vary one from the other so that the Sophians by the Turkes are counted but as Heretiques and contrariwise the Turkes are esteemed for no lesse by the Sophians It is by nature a Gentleman-like and honourable Nation very ciuill and curteous louing learning and liberall sciences and withall do much esteeme of Nobility and Noble-men in that are cleane contrary and opposite to the Turkes which do not acknowledge or regard any difference of bloud or descent from famous ancestours and great houses The situation of these countries the maners customes and behauiour of the people of the same thou maist read of in Aloysius Iohannes Venetus Iosaphat Barbarus Ambrosius Contarenus Iohannes Maria Angiolellus and a certaine Merchants trauels whose name I know not together with them imprinted Looke into also the Iesuites Epistles and the Persian Commentaries of Caterino Zeni a Senatours sonne of Venice Polybius in his fifth booke doth most excellently well describe the middle Country Moreouer Petrus Bizarrus my singular good friend hath this other day set out the history of Persia Lastly and somewhat latter than Bizarrus Thomas Minadoius hath done the like but in the Italian tongue PERSICI SIVE SOPHORVM REGNI TYPVS Cum priuilegio The Empire of the Great TVRKE OF the originall and beginning of the Turkish Empire the encreasing and grow'th of the same vntill it came by little and little to that greatnesse that now it is of whereby it is fearefull to all nations round about we haue gathered these few lines out of the best Historiographers of our time In the yeare of Christ 1300. one OTTOMANNVS a Turke the sonne of Zichi a man of meane parentage began for his pregnant witte and great experience in feats of armes and discipline of warre to grow famous and renowmed amongst the Turkes Of this man the stocke of the Turkish Emperours first tooke their name and beginning and he was the first that ordeined a king ouer the Turkes He raigned seuen and twenty yeares in which space he conquered all Bithynia and Cappadocia and subdued many strong holds neere vnto Mar Maiore or the great sea so now the Italians call that sea which the old writers call Mare Ponticum and Sinus Euxinus the Greekes now Maurothalassa and the Turkes Caradenis that is the Blacke sea After him succeeded his sonne ORCHANES who wonne the great and strong city Prusia or Prusa now called as Bellonius writeth Bource and was sometime named Zellia and Theopolitana which he made the head of his kingdome and place of residence for his Court He was slaine in an vnfortunate battell which he fought against the Tartars in the 22. yeare of his raigne and left AMVRATHES his sonne to rule the kingdome after him who first the Grecian Princes falling at variance and calling him in sailed with an huge army out of Asia into Europe he in a short space subdued almost all Greece and Phocis a part of Bulgaria but himselfe at last being ouercome and taken by Tamerlane died and ended his daies most dishonourably The father being taken CALEPINVS his sonne stepped into the throne and tooke possession of the kingdome But hauing in battell vtterly ouerthrowen Sigismund and his forces and begun to wast and spoile the borders and territories of the Emperour of Constantinople died in the floure of his age when he had raigned but six yeares Heere note by the way that Adolphus Venerius doth not reckon this Calepine amongst the Turkish Emperours For
the Portugals still called Cussij of Cush I make no question The people are blacke or of a deep tawny or blackish colour and blacke we say in our common prouerbe will take none other hue Whereupon the Prophet Ieremy in the 23. verse of the 13. chapter of his prophecy saith thus Can ישוכ Cushi the Abyssine or Blacka-moore change his skinne or the leopard his spots For the same reason also the learned Diuines do iudge that Dauid in the title or superscription of the seuenth Psalme by Cush did meane Saul for that his deadly hate was such toward him that by no good meanes that he might vse he could make him change his mind more than an Indian doth his skinne as Kimchi the great Rabbine doth interpret this place The people are by profession Christians as appeareth by the letters of the said Dauid written vnto Pope Clement the seuenth Of whose manner of life customes and religion we haue gathered these few lines out of the trauels of Francis Aluares written and imprinted in the Italian tongue In these countries there are very many Monasteries and Religious houses both of men and women Into the Monasteries of the men there is neither woman nor any liuing creature of the female sex that may enter or once looke within the gates Their Monkes which heere do hold their Lent for fifty daies together do fast for the most part only with bread and water For in these countries there is small store of fish especially in the vpland places for although the riuers are well stored of fish yet they giue not their mind to fishing because they know not how to catch them there is none skilled in that art In time of Lent certaine of these Monkes do not eat any bread at all only they liue vpon rootes and herbs some of them for all that time do neuer go to bed nor sleepe but as they sit in the water vp to the chinne In their Churches they haue bels as we haue but for the most part made of stone Their Ministers and Priests are married They say Masse and do go in procession with crosses and censers like as they vse in some Churches in Europe The Friars do weare their haire long but their Priests do not so neither of them weare any shoes nor any man neither Churchman nor Layman may once enter within the Church dores with shoes on his feet They keep Sundaies and Holy-daies vpon which they do no manner of worke They are all circumcised both men and women but they are also baptised in the name of the Father and of the Sonne and of the Holy Ghost yet not vntill the fortith day after their birth they which liue not till this day are buried vnchristened to all those that are baptized the holy communion or Eucharist as they call it is at the same instant administred powring a great deale of water into the childes mouth that he may so much the more easily get it downe The proper names which then are giuen them are all of some signification They affirme that they were conuerted vnto Christian religion by Candaces a Queen of this country spoken of in the 27. verse of the 8. chapter of the Acts of the Apostles whose proper name they thinke was Iudith They haue a booke diuided into 8. parts this they call Manda and Abetilis which they do verily beleeue was written by all the Apostles being iointly for that purpose gathered together at Hierusalem all the contents of this booke they do most diligently and strictly obserue The baser sort of people do without any controwlement or feare of punishment marry 2. or 3. wiues according to their ability and as they can tell how to maintaine them but these are excommunicated and forbidden by the Cleargy to enter into the Church Their lawes do tolerate diuorcements The Noble-men do esteem raw beefe serued in with fresh or hot bloud in manner as we vse our boiled meats with pottage or stewed broth for a great and dainty dish In all the kingdome of Prester Iohn they haue no manner of brasen or copper money but in steed of it they vse pure gold vncoined of a certaine weight In like manner salt yet not only in these prouinces but also generall throughout all Africa is vsed in exchange and buying and selling in stead of money In some places small pieces of iron bright and burnished do serue that turne But pepper amongst these people is of such great price that whatsoeuer a man will buy he may easily obtaine it for that merchandice These countries haue almost all sorts of beasts and fowles as Elephants Lions Tygres Losses Lynces the Latines call them Badgers Apes and Stagges contrary to the opinion of the old writers which haue generally denied that Africa doth veeld this kind of beast but in all that six yeare which Aluares this our authour dwelt in these countries he writeth that he neuer saw any Beares Conies Linnets Magpies or Cuccoes Yet Iohn Leo an African borne in his 9. booke saith that in Barbary there is wonderfull store of Conies The Locusts do more vex and hurt this country than any place of the World beside so that this plague is almost proper and peculiar to them Such oftentimes is the number and abundance of them that as they flie they do seeme to darken the aire and shadow the earth they flie together in such great flockes and thicke troupes that they do vtterly spoile and consume the fruits sometime of one prouince sometime of another wholly almost deuouring all their corn vpon the ground eating vp the leaues and barkes of the trees leauing their meddowes and pastures bare of grasse so that the people do oftentimes leaue their natiue soile where they were bred and borne and are forced for want of victuals to go seeke some other place to dwell in There is in these quarters a city named Cassumo sometime the seat as their histories do record and place of the Queen of Saba Maquedam that is as I thinke Antistes a Prouost or President they say she was called By whom they affirme that Salomon King of Isra l had a sonne named Meilech that is The King In this city they are perswaded that the Queen Cand ces did afterward dwell But it is best that the Reader that is desirous of further satisfaction to haue recourse to the same Francis Aluares who hath very curiously described those thing which he did most diligently obserue in that his Ambassage into these countries Item Iohn Bermundes who set foorth his Ambassage vnto the Abyssines in the Portugall language Let him also read a little treatise of Damianus à Goes which he wrot out of Ethiopia and Sabellicus his 10. Enneas of his 8. booke Of the originall of Prester Iohn and by what meanes he came out of Asia where he was knowen to writers about 200. yeares since and seated himselfe in Africa read Iohn Nauarchus in his Epistol Asiatica and Gerard Mercator in his
woont to throw foure horses into the sea as a sacrifice to Neptune great commander of the same Dionysius Vticensis and Caelius Apitius doe speake of oleum Liburnicum a kind of oile made heere The same author telleth vs of a cold spring or well in Illyria ouer which if a man shall spread any clothes they will burne and at length be cleane consumed And thus much generally of Illyria now it remaineth that we speake a word or two of Liburnia and Dalmatia the seuerall parts of the same whose beginning and ending as Florus thinketh is at the riuer Titius Cercha or Polischa or at the city Scardona Scardo situate vpon the banke of that riuer as Ptolemey Dioscorides Galen and Pliny do thinke Liburnia is renowmed for those kinde of shippes which heere were first made and vsed and therefore were named Naues Liburnicae they seeme to haue beene like vnto our pinnaces or foists light and swift of saile and therefore were good for pirates and sea-robbers and Vegetius in his booke of warre writeth that they were held to be the best kinde of shippes for seruice and fight vpon the sea and therefore in warre to be preferred before any other kinde of shipping whatsoeuer this also Appian doth confirme who saith that for lightnesse and swiftnesse they did farre surpasse any other And Zosimus writeth that they were as quicke of saile as those gallies that were forced and rowed with fifty oares but in this he is deceiued that he thinketh them to haue beene so named of a certaine city in Italy Apitius telleth vs as we said before of a Liburnian oile vsed as seemeth about some seruices in the kitchin Of the iron mines in Dalmatia see Cassiodore in his third booke Variarum dedicated to Symeon These verses of Statius in his Siluae doe shew that it hath also some veines of golde Quando te dulci Latio remittent Dalmatae montes Vbi Dite viso Pallidus fossor redit erutoque Concolor auro So doth the poet Martiall in the threescore and eighteenth Epigram of his tenth booke vnto Macer in these words Ibis littoreas Macer Salonas Felix auriferae colone terrae yet Strabo plainly testifieth that they vsed no maner of mony or coines either of siluer or golde Moreouer he affirmeth that euery eighth yeere they make a new diuision of their lands There are in Dalmatia as Cicero to Vatinius writeth twenty ancient townes which also haue gotten vnto them more than threescore other townes The rape roote and persnep do grow of their owne accord about Dalmatia without setting sowing or manuring as Athenaeus in his ninth booke Deipnosophiston out of the authoritie of Posidonius affirmeth For so Delachampius translateth the Greeks word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not vsed of any other writer to my knowledge Aristotle in his often cited Admiranda giueth vs to vnderstand that the Taulantij a people of Dalmatia did vse of hony to make a kinde of wine for taking the hony-combes and powring water vpon them they presse and wring out the liquor which they presently seethe in a great kettle and caldron vntill the one halfe of it be consumed then they put it into earthen vessels and so let it stand for a certaine time lastly they tunne it vp into barrels or treene vessels and so they keepe it for a long time vntill it get the true and perfect taste of a strong kinde of wine The same authour in the same place writeth that amongst the Ardiaei a people of Dalmatia in the confines neere to the Autariatae there is a great mountaine and neere to that as great a valley out of which water runneth in great abundance yet not at all times but in the spring time only which in the day time they powre into a vessell and keepe it close within the house at night they set it abroad in the open aire vncouered which being done for six daies together at last it congealeth and becommeth as fine salt as may possibly be seene Pliny in the skirts of Dalmatia placeth a caue which he calleth Senta with a wide deepe mouth into which if one shall cast any thing though neuer so light and in a day neuer so calme presently there riseth a storme like to a whirlewind Hither peraduenture belongeth that fable of the two rocks of which Dionysius Afer speaketh In the same countrey there is a hole called Diana's caue in which if one may beleeue Phlegon Trallianus there are many dead bodies the ribbes of which are more then sixteene eles long a piece Giue him the whetstone Thus farre of this countrie and the people of the same collected out of the most ancient authours that are extant and haue come to our hands Latter writers haue named this Illyria SLAVONIA and the people or inhabitants of the same SLAVONES Slauonians by which name being reclaimed from the barbarous inciuility of other nations and by holy baptisme incorporated into the body of Christs Church in the time of Basilius Emperour of Constantinople and his sonne Leo who succeeded him in that Empire they are described in the eighteenth chapter of that his booke de Bellico apparatu where he thus setteth out their nature and manner of life It is a populous nation able to indure all maner of miseries heat colde raine nakednesse want of meat drinke and other such like necessary things they can easily abide They were woont to be humane courteous to strangers which hospitality they do very diligenly mainetaine and keepe euen to this day for they alwaies vsed to shew themselues gentle and kinde to trauellers and strangers to entertaine them friendly and courteously and to goe with them and conduct them from place to place to defend and keepe them safe and sound from all hurt and danger So that if a traueller were wronged by the negligence of his host they presently made warre vpon him as against a publike enemy For they held it for a great argument of fidelity if the wrong done to a stranger were righted or any kinde of way reuenged Moreouer this also doth shew them to be humaine in that they do not binde their captiues to a perpetuall seruitude but rather they detained and kept them with them as captiues and prescribed them a certaine set time of their seruitude after which being expired paying a certaine fine or peece of mony they might if they pleased returne home to their owne countrie againe or if they thought good stay still amongst them as frinds and freemen Their women are said to be very modest aboue those of other countries for many of them doe take the death of their husbands so heauily that they will die with them and one way or other make an end of their liues with them for they cannot abide to liue as widowes alone after their husbands death and to marry the second time that is counted a foule shame Their ordinary fare is millet they are very temperate and sparing in their diet Other toiles of husbandry they
last epistle describeth in the territories of Consilinum Stylo a city of this tract Marcilianum suburbium which he termeth the natiue soile of Saint Cyprian of which that by the way I may speake one word of this there is nothing spoken which indeed is strange in the liues of the Fathers or Martyrologies of the Saints or in any other authour to my remembrance Nor which is more strange in any of those writers which like as Gabriel Barry and Prosper Parisius haue particularly named and wrote of the seuerall Saints of this country But of the Nature Situation proper Qualities and Antiquities of this prouince I will not speake one word more because the same is most exactly and learnedly done by two learned men both borne heere who therefore knew it well before I began once to set pen to paper to draw this my Mappe I meane Gabriel Barrius in his booke intituled Calabria where he so largely and curiously tricked out Great Greece Brutium and the tract possessed sometime by the Locri that euen that Reader which hardly will be satisfied with such like stories may doubtlesse heere take his fill and Antony Galatey who hath painted out his Iapygia which is in truth the ancient Calabria that his Reader shall not only depart skilfull and cunning in the knowledge of this country bur also much bettered in his vnderstanding and instructed with rules of good learning and Philosophy in him also there is a description of the city Gallipoli Of Tarentum a city of this prouince Iohannes Iuuenis harh set out a seuerall treatise Of Diomedes iles belonging to this country we haue gathered these few lines which follow DIOMEDES ILES Now ISOLE DE TRIMITE PLiny describeth two ilands by this name so many also doth Strabo mention whereof the one he saith is inhabited the other wast and desert Ptolemey reckoneth vp fiue all called DIOMEDES ILANDS and so many there are at this day called by seuerall and distinct names if one shall account rockes and all Whether euery one of these were knowen to the ancients by seuerall names or not I know not Festus Stephanus and others call properly one of these Insula Diomedea Diomedes I le like as amongst the Britannicae insulae the Brittish iles one is properly named Britannia Brittaine One of them Tacitus calleth TRIMERVS or peraduenture Trimetus for otherwise I doe not see from whence that name of Trimite whereby the greatest of them at this day is called and of it the rest should come Pliny calleth another of them TEVTRIA the other for ought I know the ancients left vnnamed as for Electris and Febra which Seruius mentioneth at the eleuenth booke of Virgils Aeneids or Sebria and Aletrides whereof Pomponius Sabinus vpon the same place speaketh I do very willingly confesse that I haue not found them spoken of by any ancient writer They are seated in the Adriaticke sea not farre from the sea-coast of Puglia opposite to Monte de S. Angelo Mons Garganus or Promontorium Garganum Not within kenning or sight of Taranto Tarentum a city of Apulia as very falsly at the same place Seruius hath set downe The name was deriued by the testimony of all writers both Latines and Greekes from Diomedes the king of Aetolia Artinia Nicetas calleth it whom they report after the surprising of Troy in his returne homeward not being enterteined of his owne nation to be driuen hither and to be interred heere and that his temple monument or tombe did remaine in the greatest of them properly called Diomedea S. Maria di Trimite and that the Plane tree was first brought hither for to shaddow Diomedes tombe Pliny in the first chapter of his twelfth booke of the history of Nature hath left recorded Into Trimerus as Tacitus writeth Augustus banished sent his neece Iulia conuict of adulterie where he furthermore addeth that she endured that punishment of exile the space of twenty yeares In Platina in the life of Hadrian the first I read that Paullus Diaconus was once condemned thither by Charles the Great Of Diomedes birds which Iuba calleth Catarractae Aristotle Charadrij of others Erodij a kind of Cormorant or rauenous sea foule proper to these ilands for they are onely to be seene in this one place of all the world if we may beleeue old writers read Ouid in the thirteenth booke of his Metamorphosis where he thus speaketh of them Si volucrum quae sit dubiarum forma requiris Vt non cignorum sic albis proxima cignis The doubtfull formes of birds most strange if that you seeke to know They be no swannes yet white they be as white as any snow Suidas maketh them to be like to storkes Aristotle in his Wonders calleth them vaste and huge birdes with very long and bigge bils Pliny with Solinus do write that they be like the Fulica a kinde of coote of colour white hauing teeth and eies of a fiery sparke Some there are which do thinke them to be Heronshawes Robert Constantine testifieth that the country people of these ilands do now call them Artenae and that they make a noise like the crying of yong children Item that the fatte or grease of them is a soueraigne remedie against diseases arising of cold causes Blondus writeth that he vnderstood by some of the inhabitants of these iles that these fowles still retaining the name of the Diomedean birdes are of the bignesse of a goose But to be very harmelesse creatures yet neither doing them nor the Church any maner of pleasure They which desire to know more of these birdes as also of the Metamorphosis and transmutation of Diomedes consorts into these fowles or of their nature and quality as of their kindnesse toward Grecians honest-men Strabo calleth them and their curstnesse to strangers wicked-men as Strabo hath and of the purifying of the temple and of other poeticall fables deuised of them let them haue recourse to the authours aboue named to which they may ad that list that which Aelianus hath written in the first c. of his 1. booke S. Aug. in the 16 c. of his 18 book De ciuitate Dei Antigonius Antony Liberalis Lycophron and his Scholiast Isacius At this day these ilands are vnder the command of the kingdome of Naples are al generally called by one name Tremitanae ilands de Trimite euery one by a seueral proper name by it selfe as thou maist read in our Geographical treasury They are now all desert void of inhabitants only that except in which sometime was the temple of Diomedes where now is the Monasterie vulgarly called Santa Maria de Trimiti possessed by regular canons which Eugenius the fourth Pope of Rome enlarged and endowed with great reuenews as Blondus recordeth These as Zacharte Lillie reporteth go to Church so diligently heare diuine seruice so deuoutly and relieue those which by storme and tempest are driuen thither so charitably that they are not onely very famous and reuerently esteemed of those that dwell
than 10000. men together with their wiues children nobles princes and kings This MYSIA or as for the most part the Latines write it MOESIA Ptolemey diuideth into the VPPER and NEATHER Superior Inferior this in the Code of Iustinian is called SECVNDA that PRIMA the Second and First The neither is named of Iornandes MINOR SCYTHIA the Lesser Scythia of Zosimus SCYTHIA THRACENSIS Scythia of Thrace of Plutarch in Marius SCYTHICA PONTICA Scythia of Pontus and the inhabitants of the same Celtoscythae of Polyaenus PONTICA MARITIMA Pontus vpon the sea of Ouid and others PONTVS simply without any addition Some there are which do call it FLACCIA of one Flaccus a Romane whom it is certaine out of Ouid was sometime heereabouts lieutenant for the state of the Empire Neither doth this seeme to be altogether false or vnprobable for the name Waiachia or Valachia whereby it is knowē at this day doth import so much By Ouid also in sundrie places it was described vnder these names Sarmaticū solum Geticū littus Cymmeriū littus and Barbaria the Sarmatian soile the Gottish or Cymmerian shore and Barbaria These countries are very fertile of all maner of fruites and commodities so that as Solinus witnesseth the Romanes commonly called it Cereris horreum Ceres barne The poet as Procopius in his 4. booke AEdifici noteth calleth these people Enchemachous such as fight aloofe and farre off Mysos in palustra feroces and Quum Geticis ingens premeretur Mysia plaustris when Mesia great was much oppressed with Gottish waines thus Claudian the poet writeth of them Dant illis animos arcus plenaque pharetrae They much presume vpon their bow and cunning great in archery as Ouid in his first booke de Ponto writeth of them Aelianus sheweth that they were able by their owne strength and power to keepe out the Scythians from entring their country and euery way to defend the same from that furious and violent enemy Strabo saith that they were exceedingly giuen to robbe and steale Vix hâc inuenies totum mihi crede per orbem Quae minus angusta pace fruatur humus Scarse maist thou find in all the world so small a plot of ground Where bloudy wars their hideous noise more oftentimes do sound as the forenamed poet writeth of this country as also this that followeth in another place In quibus est nemo qui non coryton arcum Telaque vipereo lurida felle gerat Amongst these men ther 's none but hath his sturdie bow With poisoned arrowes sharpe and swift to fight against his foe How faire and stout they were thou maist see by this of Florus One of the Captaines saith he stepped out before the army and entreating their silence demandeth who are you It was iointly with one voice answered of all We are Romanes lords of all nations of the world To which answeare they replied againe So you are indeed if you can conquer vs. Posidonius in Strabo affirmeth that they forbeare the eating of flesh for religion and conscience sake and do feed only vpon butter and cheese Of the fabulous story of a kind of horses heere if thou desire to know see Elianus as also Solinus of the strange hearb growing in that part of the country called Pontica In Moesia also is the prouince called DARDANIA which we said was called MYSIA MEDITERRANEA Vpland Moesia for that it is farre remote and distant from the riuer Donaw Of the inhabitants and people of this country the same authour thus speaketh In all their life as I heare by report from others these people do onely bath or wash themselues three times once as soone as they are borne another time when they marry and againe at their death Of the Triballi a people of this country take this of Pliny as he alleadgeth it out of Isigonus They do bewitch and kill with their eies such as they do stedfastly looke vpon any long time together especially if they be angrie which mischiefe of theirs striplings are most subiect vnto and soonest hurt by But that is most notable and worth the obseruation that in ech eie they haue two sights apeece He that desireth to read more of this country especially of the Lower Moesia let him repaire to Ouids 3. booke de Ponto at the 1. 4. and 10. Elegies Of their barbarous manners rites customes and ceremonies thou shalt find much in the 7. Elegie of his 5. booke de Tristibus of the riuer Donaw or Ister which Elianus in the 23. chapter of his 14. booke de Animalibus calleth The king of Riuers Of Apollonius in the fourth booke of his Argonautickes it is named Cornu oceani the horne of the sea for that it runneth through the middest of those countries which heere we haue described it is not amisse in my iudgement to say something of that also That Ister or Donaw of all the riuers of the Romane Empire for greatnesse is next vnto Nilus we do read in the fragments of Salust Gyraldus in his Syntagmata Deorum affirmeth that the kings of Babylon were wont to reserue certaine of the water of Donaw or Ister in ther treasuries amongst their pretious iewels Caesarius Nazianzenus brother in his dialogues saith that this is one of the riuers of Paradise and to be that which the holy Scripture calleth Phison which I will easily grant him to be true when he shall perswade me that by Paradise is meant the whole world or massie globe of this lower element of the earth which I do verily beleeue he thought to be true Seneca in the sixth booke of his naturall Philosophy saith that this Donaw doth part Europe and Asia Notwithstanding all writers generally both Latines and Greekes aswell ancient as those of later times do attribute this to the riuer Done Tanais And what is he I pray you that euer dreamed that Germany which is beyond this riuer should be a country of Asia Shall we correct the copy Or shall we retaine that reading in Horace vpon the credit and perill of Acron his expositour where he saith that Tanais is also called Danubius I leaue it to the censure of the learned This we know for a certainty aswell Tanais as Danubius is of the inhabitants neere about called Done and surely I thinke that both the Greeke Tanais as the Latine Danubius were made of the barbarous Done or Tane which in that language peraduenture for ought I know may signifie a riuer or streame so Nilas as Pomponius Mela seemeth to affirme tooke his name of Nuchul which generally signifieth a riuer as all men meanly skild in Hebrew or Arabicke can testifie with him Isidore also in the ninth chapter of the seuenteenth booke of his Origines seemeth to be of this opinion where he writeth that Rhabarbarum rhew barbe groweth in solo barbarico in a barbarous country beyond the Donaw For we know at this day that it groweth neere the riuer Rha which is beyond the Donaw Eastward In Pliny we
Perinthij made it a free corporation and endowed it with many large and ample priuiledges After him as Themistius Euphrada in his sixth oration testifieth Theodosius the Great did beautifie it with diuerse gorgeous and costly buildings Moreouer Iustinian the Emperour as Procopius an eie-witnesse affirmeth adorned it with many most faire and beautifull workes of curious Architecture But especially he graced it by that glorious worke of that stately temple of Santa Sophia which he repaired being a little before burnt downe and vtterly defaced by fire and of it bestowed such cost that the Emperour himselfe as Glycas witnesseth boldly said that in this edifice he had exceeded euen glorious king Salomon in that his building Which worke of his as P. Diaconus writeth of it did so much excell all other buildings that in the whole world beside there was not to be found another that might in any respect be compared vnto it Whereupon Corippus thus speak th of this Church Iam Solomoniaci sileat descriptio templi Cedant cunctorum miracula nota locorum That stately worke of Salomon great Iudahs glorious king May now be still and bragge no more The greatest woonders of the world may well giue place to this No eie hath seene the like before Consta Manasses calleth it Orbis ornamentum The glorie of the world which he verily beleeueth the very Seraphim themselues did reuerence and adore But if any one be desirous to know the fashion and modell of this building let him haue recourse to Procopius his first booke of Edifices Of this church Paulus Lyrus Florus wrote a treatise in heroike or hexameter verse as Agathias in his fifth booke testifieth So that it might seeme that there was nothing more that might be wished for the further beautifying of this city Sozomen doubted not boldly to affirme That Constantinople both for multitude of men and store of wealth and money by all mens ioint consent did farre excell euen great Rome it selfe Moreouer Nazianzen writeth That Constantinople for beauty and brauerie did as much excell all other cities of the world beside as the highest heauens in glory do exceed the lowest elements Whereupon of some it was graced with these proud titles VRBS AETERNAE VRBS REGIA NOVA SECVNDA ROMA The eternall City The Emperiall City New Rome and Another Rome In the praising and tax of the chiefe cities of the Romane Empire this city in a Councell there held was placed in the second degree but in former times as Egesippus testifieth it possessed only the third place Zosimus writeth that there is no other city whatsoeuer whether you respect the large compasse and circuite of the wals or great felicity of it euery way that may iustly be compared vnto it The buildings of it are so close and neere together and the houses and streets are so pestered and thronged that whether a man keepe home or walke abroad he shall be so crowded and thrust that scarcely he might go without danger by reason of the huge throng of men and infinite of multitude of cattle alwaies passing to and fro in the same He that desireth to know all the glorious ornaments and woonderfull things worthy of obseruation to be seene in this city let him read George Cedren his historie of the life of Theodosius the Great Where he doth not onelie receite them all and reckon them vp curiously but also he doth most artificially describe them and paint them out in their true colours This city was taken in the yeere of Christ 1453. by Mahomet the first of that name Emperour of the Turkes who at this daie do yet possesse it Manie other things pertaining to the beautie and magnificence of this city are to be seene in the booke of Records of both the Empires and in Procopius his first booke De Aedificijs Of the originall and famous buildings of this city read George Codinus for no man hath handled that argument better than he But of the later writers Petrus Gyllius hath most exactly and learnedly described the same Of the Thracians this one thing in this place I cannot omit namely That in former times they bore a great sway in forren countries and were great Lords out of their owne natiue soile For they conquered and had vnder them a great part of Asia which is situate ouer against them and caused it after their name to be called THRACIA ASIATICA yea and toward the South beyond the bounds of their owne country vpon the Aegean sea where Pausanias described THRACIA CARIA they had long since placed their colonies This prouince Porphyrogenneta calleth THRACESIVM Xenophon doubted not to call this kingdome the greatest of all other between the Ionian sea and Pontus Euxinus Moreouer Strabo maketh mention of a certaine nation dwelling aboue Armenia which were called Thraces Seraperae To this Thracia is annexed a Chersonesus or Neckland which thereupon was sirnamed THRACIA CHERSONESVS Suidas calleth it CHERSONESVS HELEESPONTIACA of the sea Hellespontus neere neighbour vnto it It is also named PALLENE of Halicarnasseus and Stephanus who moreouer addeth that it was inhabited of the Crusaei Xenophon saith it was a most rich soile and fertile of all manner of things whatsoeuer and withall affirmeth that in it were eleuen or twelue great and goodly townes But wee out of all ancient Historians haue much exceeded this number as the Mappe doth sufficiently approue This Neckland or Chersonesus belonged sometime to Marcus Agrippa after whose decease as Dion reporteth it fell vnto Augustus Caesar He that desireth out of ancient writers a more ample description of Thracia let him read Wolfangus Lazius his Histories of Greece Item the fifth booke of Agathias a Grecian borne A strange thing it is that William Brussius writeth of this Chersonesus that by no manner of meanes or diligence vines can be made to grow heere in any great abundance GRAECIA OR HELLAS THat country which the Latines call GRAECIA Greece of the Greekes themselues generally was named HELLAS yet the out-borders of it are not the same according to euery mans description and limitation That was truly and most anciently called Greece which Ptolemey Pliny and Mela name ACHAIA in which Athens the first and most flourishing Vniuersity of the World and most renowmed citie of these parts was seated Heere Iupiter himselfe as Athenaeus witnesseth kept his Court. It is a free city as Pliny calleth it and needeth as he saith no further commendations so famous and honourable it is and euer hath been beyond all measure or conceipt of man Yet it is manifest not only out of the writers of the common sort of Historiographers but also euen out of Strabo himselfe the prince of Geographers that many countries are comprehended vnder the name of Graecia or Hellas as namely Macedonia Epirus Peloponnesus and those other prouinces and shires conteined vnder these names so that all Greece as it is generally taken is on three sides bounded with the Ionian Aegean Archipelago and the Libyan
place the same authour writeth that that there were in it aboue three thousand statues Strabo writeth that this Colossus in his time was by an earth-quake ouerthrowne and lay along and was broken off at the knees after which time the Rhodians were by the oracle of Apollo forbidden to set it vp againe Of this Earth-quake read Polybius in his fifth booke The aire is neuer so thicke and cloudy nor the heauen euer so closely maskt saith Solinus Polyhistor but the sunne doth shine in Rhodes Whereupon Manilius writeth thus of it Tuquè verè domus Solis cui tota sacrataes And thou who truly sacredart and princely court of glorious Sunne Pliny and Athenaeus do commend the Wines and Figges of Rhodes aboue those of other countries Phylostratus in his second booke of Images affirmeth that the soile of this I le is very good and fertile of Grapes and Figges Eusebius writeth that the inhabitants and people of this I le alwaies vpon the sixth day of May vsed to sacrifice a man vnto their gods There are some which boldly affirme that these people were called Colossians of that famous Colossus before mentioned Amongst which are Eustathius Zonaras and Glycas as also Suidas but that he calleth them not Colossenses but Colassenses sounding a the first vowell not o the fourth in the second syllable Others of whose opinion I am do rather thinke that those are called Colossenses which do inhabite Colostae now Chone as Porphyrogennetas sheweth a city of Phrygia in Asia the lesse to whom S. Paul wrote his Epistle not to these Rhodians as we haue shewed in our Treasury Diodorus Siculus and Polybius do speake much of Rhodes but of all men Strabo doth describe it best Of this iland see the third chapter of the seuenth booke of Aulus Gellius It had seuen Arsenals or docks whâ—re shippes were built and repaired as I reade in the fift booke of Polyaenus in Heraclides Their great store of shipping was a manifest argument of their great strength and power Of their empire and command which they had in Asia the maine continent see Liuies 37 and 38 books Item of their iurisdiction ouer cert ine ilands in the midland sea looke Ammians 22. booke For they had vnder their command all Caria part of Lycia Carpathus and the Calymnae certaine ilands in the Aegaean or Carpathian sea Archipelago as we are giuen to vnderstand out of the one and thirtieth oration of Dion Prusaeus LESBOS THis iland of ancient writers was called by diuers and sundry names as namely AEGIRA AETEIOPE HEMETTE LASIA PELASGIA ISSA MACARIA MITYLENA and MYTANIDA There are some as Strabo writeth which do thinke it to haue beene sundred from Ida. The fabulous story of Arion the excellent musician and lyricall poet hath made this iland more famous Of this story thou maist read more at large in Aelianus Item Sappho the poetresse who as Pausanias witnesseth wrote much of Loue and the temple of Apollo with the chappell of Lepetymnus situate in the mount Lepetymnus as Antigonus writeth haue likewise made this iland much talked of In the fables we find recorded that about Antissa Orphaeus head was buried and that the nightingals do heere sing much better than in other places Antigonus out of the authority of Myrsilus borne in this I le doth affirme for a certaine truth Diodorus Siculus writeth that it was first inhabited of the Pelasgi then of Macarius the sonne of Iupiter Cyrenaicus together with the Iones after that of Lesbus the sonne of Lapithus Pliny and Athenaeus do affirme it to be a very fertile soile and good for vines the wine Athenaeus doth so highly commend that he INSVLAR ALIQVOT AEGAEI MARIS ANTIQVA DESCRIP Ex Conatibus geographicis Abrahami Ortelij Antuerpiani LEMNOS LESBOS CIA et CEOS SAMVS EVBOEA Insula RHENIA DELVS ICARIA RHODVS CHIOS CYPRVS Insula laeta choris blandorum et mater amorum Cypri insulae incognitae positionis LOCA Esmaeus Tyrrhia GENTES Asphax Otienses VRBES Acra Acragas Alexandria Alcathi villa Asine Capbalus Cerbia Cinyria Cresium Cyrenia nisi sit Ceronia Dionia Epidarum Erysthia Gerandrum Lacedaemon Malum Togessus Tembrus Vrania Cum priuilegio decennali 1584. Psieus flu et Aous flu Aoius mons saith that it is indeed more like to Ambrosia than meere wine Pomponius Mela saith it hath fiue goodly townes but Pliny speaketh of eiht yet we out of Greeke and Latine authours haue found the names of many more as thou maist see in the Mappe This amongst the iles of the midland sea famous for their larger compasse and greatnesse doth possesse the seuenth and last place In Strabo thou shalt find much of this iland CHIOS AThenaeus writeth that this iland is full of thicke woods and ouergrowne with trees and bushes Item that the people and inhabitants of the same were of all the Grecians the first that vsed to buy slaues to doe their seruile workes and drudgery It had a city of the same name which Thucydides calleth the greatest and richest of all the cities of Ionia There is nothing in this I le more renowmed than the wine which they call Chium vinum the best of all Greeke wiues as Strabo Aelianus and other good authours affirme The vines whereof this wine is made do especially grow in the fields of Aruisius Amista it is now called about the mount Pelmaeus whereupon this wine was since called Vinum aruisium and by addition of one letter Maruisium of which later we do commonly call it Malmesy Athenaeus sheweth that vinum nigrum the red wine or blacke wine was first knowne in this I le It is no lesse famous for the Lentiske tree which yeeldeth Masticke that sweet and wholesome gumme The marble also of this I le is much commended by Pliny who thinketh that the quarries of Chios did first shew vnto the world that marble of diuers colours which they vse in building of wals Vitruuius describeth a fountaine in this I le of whose waters if any man shall drinke vnawares they presently become starke fooles bererued of all vnderstanding and reason That there is heere a kinde of earth called Chia terra of soueraigne vse in Physicke the same authour doth plainly affirme Eusebius testifieth that in former times the inhabitants were woont vsually to sacrifice a man cut in pieces as small as flesh to the pot vnto Omadius Bacchus This iland was also knowne by other names as CHIA AETHALIA MACRIS and PITYVSA Some thing of the history and famous acts of these ilanders thou maist read of in Herodotus as likewise againe in Strabo Of Drimacke a slaue or bond-seruant a story very well woorth the reading done in this iland thou maist see in the sixth booke of Athenaeus his Deipnosophiston LEMNOS LEMNOS is situate ouer against mount Athos Agion oros they now call it the Italians Monte santo the Turks Manastir which as Statius and Solinus report doth cast his shadow into the Market-place of Myrina now Lemno a wonderfull thing to tell seeing that
Lucanus 8. INCERTAE POSITIONIS LOCA Amythaonia Apeliotes Athos Cephro Cessan Colluthium Cusi Elysius Eurychorian Focis Litrae Melite Metole Metopium Nelupa Pyrae Taeniotis Tevochis Tityus REGIONES Dulopolis Pentapolis NOMI Anthites Anytios Aphthala Bathrithites Crambetites Croites Omnites Phanturites Ptenethu Sebrithites Thermopolites VRBES Abotis Achoris Anthiti Anysis Arcadia Arieldela Arype Asphinum Atharrabis Auaris Bosirara Bucaltum Burgus Seueri Byblos Calamona Cassanoros Chiris Chortaso Cos Cotenopolis Crambutis Crialon Cros Cyrtus Flagoniton Gavei Gazulena Helos Isidis opidum Juliopolis Iustiniana II. nova Maximianopolis Mucerinae Muson Mylon Naithum Narmunthum Nupheum Oniabates Paprinus Paremphis Pasteris Ptemengyris Pempte Philadelphia Pinamus Paebebis Polis Precteum Praesentia Proxenupolis Psinaphus Psinaula Psochemnis Python Sadalis Sampsira Sargantis Scenae Sella Senos Sosteum Spania Syis Terenuthis Thamana Theodosiana Ticelia Tindum Tisis Titana Tohum Toicena Trichis Tyana Vantena VICI Anabis Daphnusium Diochites Nibis Phoenix Psenerus Psentris Psinectabis Psittachemnis MONS Laemon FLVVIVS Phaedrus INSVLAE Hiera Nichocis Horum vocabulorum et ceterorum que in ipsa tabula describuntur testimonia et auctoritates veterum videre sunt in nostro Thesauro Geographico Ex conatibus geographicis Abrahami Ortelij cum Priuilegio decennali 1595. The Mappe doth shew the situation of this countrey and therefore I shall not need to speake ought of that What the great fertility and richnesse of soile of this prouince was that worthy commendation vulgarly spoken of it wherein it is sayd to be The common barne of all the world doth sufficiently shew For although it neuer raineth here yet it breedeth great plenty of men and beasts with all maner of cattell whatsoeuer But this indeed their riuer Nilus by his inundation euery yeere bringeth to passe wherupon as the poet Lucan writeth this is Terra suis contenta bonis non indiga mercis Aut Iouis in solo tanta est fiducia Nilo A land that of it selfe is rich enough It need'th no forren aid Ioues helpe it scorn'th so much it stand'th vpon the bounty of the Nile Yea they were woont proudly to vaunt as Pliny testifieth that they caried in their hands the dearth or plenty of the Romans those mighty conquerours The riches and wealth of this countrey one may easily esteeme by that of Diodorus who writeth that the Kings of Egypt vsed yerely to haue of Alexandria only a Subsidie of aboue twelue thousand talents item out of Strabo in whom I reade that Auletes father to Cleopatra leuied yeerely in Egypt a Subsidie of twelue thousand and fiue hundred talents which doth amount according to Budey his estimation to seuenty fiue hundred thousand French crownes and that as he there addeth vnder a very loose and bad kinde of gouernment Eusebius in his second booke de Praepar Euang. reporteth that Osiris their king did erect and make for Iupiter and Iuno his parents and for other gods temples and shrines of beaten gold and siluer a maruellous shew of their woonderfull wealth and riches Of the golde-mines of this countrey Agatharcides hath written something But so many endlesse and immortall works yet extant hauing hitherto euen to this day abode all assaults and iniury of time do sufficiently shew what their great command and power in former times hath beene as namely are those huge Pyramides so many Obelisks of solid marble of one whole stone of such woonderfull height Colosses Sphinges Statues and Labyrinths so many gorgeous Temples of which this one countrey could shew more than all other countreys beside whatsoeuer as Herodotus who himselfe was an eye-witnesse of the same doth plainly affirme The infinite number of people and inhabitants which Philo in his booke of Circumcision ascribeth vnto it gather out of Iosephus and Egesippus who writeth that beside the citizens of Alexandria which as Diodorus testifieth were three hundred thousand free men there were seuenteene hundred and fifty thousand enrolled and made free-denisons of Rome at once It is a very prudent and wise nation as we may vnderstand by diuers histories very ingenious in the finding out of any maner of artes and sciences very quicke of conceit in the search of any inuention whatsoeuer as Aulus Gellius hath left recorded They are fit and able to attaine to the vnderstanding of all maner of diuine knowledge as Macrobius affirmeth who also calleth Egypt The mother of all artes But Trebellius Pollio in the life of Aemilianus the Tyrant sayth that it is a furious and outragious nation easily mooued to sedition tumults and rebellion vpon euery light occasion And Quintus Curtius sayth that they are a light headed and giddy brained people more fit to set matters abroach than to follow them wisely when they are once afoot Hadrianus the Emperour as Flauius Vopiscus in the life of Saturninus reporteth calleth it Gentem leuem pendulam ad omnia famae monimenta volitantem A light and vnconstant nation hanging as it were by a twin'd thread and mooued at the least blast and puffe of newes that might stirre Seneca to Albina calleth it Infidam A faithlesse nation Ventosam insolentem A bragging proud and insolent nation Pliny in his Panegyricke to Traian the Emperour termeth them Nequitias tellus scit dare nulla magis No countrey in the world I am sure More vilder knaues did ere endure sayth the Poet Martiall Philo in his booke of Husbandry sayth that they haue Innatam insignem iactantiam that is that they it bred in the bone that an Egyptian should be a famous bragger Yet he sayth that they are withall wise and ingenious Apuleius termeth them Eruditos Learned Egyptians and Themistius Euphrada Sapientissimos homines Very wise and cunning fellowes Philostratus sayth that they be much giuen to Theology and study of heauenly things Strabo hath left recorded that they were no warlike people Of famous knaues they possessed the middle ranke according to that olde prouerbe Lydimali secundi Aegyptij tertij Cares The Lydians are the great knaues The Egyptians meane knaues be The clownish hobs of Caria are The least knaues of the three as Eustathius vpon Dionysius Afer reporteth Of the customes and maner of life of this nation Porphyrius speaketh much in his fourth booke intituled Of abstinence from flesh meats The most famous cities which we haue read of in the ancient writers of both languages are these First ALEXANDRIA which Athenaeus nameth The beautifull and golden citie the Councell of Chalcedon The great citie Marcelline The head of all cities in the world Eunapius Another world Dion Prusaeus sayth that it is the second citie of all that are vnder the cope of heauen The chiefe temple heere called Sebasteum or Augusteum that is Princely or Emperiall hath no peere This thou mayst see described by Philo Iudaeus in his booke De vita contemplatiua The Serapium another stately building in this citie so adorned and beautified with diuers goodly galleries many gorgeous and lofty columnes and pillars set out with most liuely imagery and diuers
pleasant Tempe in Thessalia Tempe quae syluae cingunt super impendentes The Tempe which the ouer-hanging groues do round inclose as Catullus the poet in his Argonautickes hath left recorded It is as Pliny saith about three lands breadths ouer sesqui iugerum AElianus calleth it Plethrum The length which they do define to be from the mouth of the riuer Gannum euen vnto the bay now vulgarly called Golfo di Salonichi then Sinus Thermaeus is as Liuy testifieth fiue miles or as AElianus saith which is all one forty furlongs These mountaines Liuy writeth are so high steepe and craggy on all sides that a man may scarce looke downe from off the toppe of them without a dazling of the eies and giddinesse of the braine The noise also and depth of the riuer Peneus which runneth through the middest of the valley is very terrible Pliny saith that the stately toppes of these mountaines on euery side do rise by little and little vp higher into the aire than a man may well discern Within these hils the goodly riuer Peneus doth runne which for his crystall waters rowling ouer the smooth pebbles the goodly meddowes and grasse alwaies fresh and green vpon the bankes the ouerhanging groues and trees continually resounding with the melodious harmony of sweet singing birds is so pleasant and delightsome as any in the world beside But because all these authours haue spoken of it as it were by the way and not of set purpose I thinke it not amisse to set downe in this place the description of it done by AElianus as you may read in the first chapter of his third booke De varia historia where it is most curiously and absolutely set out in his true and liuelie colours These therefore are his wordes There is a place between Olympus and Ossa the two loftiest mountaines of all Thessaly disioined one from another by the diuine prouidence of eternall God by a faire plaine or leuell running between them the length of this plaine or valley is fortie furlongs It is from one side to the other in some places two or three lands breadths ouer in some places it is somewhat broader Through the middest of this valley runneth the riuer Peneus into which also other riuers falling and mingling their waters with his do much encrease the streame of Peneus This place is most pleasant and delightsome by reason of his great varietie of all sorts of alluring and inticeing pleasures neuer made by any art or industry of man but by nature it selfe shewing all her skill in the beautifying of this valleie at such time as it was first made There is in this place great store of iuie alwaie green and flourishing alwaie budding and putting forth his pleasant slowres euer clinging and winding in maner like the goodlie vine about the tallest trees and clambring vp by little and little vntill it come euen to the verie toppe In the same places grow the aie-green yeugh-tree which lifting vp it selfe aloft vpon the rockes shaddoweth the caues holes and cliffes which beneath lie lurking in the vale All other things whatsoeuer do flourish blossome and beare flowers are there to be seene this is a most gallant and glorious shew for the eies to behold In the plaine when the sunne is at his height in summer you shall haue manie goodlie shaddowie groues and diuers places of shelter into which trauellers desirous for to refresh their wearied limmes from the violence of the heat and their noisome sweat do betake themselues as into the most pleasant and delightsomest innes and harboroughs that are in the world Moreouer of ouerflowing wels and pleasant springs of most coole and fresh waters running heere and there in sundrie places of this valleie there are verie manie and diuers which if we shall beleeue the report of our fathers haue been verie wholesome and soueraigne to sundrie sorts of diseased persons that haue washed themselues in the same Againe diuers birds heere and there dispersed in these groues and woods do make the guests great mirth at their banquets with their sweet singing and pleasant tunes especially those which haue the lowdest and sweetest voices do so please and hold the eares of the heares that those which passe by this waie are so rauished and delighted with this their musicke that they instantly forget all their trauels and businesse On ech banke of the riuer such are the delights pleasures and recreations for the wearied trauellers as before we haue mentioned Yet the riuer Peneus going on leasurely and smoothly like an oile runneth quietly through the middest of the Tempe About this riuer by reason of the trees which grow vpon the bankes and their farre-spreading boughs is a most goodly shade so that such as row in boates vp and downe vpon this streame for almost a whole day together may saile in the pleasant shade free from the violence and schorching heat of the sunne The people which dwell vpon this riuer do oft times meet in companies sometimes in one place and sometimes in another Hauing done diuine seruice and ceremonies in due forme and maner they banquet and make merrie Therefore those which do these seruices and performe these ceremonies being very many it is no maruell though such as come hither to walke for recreation those which trauell by this way or saile vp or downe this riuer vpon what occasion soeuer do continually smell a most sweet and fragrant sauour In this maner this place was consecrated with great honour religious seruices These things and many other hath Aelianus written of these Tempe TEMPE Delineatum et auditum auctore Ab. Ortelio cum privilegio decennali 1590. Est nemus Aemoniae praerupta quod undique claudit Silva vocant TEMPE per quae Penëus ab imo Effusus Pindo spumosis volvitur undis Ovid. i. Metamorph. Of these also Procopius although he nameth them not by name hath written in his fourth booke De Aedif. Iustiniani Imperatoris There is a braue description of these places in Catullus his Argonauticks But I thinke it good here to set downe out of diuers writers certaine seuerall things of these Tempe as they are here and there dispersed in their works Maximus Tyrius in his xxxix oration hath left recorded that diuine honour in olde time was done to the riuer Peneus for his maruellous goodly beautie and farre-surpassing cleere waters Pliny writeth that this riuer doeth admit into his channell the streame of the brooke Eurotas but so as it swimmeth aloft like oile and hauing caried it so for a certaine space casteth it off againe as refusing to quaint and intermeddle his siluer streame with his filthy stincking troubled waters The same authour sayth that here groweth great plentie of Laurell Polypody Dolichus a kinde of beane Wilde-time and Water-lilly but this hath a blacke flower if we may beleeue Apuleius Pausanias in his Phocica writeth that the temple of Apollo at Delphos was built of Laurell boughes which grew in this
place Mela and the Poets do speake of Ossa the mountaine memorable for the fabulous storie of the Giants who also doe report that the Lapithae a people of Thessaly did sometime dwell here In the same mountaine I reade in Polyaenus his fourth booke that Alexander King of Indica for so I do rather yeeld to haue it read than India as hitherto the interpretours haue set foorth seeing that Indica is a countrey hard by Pontus as Stephanus directly auerreth by hewing downe the craggie cliffes of this mountaine did make certaine small staires which sequent ages called Alexanders ladder Nere these Tempe there is a water described by Seneca and Pliny which is so ilfauoured and filthy that it will make any man affrayd to looke into it and which they say will eat and consume both brasse and yron Vitruuius also in the third chapter of his eighth booke saith That in Tessaly there is a well or spring of running water whereof no cattell will drinke nor any maner of beast will once come neere hard by this fountain is a tree which beareth a purple flower Thus far Vitruuius Of the mount Olympus which Homer in the second booke of his Odysses calleth The seat of the Gods Solinus out of the sixt booke of Varro De lingua Latina citeth That it riseth vp so exceeding high into the aire that the people neere adioyning do call his lofty top Heauen Lucane saith that it is higher than the clouds For it is tenne furlongs high as Plutarch in Aemilius by the authority of Xenagoras who measured it hath left recorded No bird nor fowle doth flie higher than the toppe of this hill as Apuleius in his booke intituled De Deo Socratis doth affirme In the very toppe of it there is an Altar built and consecrated to Iupiter where if any of the entrals of beasts sacrificed be left they are neither blowen about by the blustring blasts of the roughest windes nor dissolued by the dampish aire or washing stormie raines but the next yeere after that time twelue-moneth looke how they were left so they shall finde them and at all times and seasons of the yeere whatsoeuer is there once consecrated and offered to that God is preserued from all putrefaction and corruption of the aire Letters also written and drawen in the ashes doe so remaine vntill the next solemnity of the like rites and ceremonies the yeere following Thus farre Solinus Polyhistor Et nubibus intactum Macedo miratur Olympum The Macedonian braue admir'th Olympus top to see So high and stately far aboue the highest clouds to be as Claudian the poet hath spoken of it in his poeme of the warres of the Goths Of this mountaine Varro in his sixth booke De lingua Latina noteth that the Muses were named Olympiades And thus far generally of these Tempe which from the beginning had not this forme and goodly countenance as all ancient writers doe constantly with one consent affirme but the riuer Peneus being inclosed with mountaines and entertaining many riuers into it did all ouerflow the valley making it to stand full of water like a fenne or pond and afterward when the mountaines Olympus and Ossa which sometime did touch one another were disioyned and rent asunder which happened by reason of an earthquake as Strabo Seneca and Athenaeus haue written others as Herodotus Claudian and Philostratus do ascribe it to Neptune others as Diodorus and Lucane to Hercules and so by that meanes Peneus found an issue and way to vnload it selfe into the maine ocean whereby it came to passe that the valley was emptied and cleane dried vp By Stephanus in his booke of Cities I finde that this tract and plot of ground was first called LYTAE before it was disburdened of those waters Eurypides in his tragedy intituled Troades calleth it Semnan choran the sacred and honourable countrey Amongst the poets there is euery where much speech of this most goodly coast to wit in Virgill Ouid Horace Catullus Claudian Statius Lucan Flaccus and Seneca where you may obserue these epithites attributed and spoken of it some calling it Tempe Thessala Peneia Heliconia Phthiotica others Tempe Frigida Tenebrosa Nemorosa Opaca Gratissima Lucentia Oloria and Teumessia The paradise of Thessaly Peneus Helicon Phthiotis the colde shadowy woody coole kinde swanny and Teumessiam paradise although this latter with the singular learned man Hermolaus Barbarus I doe thinke not to belong properly to this place but rather vnto another most delightfull place in Boeotia where we learne out of Pausanias Strabo Stephanus and Hesychius that the mountaine Teumessus is seated For Lutatius the Grammarian I hold to be deceiued who calleth the place The city Trumessia Neither is this altogether an vnaccustomed thing or vnusuall amongst writers especially poets to vse this word Tempe and to speake it figuratiuely of other places famous for their many delightfull pleasures as you may see by Heloria Tempe a place in Sicilia and another in Tiburtina villa Latij a place in Villa Hadriani if you will giue credit to Spartianus in the life of the Emperour Hadrian againe there was a College in Athens knowen by this name So Dionysius and Priscianus do name Daphne the suburbs of Antioch Tempe Plutarch in Flaminius describeth a place neere the riuer Apsus Spirnasse or Vreo in Macedonia for pleasantnesse much resembling the Tempe Of these and such like places I cannot but I must needs adde these words of the Emperour Iulian vnto Libanius the sophister and so to end my speech of this most goodly valley Then saith he Batnae a city of Mesopotamia did entertaine me a place such as only Daphne the suburbs of Antioch in Syria excepted in all my life I neuer saw the like Daphne which now is compared to Batnae when as before excepting the temple and image I would not doubt not only to compare it but also farre to preferre it before Ossa Pelion Olympus and the Thessalian vallies c. he meaneth Tempe These Batnae are situate if any man be desirous to know in Osroëna a prouince of Mesopotamia as Zozimus and Stephanus doe thinke or in Anthemusia as Ammianus affirmeth in the way betweene Antioch of Syria and Carrae Thus farre of these Tempe But because I see that Daphne the suburbs of Antioch in Syria is of some writers conteined vnder this name and that it is as pleasant a place as the Tempe I will addresse my selfe to describe and tricke this out also but in the next page following not in this DAPHNE OR The pleasant Suburbs of Antiochia in Syria DAPHNE Ex utriusque lingua scriptoribus adumbriabat Ab. Ortelius Cum priuilegio decennali Aethicus or more truly Iulius Orator accounteth this Daphne yet falsly and vntruely he calleth it Daphe not Daphne amongst the most goodly and famous townes of the East sea Metaphrastes also in the life of S. Artemius maketh it a citie Claudian the Christian Poet calleth it Apollineum nemus Apollo's groue Dionysius Sacra Tempe The
Bappenheim Gulich Meissen and Vnistingen Foure LORDS OF THE SOILE Millan Scala Padua and Mirandula Foure BORROVGHS of the Empire Aldenburgh Meidenburgh Rotenburgh and Mecklenburgh Foure KNIGHTS or Seruants Waldeck Hirten of Fulchen Arnsperg and Rabnaw Foure SOVLDIERS Andlaw Meldingen Strondecke and Fornberg Foure LORD ABBOTS Fulden Campidon Wissenburgh and Murbach Foure HVNTSMEN Hurn Vrach Scomburgh and Metsch neere to Curia Foure VILLAGES Ingelheim Altdorff Lichtenaw and Deckendorff Foure MOVNTAINS of the Empire Nunsterberg Friedberg Heydelberg and Nurnberg Foure OFFICES hereditary to the Dukedome of Switzerland The Sewer of Waldprugh The Cupbearer of Radach The Marshall of Merkdorff and The Chamberlaine of Kemnat Yer many of these dignities are altered and changed into others or wholly abolished and extinct by the death of those which held them as it is at large to be seene in Munsters Cosmography If any man be moreouer desirous to know the names of the Imperiall cities let him repaire to the same authour he shal be satisfied to his full content Item Charles the Fourth Emperour of Germany did make besides these many other constitutions When the Emperour sitteth in his Maiesty and chaire of Estate then the Archbishop of Trier sitteth ouer against him the Archbishop of Mentz vpon his right hand and the Archbishop of Colen on his left The King of Bohemia taketh his seat vpon the right hand of the Archbishop and by him the County palatine of Rhein placeth himselfe the Duke of Saxony sitteth vpon the left hand of the Archbishop and by him the Marquesse of Brandenburgh But of these offices diuers authours do write diuersly wherefore it being not our purpose to make a large discourse of this matter we send the Reader for further satisfaction heerin to the forenamed Sebastian Munster and other Historiographers of Germany who haue handled this argument more amply Otho III Saxonioe Dux Othonis II filius a princibus Germanis Imperator Romoe dictus a Gregorio Vpontif Max. consanguineo suo Bruno antea Vocabatur quem ille pontificem crearat diadema imperiale accepit Sed cum Saxoniam peteret Imperator Gregorius pontifex a Iohanne ponti Vrbe pellitur Quare Otto irarum plenus maximis copÿs Italiam ingressus vi Romam capit De his consule Munster Crescentium consulem dissidyÌ„ authorem cum suis coÌ„plicibus punit Gregoriumque pristinae dignitati restituit Cum veró consideraret sapientissimus Coesar perpetúo oestuare Gallos et Italos transferende imperialis maiestatis cupiditate a Germanis et inter Germanos quoque propter electionem nonnuÌ„quaÌ„ dissensiones defuis se apud suos Maiores tulit cum Gregorio sanctionem vt in posterum sola authoritas eligendi Imperatoris penes septem Germanioe principibê° prima rios remaneret Erat tum Otto natus annos 28 et propter ingeny proptitudinem miraculum mundi dictus factum hoc as serunt Aº salutis nonagentesimo septuaâ—â—me quarto licet scriptores tempore multum varient quod lectori manifestuÌ„ erit ex lectiâ—â—e Historiarum Nomina 4 Comitum et Militum Imperij superius omissa hic legenda ponimus 4 Comites Imperij SwartzeÌ„burgeÌ„sis Clivensis Ciliae et Sabaudiae 4 Milites Imperij Andelato Meldingensis Strongendoch FrauweÌ„berg The KINGS MONASTERY of Saint Laurence for Friars of the order of Saint Hierome in Escuriall in Spaine SCENOGRAPHIA TOTIVS FABRICAE S. LAVRENTII IN ESCORIALI AD PHILIPPVM II. HISPANIARVM ETC. REGEM CATHOLICVM Michaelis vander Hagen Antverpij carmen Caesarcas moles atque alta palatia Regum Ne posthac Latium aut Graecia iactet ouans Pyramides et aquaeductus mira Amphitheatra Et Circos veteres Inclyta Roma premat Prisca fides sileat vasti Miracula Mundi Nam faciunt nostra ad secula prisca nihil Vitus enim Hesperioe Rex Maximus ille Philippus Miracla exuperans omnia condit opus Non opus at Molem qualem neque tota vetustas Vidit et hoec oetas non habitura parem Nempe Duces olim parti monimenta triumphi Victi erexerunt ambitione mala Atque trophaea Dijs posuerunt capta profanis Aut operis magni in secla perenne decus Relligionis Apostolicae verum vnicus ille Defensor voti Rex memor vsque pij Sancti operis dudum aeternos molitur honores Quo maius nihil hic Maximus Orbis habet Is Collegium enim Augustum et Regale dicauit Laurenti sacrum tempus in omne tibi Cuj certo numero praesunt Hieronymiani O felix Ordo ô corda sacrata Deo Non est hîc aliud nisi Magni Sponsa Tonantis Maies tate Dei terribilisque locus Est vbi Maiestas et Magnificentia Regis Prodiga inexhaustas et bene fundit opes Regia sic summi est ibi Principis atque supremj Numinis ô qualis gloria quale decus Quis gazas quis splendorem fando explicet omnem Angustum ingenium est linguaque nostra nimis Quis vero Regi par atque secundus Ibero Miraclum Mundi solus et ille facit Macte animis porro tua tanta potentia crescat O Heros populi Inuicte Philippe tuj Euge autem ô felix Hispania et euge Madrida Quoe nisi tam Magno haud Proefide tanta fores The MONASTERIE or place of residence for the monkes and friars hath a very goodly Steeple wherein doe hang a fine ring of Bels with a Clocke and Diall with an Index shewing the Naturall and Planetary howres The Wardrope Hall or Roome where the monkes and friars do vse to dine and suppe with the spittle are most goodlily built with Sollers Galleries and Walkes Moreouer heere is a faire Cloister or Square where publike praiers are daily read In the middest of this square is a very fine garden most artificially diuided into beds and curious knots In the middest of it is a goodly piece of worke built eight square in maner of a temple with fountaines of the best iasper To this Cloister is adioining the Chapter-house with another roome very like vnto it The Seats of the monkes are round about by the sides but the Seat of the Priour doth farre excell the rest a famous piece of worke made of marble gloriously set out with pictures and curiously arched ouer the head The LIBRARY which is vpon the toppe of the Abbey is 185. foot long and 32. foot broad It hath three sundrie roomes In the first are all the Liberall Sciences protraitured At the feet of euery picture are the Bookes of that facultie very orderly and finely placed all of them gilt and bound alike Heere also is an huge Parchment booke wherein all manner of liuing creatures that are in all the whole world elsewhere to be seene are most curiouslie drawen and expressed in their true and liuely colours In the Second are onely manuscript Latine Greeke and Hebrew bookes of Diuinity In the beginning of euery booke is set the picture and counterfet of the authour of the same In like maner the third roome is furnished only
with manuscript copies of sundrie writers and different argument in diuers languages to wit Historiographers Poets Mathematicians c. These also haue where they might possibly be gotten the liuely portraitures and counterfets of their authours set before them This Library was much augmented by the addition of the Library of Didacus Hurtadus Mendoza who hauing sometime beene Ambassadour for Charles the fifth Emperour of Rome vnto the Venetians receiued from the High country of Greece a ship full of manuscript Greeke copies so that excepting the Vaticane in Rome which is the Popes Library there is not as most men thinke a more stately and better furnished library then this in all Europe I come now to the VNIVERSITY and the KINGS PALLACE both which are vpon the North side In the VNIVERSITY there are three seuerall Schooles or Hals where the three most famous and worthy artes Diuinity Law and Physicke are read by their seuerall and proper Lecturers beside the other liberall Sciences which together with them are there taught and expounded vnto the yonger sort of students To this is adioined a Free Schoole for Grammar scholars with sundry other court yards and hals or dining roomes The PALACE is so situate that from thence you may easily goe vnto the Church the Colledge and monastery It were a long discourse particularly to describe the seuerall lodgings of the King the Ambassadours Comptroulers Chamberlaines Noblemens Pensioners Yeomen of the guard and other Officers belonging to the Court The Kings Gallery openeth toward the North side of the Church vpon whose wall is painted the battell at Higueruela in which King Iohn the Second ouercame the Moores of Granado Which picture doth so liuelily expresse the whole story and euery thing in it as it was done as it is wonderfull It sheweth in what order and how the maine battell was set where the Horsemen the Footmen the Pikemen the Targeters the Archers which then were in great request did stand and how and where they seuerally charged the enemy This piece of worke was made at the commandement of Philip the second king of Spaine by an old patterne drawen in a piece of linnen cloth of an hundred and thirtie foot long found in the old Towre of Segouia which was first drawen at that time that this battell was fought Moreouer vpon the East and South sides of this building there is a most goodly and pleasant Garden which is an hundred foot broad and is set out and beautified with diuerse knots rare hearbs floures and fountaines To this garden is adioined an Orchard planted and set with all maner of trees Within the precincts of this monastery there are more then forty fountaines Such is the wonderfull number of Keies and Lockes about this house which do amount vnto certaine thousands that there is a seueral and proper Officer for to looke to them onely called The master of the Keies The forme of the monastery is foure-square and euery side is two hundred and twenty foure pases long only that side except that is next to the Pallace which of purpose was made shorter then the other three that the compasse or externall forme of the Abbey might represent the fashion of the square of a gridiron for that S. Laurence to whom this house was dedicated was broiled to death vpon a gridiron The Monkes which are in number three hundred and as I haue shewed before of the order of S. Hierome do inhabite not past the third part of this whole building Their yearly reuenews do amount to 35000. Duckets The other part of the reuenewes they doe bestow vpon the king and his family That I may conclude it is furnished with so many Hals Parlours Chambers and other closets and roomes for necessary vses in an house that there is roome inough to entertaine and lodge fowre Kings and their Courts at once to that it may worthily challenge the first place amongst the greatest miracles of the whole world FINIS IRELAND GIraldus Cambrensis a good Writer that liued in the time of Henry the Second wrote aboue 400 yeeres since describeth IRELAND on this maner HIBERNIA saith he post Britanniam insularum maxima vnius contractioris diei nauigatione vltra Britannicas VVallias in occidentali Oceano sita est Intra tamen Vltoniam Scoticas Galwedias duplo ferè angustiore spacio mare coarctatur Vtraque verò vtriusque terrae promontoria hinc distinctius illinc ratione distantiae confusius satis apertè sereno tempore perspici possunt notari Insularum occidentalium haec vltima Hispaniam ab Austro trium dierum naturalium nauigatione collateralem habet Britanniam Maiorem ab Oriente Solum Oceanum ab Occidente Ab Aquilonari verò parte trium dierum velifico cursu borealium insularum maxima Islandia iacet That is IRELAND the greatest iland of the world but Britaine lieth in the maine sea distant Westward from Wales about a dayes saile but betweene Vlster and Gallaway a prouince of Scotland the Sea is not much more than halfe so farre ouer The promontories capes or forlands as you please to call them of both these countries may very easily in a bright sunne-shinie day from hence be seene and descried yet these more plainer those by reason they are farther off more obscurely Of all the ilands of Europe this lieth farthest into the West Vpon the South side it hath Spaine distant from it about three dayes and three nights saile Vpon the East lieth Great Britaine On the West side of it is nothing but the vast Ocean sea Vpon the North three daies iourney off lieth Island which of all the Northren iles is by farre the greatest Againe a little beneath he addeth Hibernia quantò à caetero communi Orbe terrarum semota quasi ALTER ORBIS esse dignoscitur tantò rebus quibusdam solito naturae cursu incognitis quasi peculiaris eiusdem NATVRAE THESAVRVS vbi insignia pretiosiora sui secreta reposuerit esse videtur Looke by how much Ireland is disioyned from the rest of the knowen world and in that respect is commonly holden to be as it were ANOTHER WORLD so for certeine things by the common course of Nature to others vnknowen it seemeth to be a speciall and peculiar Treasurie or STOREHOVSE OF NATVRE where it hath bestowed and layed vp her most excellent and rarest secrets Orosius and Isidore from him reporteth That Ireland is much lesse than England but by reason of the situation and temperature of the aire here it is generally more fertile than England Yea and reuerend Beda our country man he sayth That the aire in Ireland is more healthfull and cleare than it is in England Hiberniam tum aëris salubritate quà m serenitate multum Britanniae praestare Yet Giraldus denieth the latter For sayth he as France for thinnesse and clearnesse of the aire doth far excell England so England for the same doth as far excell Ireland For this is certaine the farther you