Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis

Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis (Latin: Smaragda Situ Orbis) was a manuscript written by the Portuguese writer Duarte Pacheco Pereira.

First page of the 1892 edition

It was dedicated to King Manuel I of Portugal (1495-1521), the work was divided into five parts with a total of fifty nine chapters and around two hundred pages, in 1506. As describerd in the author's own words, written in a work with "cosmography and seafare". The title name is in Portuguese Latin, it was written in Portuguese and featured geographical coordinates with latitude and longitude and all the known parts at the time.

...a experiencia he madre das cousas, por ella soubemos rradicalmente a verdade...
("...experience is the mother of all things; through it we completely know the truth...")

Esmeraldo de Situ Orbis, p. 196

Four books

The work is divided into four books, combined in a single volume:

Prologue
First Book: including the discoveries of Henry the Navigator – 33 chapters
Second Book: Discoveries of Afonso V – 11 chapters
Third Book: Discoveries of John I – 9 chapters
Fourth Book: Discoveries of Manuel I – 6 chapters

Duarte Pacheco Pereira references some maps that have disappeared.

Study by Jorge Couto

According to a recent study by the Portuguese historian Jorge Couto of the University of Lisbon, the work was lost for four centuries. It was divided into parts according to the nature of its content. The title was encrypted as:

"Esmeraldo" - an anagram of the initials in Latin of the names of Manuel (Emmanuel), the ruler and Duarte (Eduardus), the explorer.
De Situ Orbis means "on the Geography of the Globe (the Earth)", the title of a work by Pomponius Mela, an early Roman scientist and prominent geographer who inspired Duarte Pacheco Pereira.[1]

The sovereign considered the nautical, geographic and economic information contained in the work so valuable that he never allowed public access. The work consists of a detailed account of voyages to Brazil and to the coast of Africa, the main source of Portugal's lucrative trade in the 15th century,

Discovery of Brazil

In relation to the Discovery of Brazil, it presents information on the second chapter of the first part:

"Como no terceiro ano de vosso reinado do ano de Nosso Senhor de mil quatrocentos e noventa e oito, donde nos vossa Alteza mandou descobrir a parte ocidental, passando além a grandeza do mar Oceano, onde é achada e navegada uma tam grande terra firme, com muitas e grandes ilhas adjacentes a ela e é grandemente povoada. Tanto se dilata sua grandeza e corre com muita longura, que de uma arte nem da outra não foi visto nem sabido o fim e cabo dela. É achado nela muito e fino brasil com outras muitas cousas de que os navios nestes Reinos vem grandemente povoados."[2]

Otherwise, the first round of the Portuguese navigation mentioned the coast of Brazil and the abundance of brazilwood (Cesalpina echinata) which exista. In the South Atlantic between the Oceanic islands presended its "ladezas" (latitudes) known at the time:

A ilha de Sam Lourenço (Fernando de Noronha);
A ilha d'Acensam (Trindade Island);
A ilha de S. Crara (Santana Island, off Macaé) and;
O Cabo Frio

Also in the South Atlantic it omits the other islands of Saint Helena and today's Ascension Island.

A secret manuscript

A secret manuscript, a copy from 1573 which was secretly sent to Philip II of Spain by the Italian spy Giovanni Gesio, under the service of the Spanish ambassador in Lisbon. By the mission, Gesio was regally rewarded, being the receipt of the payment by his services, a copy is now at the library of El Escorial Monastery in Spain.

The manuscript was only published in 1892, a part of the localization into two copies: the first is at the Lisbon Municipal Library and another at Portuguese city Évora.

According to one of the most important biographers of Duarte Pacheco Pereira, Portuguese historian Joaquim Barradas de Carvalho who lived in exile in Brazil in the 1960s, the title "Esmeraldo de situ orbis", rather than a travel script, the work was an erudition of all the knowledge of amounted navigations by the Portuguese in the 15 and the 16th centuries.

References

Diffie, Bailey (1977). Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816607826. Retrieved 2011-06-16.
Original: Bemauenturado Príncipe, temos sabido e visto como no terceiro anno de vosso Reinado do hanno de nosso senhor de 1498, donde nos vossa alteza mandou descobrir a parte oucidental, passando alem ha grandeza do mar oceano, onde he achada a navegada hûa tão grande terra firme, com muitas e grandes ilhas ajacentes a ella, que se estende a setente graaos de ladeza da linha equinoçial contra ho pollo artico e posto que seja asaz fora, he grandemente pouorada, e do mesmo circulo equinocial torna outra vez e vay alem em vinte e oito graaos e meo de ladeza contra ho pollo antartico, e tanto se dilata sua grandeza e corre com muita longura, que de hûa parte nem da outra foy visto nem sabido ho fim e cabo della; pello qual segundo ha hordem que leua, he certo que vay en cercoyto por toda a Redondeza.