"The history of both manuscripts is probably as follows: Carli wrote
to his father, thinking, as he himself tells it, that the news of
Verrazzano's return would give great satisfaction to many of their
friends in Florence. He added at the same time, and this also we
learn from his own words, a copy of Verrazzano's letter to the king.
Both his letter and his copy of Verrazzano's were intended to be
shown to his Florentine acquaintances. Copies, as is usual in such
cases, were taken of them; and to us it seems evident that from some
one of these the copy in the Magliabechian manuscript was derived.
The appearance of this last, which was prepared for some individual
fond of collecting miscellaneous documents, if not by him, is a
sufficient corroboration of our statement." [Footnote: Historical
Studies: by George Washington Greene, New York, 1850; p. 323. Life
and Voyages of Verrazzano (by the same), in the North American
Review for October, 1837. (Vol. 45, p. 306).]

Adopting the Carli copy as the primitive form of the Verrazzano
letter, and the Carli letter as the original means by which it has
been communicated to the world, the inquiry is resolved into the
authenticity of the Carli letter. There are sufficient reasons to
denounce this letter as a pure invention; and in order to present
those reasons more clearly, we here give a translation of it in
full:

Letter of Fernando Carli to his Father. [Footnote: The letter of
Carli was first published in 1844, with the discourse of Mr. Greene
on Verrazzano, in the Saggiatore (I, 257), a Roman journal of
history, the fine arts and philology. (M. Arcangeli, Discorso sopra
Giovanni da Verrazzano, p. 35, in Archivio Storico Italiano.
Appendice tom. IX.) It will be found in our appendix, according to