I will adventure. For the site, if you will needs
urge me to it, I am not fully resolved, it may be in
Terra Australi Incognita, there is room enough
(for of my knowledge neither that hungry Spaniard,
[603]nor Mercurius Britannicus, have yet discovered
half of it) or else one of these floating islands
in Mare del Zur, which like the Cyanian isles in the
Euxine sea, alter their place, and are accessible only
at set times, and to some few persons; or one of the
fortunate isles, for who knows yet where, or which
they are? there is room enough in the inner parts
of America, and northern coasts of Asia. But I
will choose a site, whose latitude shall be 45 degrees
(I respect not minutes) in the midst of the temperate
zone, or perhaps under the equator, that [604]paradise
of the world, ubi semper virens laurus, &c.
where is a perpetual spring: the longitude for
some reasons I will conceal. Yet “be it
known to all men by these presents,” that if
any honest gentleman will send in so much money, as
Cardan allows an astrologer for casting a nativity,
he shall be a sharer, I will acquaint him with my
project, or if any worthy man will stand for any temporal
or spiritual office or dignity, (for as he said of
his archbishopric of Utopia, ’tis sanctus
ambitus, and not amiss to be sought after,) it
shall be freely given without all intercessions, bribes,
letters, &c. his own worth shall be the best spokesman;
and because we shall admit of no deputies or advowsons,
if he be sufficiently qualified, and as able as willing
to execute the place himself, be shall have present
possession. It shall be divided into 12 or 13
provinces, and those by hills, rivers, roadways, or
some more eminent limits exactly bounded. Each
province shall have a metropolis, which shall be so
placed as a centre almost in a circumference, and
the rest at equal distances, some 12 Italian miles
asunder, or thereabout, and in them shall be sold all
things necessary for the use of man; statis horis
et diebus, no market towns, markets or fairs,
for they do but beggar cities (no village shall stand
above 6, 7, or 8 miles from a city) except those emporiums
which are by the sea side, general staples, marts,
as Antwerp, Venice, Bergen of old, London, &c. cities
most part shall be situated upon navigable rivers or
lakes, creeks, havens; and for their form, regular,
round, square, or long square, [605]with fair, broad,
and straight [606]streets, houses uniform, built of
brick and stone, like Bruges, Brussels, Rhegium Lepidi,
Berne in Switzerland, Milan, Mantua, Crema, Cambalu
in Tartary, described by M. Polus, or that Venetian
Palma. I will admit very few or no suburbs, and
those of baser building, walls only to keep out man
and horse, except it be in some frontier towns, or
by the sea side, and those to be fortified [607] after
the latest manner of fortification, and situated upon
convenient havens, or opportune places. In every
so built city, I will have convenient churches, and