this [the short time] it is seen that it was not the intention of those sending us that such expedients should be sought or pursued.  It can be well said from the above that he who has a poor proof, shows in detail the witnesses to that fact, and therefore, we shall demonstrate in the following more fully and specifically that the said distance is not what they assert, and that all reason, every document, and all experience contradict it.

First it is proved that they have on their part, lessened the number of degrees, for the voyage from Guinea to Calicut is shown to be greater than they assert or show, because from the time those lands were discovered until now, the said Portuguese have been shortening and lessening the said distance. [This assertion is proved by the various discoveries eastward made by the Portuguese navigators from the time of the Infante Don Enrique, (Prince Henry the Navigator) namely, Cadamosto, the Venetian; Antonieto, the Genoese; Pedro Zinzio; Diego Cano; Bartolome Diaz; and Vasco da Gama. [185] The distances navigated by these men are given as they themselves recorded them.] Therefore with apparent reason the Itinerario Portugallensium, translated from Portuguese into Latin by Archangelo Madrignano, and which was printed in 1508, [186] in chapter sixty, reckons a distance of three thousand eight hundred leagues, or fifteen thousand miles from Lisbona to Calicut, and declares in the last chapter that it is a three months’ voyage from Calicut to Zamotra.

Item. the said distance is proved to be much greater, as we assert, because of certain persons who traveled through and navigated the lands and seas eastward from the sea Rojo [Red Sea] and recorded their voyages at a time when there was no suspicion of a discussion like the present. [Geronimo de Santisteban, a Genoese, is given as an example.  He sailed from Aden to Calicut in thirty days, and in eighty-three days from Calicut to Zaumotra (Sumatra), a distance of about fourteen hundred leagues.  “With this number agree Marco Paulo (Marco Polo) and Juan de Mandevilla (John Mandeville) in the self-same voyages and travels made by them, as is stated very diffusely in their books.”  The three-year voyage of King Solomon’s ships, as recorded in “the third book of the Kings” [187] to “Ofir and Zetin whence they brought the gold to build the Temple,” and which places “all writers upon the sacred scriptures assert” to be “toward the most eastern part of India,” agree with the same figures.] From all the above, therefore it is inferred that the navigation from the said Mar Rubro [Red Sea] to the eastern part of India is a much greater distance than the Portuguese say.