75r

¶ Quata Alexandria per ponente setta
E guata a tramontana Satalia
E terra richa nobil e perfecta
E de gran porto di mercadantia
Da indi e focie ove il nillo in mar getta
Cinquanta miglia sum per drita via
E chiamasi Ivi il fiume del rosseto
Che sum trea millia miglia dal strecto

¶ Un’altra foce sença fare girata
Piu su cinquanta miglia al mar dichina
Passato quello trovi damiata
Poi sum ducento miglia di marina
Fin a larissa che -e- la piu ingolfata
Che piu al mar rosso s’avicina
E quivi da levante a tramontana
Il lito gira e tuta terra piana

¶ Da larissa a laiaça d’ermenia
Rita costiera sum miglia seicento
Per tramontana tuta quella via
In verso greco per quarta di vento
Il porto di baruti di soria
Nel meço sta a puocco a le trecento
E quindi sono a ch'il pilglia
Fino Alexandria cinquecento miglia

[image, right margin and lower margin: Map depicting a stretch of the Egyptian coast. Ocean painted aquamarine with wave pattern in grey. At ¶ 2: on a tributary extending rightwards sits a fortified city; above it, in red ink: (label: CHAIRO .); below it, in red ink: (label: chairo de babilonia). The city, tinted reddish-brown with blue roofs, includes a tower with a blue-and-white-striped dome from which flies a flag, yellow with crenelated edge, bearing: Escutcheon Azure overall a Moor’s head proper, couped, blindfolded Argent. At the mouth of the tributary, two islands: one outlined with a reddish-pink wash; the other painted blue with a white diamond marked /d/ in red ink, the remainder of its name—(label: damiata)—continuing on the nearby coast. Location names along the coastline, top to bottom, in red ink: (label: Larissa), (label: Rosseto), (label: alexandria), (label: Lucho).]

Alexandria looks west towards Ceuta
and north toward Satalia.^{1Antalya, Turkey}
It is a wealthy, noble, and excellent land
and a large commercial port;
here begins the outlet where the Nile flows into the sea [i.e. the delta].
From here it is fifty miles in a straight line
to the part of the river called the Rosetta^{2Rasheed, Egypt, which is on a section of the Nile in the delta once known as the Rosetta River.},
which is three thousand miles from the Strait [of Gibraltar].

[If you keep going] without turning, there is another outlet
that descends into the sea more than fifty miles further along—
past this, you will find Damietta.^{3Now Dumyāṭ, Egypt.}
Then it is two hundred miles along the coast
until Larissa^{4Now al-‘Arīsh, Sinai}, which is at the base of the gulf
and is the closest to the Red Sea.
Here the shoreline turns from east to north
and the land is totally flat.

From Larissa to Laiazzo in Armenia
the coastline is straight for six hundred miles;
this whole route goes north
by northeast according to the compass.^{5"Quarta di vento" or quarter-wind refers specifically to a 1/32nd section of the compass.}
The port of Beirut in Syria
stands a little less than halfway along, about three hundred [miles from Larissa],
and from here back to Alexandria it is
five hundred miles for whoever wants to go by open sea.

¶ Quata Alexandria per ponente setta
E guata a tramontana Satalia
E terra richa nobil e perfecta
E de gran porto di mercadantia
Da indi e focie ove il nillo in mar getta
Cinquanta miglia sum per drita via
E chiamasi Ivi il fiume del rosseto
Che sum trea millia miglia dal strecto

¶ Un’altra foce sença fare girata
Piu su cinquanta miglia al mar dichina
Passato quello trovi damiata
Poi sum ducento miglia di marina
Fin a larissa che -e- la piu ingolfata
Che piu al mar rosso s’avicina
E quivi da levante a tramontana
Il lito gira e tuta terra piana

¶ Da larissa a laiaça d’ermenia
Rita costiera sum miglia seicento
Per tramontana tuta quella via
In verso greco per quarta di vento
Il porto di baruti di soria
Nel meço sta a puocco a le trecento
E quindi sono a ch'il pilglia
Fino Alexandria cinquecento miglia

[image, right margin and lower margin: Map depicting a stretch of the Egyptian coast. Ocean painted aquamarine with wave pattern in grey. At ¶ 2: on a tributary extending rightwards sits a fortified city; above it, in red ink: (label: CHAIRO .); below it, in red ink: (label: chairo de babilonia). The city, tinted reddish-brown with blue roofs, includes a tower with a blue-and-white-striped dome from which flies a flag, yellow with crenelated edge, bearing: Escutcheon Azure overall a Moor’s head proper, couped, blindfolded Argent. At the mouth of the tributary, two islands: one outlined with a reddish-pink wash; the other painted blue with a white diamond marked /d/ in red ink, the remainder of its name—(label: damiata)—continuing on the nearby coast. Location names along the coastline, top to bottom, in red ink: (label: Larissa), (label: Rosseto), (label: alexandria), (label: Lucho).]

Alexandria looks west towards Ceuta
and north toward Satalia.^{1Antalya, Turkey}
It is a wealthy, noble, and excellent land
and a large commercial port;
here begins the outlet where the Nile flows into the sea [i.e. the delta].***
It is fifty miles along a straight path
to where the river is called Rosetta^{*Rasheed, Egypt},
which is three thousand miles from the strait [of Gibraltar].

[If you keep going] without turning, there is another outlet
that descends into the sea more than fifty miles further along;
past this, you will find Damietta^{*Dumyāṭ, Egypt}.
Then there are two hundred miles along the coast
until Larissa^{*al-‘Arīsh, Sinai}, which is at the base of the gulf
and is closest to the Red Sea.
Here the shoreline turns from east to north
and the land is totally flat.

From Larissa to Laiazzo in Armenia
the coastline is straight for six hundred miles;
this whole route goes north
by northeast according to the compass^{*"quarta di vento" or quarter-wind refers specifically to a 1/32nd section of the compass}.
The port of Beirut in Syria
stands a little less than halfway along, about three hundred [miles from Larissa],
and from here to Alexandria it takes
five hundred miles for whoever wants to go by open sea.