RAMUSIO, GIAN BATTISTA (1485-1557) , geographer, was born at Treviso in 1485 (June 2o), the son of Paolo the Elder (c. 1443-1506). Gian Battista was educated at Venice and at Padua and entered the public service (15o5), becoming in 1515 secretary of the senate and in 1533 secretary of the Council of Ten. He served the republic in various missions to foreign states, e.g., Rome, Switzerland and France. He died on July Io, 1557.
Ramusio had witnessed from his boyhood the unrolling of that great series of discoveries by Portugal and Spain in East and West, and geography was his chief study and delight. It appears from a letter addressed to him by his friend Andrea Navagero, that as early as 1523 the preparation of material for his great work, Navigationi e Viaggi, had already begun. The task had been suggested by Girolamo Fracastoro, his lifelong friend. Among Ramusio's correspondents were Cardinal Pietro Bembo, Damiano de Goez and Sebastian Cabot; among lesser lights, Vettor Fausto, Daniel Barbaro, Paolo Manuzio, Andrea Navagero, the cardinals Gasparo Contarini and Gregorio Cortese, and the printer Tom maso Giunti, editor after Ramusio's death of the Navigationi.
Two volumes only of the Navigationi e Viaggi were published during his lifetime, vol. i. in 155o, vol. iii. in i556; vol. ii. did not appear till 1559, two years after his death. Ramusio had intended to publish a fourth volume, containing, as he mentions himself, documents relating to the Andes, and, as appears from one of the prefaces of Giunti, others relating to explorations towards the Antarctic. Ramusio ransacked Italy and the Spanish
peninsula for contributions, and translated them when needful into the racy Italian of his day. The invaluable travels of Barbosa and Pigafetta's account of Magellan's voyage were not publicly known in complete form till the present century. Of two im portant articles at least the originals have never been otherwise printed or discovered; one of these is the Summary of all the Kingdoms, Cities, and Nations from the Red Sea to China, a work translated from the Portuguese, and dating apparently from about 1535; the other, the remarkable Ramusian redaction of Marco Polo (q.v.). The Prefatione, Espositione and Dichiara zione, which precede this version of Marco Polo's book, are the best and amplest examples of Ramusio's own style.
Besides the circumstances to be gathered from the Navigationi regarding the Ramusio family, see the Iscrizioni Venete of Emanuele Cigogna. There is also in the British Museum Monografia letta it 14 Marzo 1883 . . . by Guglielmo Carradori (Rimini, 1883) ; but little has been found in this.