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AMERIGO VESPUCCI
BY
FREDERICK A. OBER
HEROES OF AMERICAN HISTORY
_ILLUSTRATED_
[Illustration]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1907
Copyright, 1907, by HARPER & BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
Published February, 1907.
[Illustration: AMERIGO VESPUCCI]
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. YOUNG AMERIGO AND HIS FAMILY 1
II. AMERIGO'S FRIENDS AND TEACHERS 15
III. VESPUCCI'S FAVORITE AUTHORS 32
IV. IN THE SERVICE OF SPAIN 45
V. CONVERSATIONS WITH COLUMBUS 59
VI. VESPUCCI'S DEBATABLE VOYAGE 76
VII. VESPUCCI'S "SECOND" VOYAGE 101
VIII. WITH OJEDA THE FIGHTER 126
IX. CANNIBALS, GIANTS, AND PEARLS 138
X. FAMOUS FELLOW-VOYAGERS 148
XI. ON THE COAST OF BRAZIL 165
XII. THE "FOURTH PART OF THE EARTH" 179
XIII. THE FOURTH GREAT VOYAGE 194
XIV. KING FERDINAND'S FRIEND 209
XV. PILOT-MAJOR OF SPAIN 221
XVI. HOW AMERICA WAS NAMED 237
ILLUSTRATIONS
AMERIGO VESPUCCI _Frontispiece_
A CONJECTURAL RESTORATION OF
TOSCANELLI'S MAP _Facing p._ 20
MARCO POLO " 40
OJEDA'S FIRST VOYAGE " 130
ROUTES OF THE DISCOVERERS " 166
NORTH AMERICA FROM THE GLOBE OF
JOHANN SCHÖNER " 244
AUTHORITIES ON AMERIGO VESPUCCI
XVIth CENTURY. Vespucci's letters to Soderini and L. P. F. de' Medici,
reproduced in this volume.
XVIIth CENTURY. Herrera, in his _Historia General_ (etc.), Madrid,
1601; "probably followed Las Casas, whose MSS. he had."
XVIIIth CENTURY. Dandini, A. M., _Vita e Lettere di Amerigo Vespucci_,
Florence, 1745.
Canovai, Stanislac, _Elogia di Amerigo Vespucci_, 1778.
XIXth CENTURY. Navarrete, M. F. de, _Noticias Exactas de Americo
Vespucio_, contained in his Coleccion, Madrid, 1825-1837.
Humboldt, Alexander von, _Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la
Géographie de Nouveau Continent_, Paris, 1836-1839.
Lester, C. Edwards, _The Life and Voyages of Americus Vespucius_, New
York, 1846; reprinted, in de luxe edition, New York, 1903.
Varnhagen, F. A., Baron de Porto Seguro, _Amerigo Vespucci, son
Caractère, ses Écrits_ (etc.), Lima, 1865; Vienna, 1874. A collection
of monographs called by Fiske "the only intelligent modern treatise on
the life and voyages of this navigator."
Fiske, John, _The Discovery of America_, Boston, 1899; contains an
exhaustive critical examination of Vespucci's voyages to which the
reader should refer for more extended information.
AMERIGO VESPUCCI[1]
I
YOUNG AMERIGO AND HIS FAMILY
1451-1470
Cradled in the valley of the Arno, its noble architecture fitly
supplementing its numerous natural charms, lies the Tuscan city of
Florence, the birthplace of immortal Dante, the early home of Michael
Angelo, the seat of the Florentine Medici, the scene of Savonarola's
triumphs and his tragic end. Fame has come to many sons of Florence,
as poets, statesmen, sculptors, painters, travellers; but perhaps none
has achieved a distinction so unique, apart, and high as the subject
of this volume, after whom the continents of the western hemisphere
were named.
Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, March 9, 1451, just one hundred
and fifty years after Dante was banished from the city in which both
first saw the light. The Vespucci family had then resided in that city
more than two hundred years, having come from Peretola, a little town
adjacent, where the name was highly regarded, as attached to the most
respected of the Italian nobility. Following the custom of that
nobility, during the period of unrest in Italy, the Vespuccis
established themselves in a stately mansion near one of the city
gates, which is known as the Porta del Prato. Thus they were within
touch of the gay society of Florence, and could enjoy its advantages,
while at the same time in a position, in the event of an uprising, to
flee to their estates and stronghold in the country.
While the house in which Christopher Columbus was born remains
unidentified, and the year of his birth undecided, no such ambiguity
attaches to the place and year of Vespucci's nativity. Above the
doorway of the mansion which "for centuries before the discovery of
America was the dwelling-place of the ancestors of Amerigo Vespucci,
and his own birthplace," a marble tablet was placed, in the second
decade of the eighteenth century, bearing the following inscription:
"_To AMERICO VESPUCCIO, a noble Florentine,
Who, by the discovery of AMERICA,
Rendered his own and his Country's name illustrious,
[As] the AMPLIFIER OF THE WORLD.
Upon this ancient mansion of the VESPUCCI,
Inhabited by so great a man,
The holy fathers of Saint John of God
Have placed this Tablet, sacred to his memory._
A.D. 1719."
At that time, about midway between the date of Vespucci's death and
the present, the evidence was strong and continuous as to the
residence in that building (which was then used as a hospital) of the
family whose name it commemorates. Here was born, in 1451, the third
son of Anastasio and Elizabetta Vespucci, whose name, whether rightly
or not, was to be bestowed upon a part of the world at that time
unknown.
The Vespuccis were then aristocrats, with a long and boasted lineage,
but without great wealth to support their pretensions. They were
relatively poor; they were proud; but they were not ashamed to engage
in trade. Some of their ancestors had filled the highest offices
within the gift of the state, such as _prioris_ and _gonfalonieres_,
or magistrates and chief magistrates, while the first of the Vespuccis
known to have borne the prænomen Amerigo was a secretary of the
republic in 1336.
It is incontestable that Amerigo Vespucci was well-born, and in his
youth received the advantages of an education more thorough than was
usually enjoyed by the sons of families which had "the respectability
of wealth acquired in trade," and even the prestige of noble
connections. No argument is needed to show that the position of a
Florentine merchant was perfectly compatible with great
respectability, for the Medici themselves, with the history of whose
house that of Florence is bound up most intimately, were merchant
princes. The vast wealth they acquired in their mercantile operations
in various parts of Europe enabled them to pose as patrons of art and
literature, and supported their pretensions to sovereign power. The
Florentine Medici attained to greatest eminence during the latter
half of the century in which Amerigo Vespucci was born, and he was
acquainted both with Cosimo, that "Pater Patriæ, who began the
glorious epoch of the family," and with "Lorenzo the Magnificent," who
died in 1492.
The Florentines, in fact, were known as great European traders or
merchants as early as the eleventh century, while their bankers and
capitalists not only controlled the financial affairs of several
states, or nations, but exerted a powerful influence in the realm of
statesmanship and diplomacy. The little wealth the Vespucci enjoyed at
the time of Amerigo's advent was derived from an ancestor of the
century previous, who, besides providing endowments for churches and
hospitals, left a large fortune to his heirs. His monument may be seen
within the chapel built by himself and his wife, and it bears this
inscription, in old Gothic characters: "The tomb of Simone Piero
Vespucci, a merchant, and of his children and descendants, and of his
wife, who caused this chapel to be erected and decorated--for the
salvation of her soul. Anno Dom. 1383."
The immediate ancestors, then, of Amerigo Vespucci were highly
respectable, and they were honorable, having held many positions of
trust, with credit to themselves and profit to the state. At the time
of Amerigo's birth his father, Anastasio Vespucci, was secretary of
the Signori, or senate of the republic; an uncle, Juliano, was
Florentine ambassador at Genoa; and a cousin, Piero Vespucci, so ably
commanded a fleet of galleys despatched against the corsairs of the
Barbary coast that he was sent as ambassador to the King of Naples, by
whom he was specially honored.
Another member of the family, one Guido Antonio, became locally famous
as an expounder of the law and a diplomat. Respecting him an epitaph
was composed, the last two lines of which might, if applied to
Amerigo, have seemed almost prophetic:
"_Here lies GUIDO ANTONIO, in this sepulchre--
HE WHO SHOULD LIVE FOREVER,
Or else never have seen the light._"
This epitaph was written of the lawyer, who departed unknown and
unwept by the world, while his then obscure kinsman, Amerigo,
subsequently achieved a fame that filled the four quarters of the
earth.
The youth of Amerigo is enshrouded in the obscurity which envelops
that of the average boy in whatever age, for no one divined that he
would become great or famous, and hence he was not provided with a
biographer. This is unfortunate, of course, but we must console
ourselves with the thought that he was not unusually precocious, and
probably said little that would be considered worth preserving. It
happened that after he became world-large in importance, tales and
traditions respecting his earliest years crept out in abundance; but
these may well be looked upon with suspicion. We know scarcely more
than that his early years were happy, for he had a loving mother, and
a father wise enough to direct him in the way he should travel.
It does not always follow that the course the father prescribes is the
best one in the end, for sometimes a boy develops in unsurmised
directions; and this was the case with Amerigo Vespucci. The fortunes
of the family being on the wane, he was selected as the one to
retrieve them, and of four sons was the only one who did not receive a
college education. The other three were sent to the University of
Pisa, whence they returned with their "honors" thick upon them, and
soon lapsed into obscurity, from which they never emerged. That is,
they never "made a mark" in the world; save one brother, Girolamo, who
made a pilgrimage to Palestine, where he lived nine years, suffered
much, and lost what little fortune he carried with him.
He may have thought, perhaps, in after years, that if he had not
belonged to a family containing the world-famed navigator his exploits
would have brought him reputation; but it is more probable that if he
had not written a letter to his younger brother, Amerigo, the world
would never have heard from him at all. However, he was the first
traveller in the family, and with his university education he should
have produced a good account of his adventures; but if he ever did so
it has not been preserved from oblivion.
Amerigo was not given a college education, but something--as it
eventuated--vastly better. His father had a brother, a man of
erudition for his time, who had studied for the Church. This learned
uncle, Georgio Antonio Vespucci, was then a Dominican friar, respected
in Florence for his piety and for his learning. About the year 1450,
or not long before Amerigo was born, he opened a school for the sons
of nobles, and in the garb of a monk pursued the calling of the
preceptor. His fame was such that the school was always full, yet when
his brother's child, Amerigo, desired to attend, having arrived at the
age for receiving the rudiments of an education, he was greeted
cordially and given a place in one of the lower classes. It may be
imagined that he would have been favored by his uncle; but such seems
not to have been the case, for the worthy friar was a disciplinarian
first of all. He had ever in mind, however, the kind of education
desired by his brother for Amerigo, which was to be commercial, and
grounded him well in mathematics, languages, cosmography, and
astronomy. His curriculum even embraced, it is said, statesmanship and
the finesse of diplomacy, for the merchants of Vespucci's days were,
like the Venetian consuls, "very important factors in developing
friendly international relations."
There was then a great rivalry between Venice, Florence, Genoa, and
Pisa for the control of trading-posts in the Levant, which carried
with them the vast commerce of the Orient, then conducted by way of
the Mediterranean, the Black, and the Caspian seas, and overland by
caravans with India and China. At the time our hero was growing into
manhood, in the latter half of the fifteenth century, Florence, "under
the brilliant leadership of the Medici and other shrewd merchant
princes, gained control of strategic trading-posts in all parts of the
[then known] world, and secured a practical monopoly in the trade
through Armenia and Rhodes.... It was from banking, however, that
Florence derived most of her wealth. For some time her bankers
controlled the financial markets of the world. Most of the great loans
made by sovereigns during this period, for carrying on wars or for
other purposes, were made through the agency of Florentine bankers.
Even Venetian merchants were glad to appeal to her banks for loans. In
the fifteenth century Florence had eighty great banking-houses, many
of which had branches in every part of the world."[2]
It is evident, therefore, that the sagacious Anastasio Vespucci had
mapped out a great career for the son whom he had chosen to recreate
the fortunes of his house. He was to be a banker, a diplomat;
eventually he might attain, like the greatest of the Medici, to the
station and dignities of a merchant prince. To this end the worthy
Georgio Antonio ever strove, and as he found his nephew a tractable
and studious pupil, he congratulated himself and his family that in
Amerigo they had the individual who was to restore the prestige of
their ancient name.
But alas! the sequel proved that Friar Georgio was too ambitious, and
had overshot the mark. In his desire to turn out a finished product, a
scholar that should be a credit to his school and an ornament to his
family, he not only inculcated the essentials for a commercial
education, but, as has already been mentioned, led his eager follower
into the wider fields of astronomy and cosmography. All he knew--and
that included all the ancients knew--of these abstruse sciences he
imparted to Amerigo, and in the end, so far as we can judge, the young
man became more proficient in them than any other person of his age
and time. So it eventuated that those studies, which were intended
merely as subsidiary to the more serious pursuit, became the prime
factors in shaping his career. They were his stepping-stones to
greatness, as were his mercantile transactions; but, anticipating
somewhat the events of his later life, we shall find that they did not
conduce to the acquisition of wealth.
"In Florence," says the author previously quoted, "more than in any
other Italian city during the Middle Ages, was displayed the direct
influence of commerce upon the developments of all the finer elements
of material and immaterial civilization. She was the Athens of Italy,
and her art, literature, and science was the brightest gleam of
intellectual light that was seen in Europe during that age. It was
from Florence, more than from any other source, that came the
awakening influence known as the Renaissance."
This truth we see exemplified in the formative period of Amerigo
Vespucci's life, for, in order to become qualified to adorn the high
position of a prince of commerce, he was as carefully trained as if to
fill a prelate's chair or grasp the helm of state. So reluctant was
his uncle, the good old monk Georgio, to relinquish his talented
nephew to the world, that we find them in company as late as 1471, as
attested by this letter, written in Latin by Amerigo to his father, in
October of that year:
"_To the Excellent and Honorable Signor Anastasio Vespucci._
"HONORED FATHER,--Do not wonder that I have not written to
you within the last few days. I thought that my uncle would
have satisfied you concerning me, and in his absence I
scarcely dare to address you in the Latin tongue, blushing
even at my deficiencies in my own language. I have, besides,
been industriously occupied of late in studying the rules of
Latin composition, and will show you my book on my return.
Whatever else I have accomplished, and how I have conducted
myself, you will have been able to learn from my uncle,
whose return I ardently desire, that, under his and your own
joint directions, I may follow with greater facility both my
studies and your kind precepts.
"George Antonio, three or four days ago, gave a number of
letters to you to a good priest, Signor Nerotto, to which he
desires your answer. There is nothing else that is new to
relate, unless that we all desire greatly to return to the
city. The day of our return is not yet fixed, but soon will
be, unless the pestilence should increase and occasion
greater alarm, which may God avert!
"He, George Antonio, commends to your consideration a poor
and wretched neighbor of his, whose only reliance and means
are in our house, concerning which he addresses you in full.
He asks you, therefore, that you would attend to his
affairs, so that they may suffer as little as possible in
his absence.
"Farewell, then, honored father. Salute all the family in
my behalf, and commend me to my mother and all my elder
relatives.
"Your son, with due obedience,
"AMERIGO VESPUCCI."[3]
The cause of Amerigo's absence from Florence was, it is said, the
terrible plague which swept over that city and for a time paralyzed
its activities. All who were able fled to the country, and, Friar
Georgio's school having been broken up by the scattering of his
pupils, he and Amerigo retired to their family estate, at or near
Peretola, there to await the subsidence of the epidemic.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This name is variously spelled, as, for example: Albericus,
Alberico, Almerigo, Americo, Americus, Amerigo; Despuche, Vespuche,
Vespuchy, Vespuccio, Vespucius, Vespucci. The best writers use either
the Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, or the Latinized, Americus Vespucius,
with good authority for both.
[2] From the _General History of Commerce_, by W. C. Webster, Ph.D.
[3] This letter was discovered by Signor Bandini, author of the _Vita
e Lettre di Amerigo Vespucci_, 1745, in the Strozzi Library. Harrisse
says, "This, and two or three signatures added to receipts, which were
brought to light by Navarrete, constitute the only autographs of
Vespucius known."
In the original paper he uses the Latin form, Vespucius; but in a
letter written in 1508, when he was pilot-major of Spain, he signs
himself "Amerigo Vespucci."
II
AMERIGO'S FRIENDS AND TEACHERS
1470-1482
Florence, in Vespucci's day, was the home of genius, of culture, and
of art. Amerigo, doubtless, was acquainted with some of her sons whose
fame, like his own, has endured to the present day, and will last for
all time. The great Michael Angelo, who was born at or near Florence
in 1475, and whose patron was Lorenzo the Magnificent, was his
contemporary, although the artist and sculptor survived the discoverer
more than fifty years. Savonarola, who came to Florence in 1482, was
just a year the junior of Amerigo, and is said to have been an
intimate friend of his uncle, who, like himself, belonged to the
Dominican order. The young man may not have been touched by
Buonarroti's art, nor have been moved by Savonarola's preaching, but,
like the former, he possessed an artistic temperament, and, like the
latter, he was an enthusiast.
The man, however, who, next to his uncle, shaped Amerigo's career and
turned him from trade to exploration, was a learned Florentine named
Toscanelli. If you have followed the fortunes of Christopher Columbus,
reader, you have seen this name before, for it was Toscanelli who, in
the year 1474, sent a letter and a chart to the so-called discoverer
of America, which confirmed him in the impression that a route to
India lay westward from Europe across the "Sea of Darkness."
It is not known just when Amerigo first met "Paul the Physicist," as
Toscanelli was called in Florence; but it may have been in youth or
early manhood, for aside from the fact that "all the world" knew and
reverenced the famous _savant_, there was the inclination arising from
a mutual interest in cosmography and astronomy. Toscanelli was the
foremost scientist of his age, and as he was born in 1397, at the time
Amerigo met him he must have been a venerable man. He lived, however,
until the year 1482, and as the younger man was in Florence during the
first forty years of his life, and the last thirty of Toscanelli's, it
is more than probable that their intercourse was long and friendly.
It is known, at least, that they were acquainted at the time the
learned doctor wrote Columbus, in 1474, and it does not require a
stretch of the imagination to fancy them together, and wondering what
effect that letter would have upon a man who entertained views similar
to their own. Columbus, it is thought, had then been pondering several
years over the possible discovery of land, presumably the eastern
coast of India, by sailing westward. "It was in the year 1474," writes
a modern historian, "that he had some correspondence with the Italian
savant, Toscanelli, regarding this discovery of land. A belief in such
a discovery was a natural corollary to the object which Prince Henry
of Portugal had in view by circumnavigating Africa, in order to find a
way to the countries of which Marco Polo had given golden accounts. It
was, in brief, to substitute for the tedious indirection of the
African route a direct western passage--a belief in the practicability
of which was drawn from a confidence in the sphericity of the
earth."[4]
Later in life Columbus seems to have forgotten his indebtedness to
Toscanelli, and "grew to imagine that he had been independent of the
influences of his time," ascribing his great discovery to the
inspiration of one chosen to accomplish the prophecy of Isaiah. But
the venerable Florentine had pondered the problem many years before
Columbus thought of it. "Some Italian writers even go to the extent of
asserting that the idea of a western passage to India originated with
Toscanelli, before it entered the mind of Columbus; and it is highly
probable that this was the case."
There is this in favor of Toscanelli: He was a learned man, while
Columbus was comparatively ignorant. He was then advanced in years,
and had given the greater portion of his life to the consideration of
just such questions, having had his attention called to them by
reading the travels of Marco Polo and comparing the information
therein contained with that derived from Eastern merchants who had
traded for many years in the Orient. He was not a sailor, nor a
corsair--though Columbus had been both, and had followed the sea for
years--but he was an astronomer, and he knew more of the starry
heavens, as well as of the earth beneath them, than any other
scientist alive. "It was Toscanelli who erected the famous solstitial
gnomon at the cathedral of Florence." For his learning he was honored,
when but thirty years of age, with the curatorship of the great
Florentine library, and for nearly sixty years thereafter he passed
his days amid books, charts, maps, and globes.
As a speculative philosopher, he had arrived at a correct conclusion
respecting the sphericity of the earth, and, with all the generosity
of a humanitarian, he freely communicated his ideas to others.
Columbus would have excluded every other human being from
participating in his thoughts, and arrogated to himself alone the
right to navigate westerly. This was the difference between the
broad-minded philosopher and the narrow-minded sailor who by accident
had stumbled upon a theory. The philosopher said, "It belongs to the
world!" The ignorant sailor cried, "It is mine!"
Toscanelli advanced the theory, but it was Columbus who put it to the
test, and reaped all the rewards, as well as suffered for the
mistakes. For mistakes there were, and the chief error lay in
supposing the country "discovered" by Columbus pertained to the
Indies. He died in that belief, and also Toscanelli, who passed away
ten years before the first voyage made to that land, subsequently
known as America. In one sense, perhaps, the Florentine doctor was the
means of that first voyage of Columbus having been accomplished, for
the chart he sent him made the distance between Europe and the western
country seem so short that it was undertaken with less reluctance, and
persisted in more stubbornly, than it might otherwise have been. But
this was a mistake in detail only, and not in theory. A line was
projected from about the latitude of Lisbon, on the western coast of
Europe, to the "great city of Quinsai," as described by Marco Polo, on
the opposite shores of Asia. This line was divided into twenty-six
spaces, of two hundred and fifty miles each, making the total distance
between the two points sixty-five hundred miles, which Toscanelli
supposed to be one-third of the earth's circumference.
[Illustration: A CONJECTURAL RESTORATION OF TOSCANELLI'S MAP]
In short, Toscanelli calculated the distance, made a conjectural chart
embodying the results of his readings of Aristotle, Strabo, and
Ptolemy, of his conversations during many years with Oriental
travellers, and his own observations. He sent this chart to Columbus;
the latter adopted it as his guide, and by means of it, faulty as it
was, achieved his great "discovery." Whose, then, is the merit of this
achievement? Does it not belong as much to Toscanelli as to Columbus?
To whomsoever the credit may be given--whether to the man who
conceived the idea, or to him who developed it, and whether or not
Columbus intentionally appropriated the honor and glory
exclusively--by the irony of fate, there stood a man at Toscanelli's
elbow, as it were, when he wrote to the Genoese, who was destined to
rob him of his great discovery's richest reward. This man was Amerigo
Vespucci, after whom--though unsuggested by him and unknown to
him--the continents of America were named, by strangers, before
Christopher Columbus had lain a year in his grave!
It is not at all improbable that Vespucci was aware of the
correspondence between Toscanelli and Columbus, as he was then
acquainted with the former, and at the age of twenty-three was
intensely interested in the pursuits of the learned physician. Next
to Toscanelli, in fact, he was probably the best-informed man then
living in Florence as to the studies to which his friend had devoted
the better part of his life, and it is not unreasonable to suppose
that he saw the letters before they were sent to Columbus.
But this is a trivial matter compared with the importance of these
letters, in a consideration of the effect they produced upon the mind
of Columbus, for, if they did not suggest to him the idea of voyaging
westerly to discover the Indies, they certainly confirmed him in the
opinion that such a voyage could be successfully made. By a strange
freak of fate these letters were preserved in the _Life of Columbus_,
written by his son Fernando, and there can be no question of their
authenticity. They breathe the spirit of benevolence for which
Toscanelli was noted, and indicate the greatness of the man--a
greatness decidedly in contrast to the mean and petty nature of his
correspondent, who would have perished sooner than allow information
so precious to escape from him to the world.
Toscanelli's first letter was written in Florence, June 25, 1474, and
is as follows:
"_To Christopher Columbus, Paul the Physicist wishes
health._
"I perceive your noble and earnest desire to sail to those
parts where the spice is produced, and therefore, in answer
to a letter of yours, I send you another letter which, some
days since, I wrote to a friend of mine, a servant of the
King of Portugal before the wars of Castile, in answer to
another that he wrote me by his highness's order, upon this
same account. And I also _send you another sea-chart_, like
the one I sent to him, which will satisfy your demands. This
is a copy of the letter:
"_'To Ferdinand Martinez, Canon of Lisbon, Paul the
Physicist wishes health._
"'I am very glad to hear of the familiarity you enjoy with
your most serene and magnificent king, and though I have
very often discoursed concerning _the short way there is
from hence to the Indies_, where the spice is produced, by
sea (which I look upon to be shorter than that you take by
the coast of Guinea), yet you now tell me that his highness
would have me make out and demonstrate it, so that it may be
understood and put in practice.
"'Therefore, though I could better show it to him with a
globe in my hand, and make him sensible of the figure of the
world, yet I have resolved, to make it more easy and
intelligible, to show the way on a chart, such as is used in
navigation, and therefore I send one to his majesty, made
and drawn with my own hand, wherein is set down the _utmost
bounds of the earth, from Ireland in the west to the
farthest parts of Guinea_, with all the islands that lie in
the way; opposite to which western coast is described the
beginning of the Indies, with the islands and places whither
you may go, and how far you may bend from the North Pole
towards the Equinoctial, and for how long a time--that is,
how many leagues you may sail before you come to those
places most fruitful in spices, jewels, and precious stones.
"'Do not wonder if I term that country where the spice
grows, _West_, that product being generally ascribed to the
_East_, because those who sail westward will always find
those countries in the west, and those who travel by land
eastward will always find those countries in the east! The
straight lines that lie lengthways in the chart show the
distance there is from west to east; the others, which cross
them, show the distance from north to south. I have also
marked down in the chart several places in India where ships
might put in, upon any storms or contrary winds, or other
unforeseen accident.
"'Moreover, to give you full information of all those places
which you are very desirous to know about, you must
understand that none but traders live and reside in all
those islands, and that there is as great a number of ships
and seafaring people, with merchandise, as in any other part
of the world, particularly in a most noble port called
Zaitun, where there are every year a hundred large ships of
pepper loaded and unloaded, besides many other ships that
take in other spices. This country is mighty populous, and
there are many provinces and kingdoms, and innumerable
cities, under the dominion of _a prince called the Grand
Khan_, which name signifies king of kings, who for the most
part resides in the province of Cathay. His predecessors
were very desirous to have commerce and be in amity with
Christians, and two hundred years since sent ambassadors to
the Pope, desiring him to send them many learned men and
doctors, to teach them our faith; but by reason of some
obstacles the ambassadors met with they returned back,
without coming to Rome. Besides, there came an ambassador to
Pope Eugenius IV., who told him of the great friendship
there was between those princes and their people, and the
Christians. _I discoursed with him a long while_ upon the
several matters of the grandeur of their royal structures,
and of the greatness, length, and breadth of their rivers,
and he told me many wonderful things of the multitude of
towns and cities along the banks of the rivers, upon a
single one of which there were two hundred cities, with
marble bridges of great length and breadth, adorned with
numerous pillars.
"'This country deserves as well as any other to be
discovered; and there may not only be great profit made
there, and many things of value found, but also gold,
silver, many sorts of precious stones, and spices in
abundance, which are not brought into our ports. And it is
certain that many wise men, philosophers, astrologers, and
other persons skilled in all arts and very ingenious, govern
that mighty province and command their armies. From Lisbon
directly westward there are in the chart twenty-six spaces,
each of which contains two hundred and fifty miles, to the
most noble and vast city of Quinsai, which is one hundred
miles in compass--that is, thirty-five leagues. In it there
are ten marble bridges. The name signifies a heavenly city,
of which wonderful things are reported, as to the ingenuity
of the people, the buildings, and the revenues.
"'This space above mentioned is _almost the third part of
the globe_. The city is in the province of Mangi, bordering
on that of _Cathay_, where the king for the most part
resides. From the island of Antilla, which you call the
Island of the Seven Cities, and whereof you have some
knowledge, to the most noble island of _Cipango_ are ten
spaces, which make two thousand five hundred miles. This
island abounds in gold, pearls, and precious stones; and,
you must understand, they cover their temples and palaces
with plates of pure gold; so that, for want of knowing the
way, all these things are concealed and hidden--and yet may
be gone to with safety.
"'Much more might be said; but having told you what is most
material, and you being wise and judicious, I am satisfied
there is nothing of it but what you understand, and
therefore will not be more prolix. Thus much may serve to
satisfy your curiosity, it being as much as the shortness of
time and my business would permit me to say. So, I remain
most ready to satisfy and serve his Highness to the utmost,
in all the commands he shall lay upon me.'"
A second communication followed the reply of Columbus, in which
Toscanelli wrote:
"I received your letters with the things you sent me, which
I take as a great favor, and commend your noble and ardent
desire of sailing from east to west, _as it is marked out
in the chart I sent you_, which would demonstrate itself
better in the form of a globe. I am glad it is well
understood, and that the voyage laid down is not only
possible, but certain, honorable, very advantageous, and
most glorious among all Christians. You cannot be perfect in
the knowledge of it but by experience and practice, as I
have had in great measure, and by the solid and true
information of worthy and wise men, who are come from those
parts to this court of Rome, and from merchants who have
traded long in those parts and who are persons of good
reputation. So that, when the said voyage is performed, it
will be to powerful kingdoms, and to most noble cities and
provinces, rich, and abounding in all things we stand in
need of, particularly all sorts of spice in great
quantities, and stores of jewels. This will, moreover, be
grateful to those kings and princes who are very desirous to
converse and trade with Christians, or else have
communication with the wise and ingenious men in these
parts, as well in point of religion as in all sciences,
because of the extraordinary account they have of the
kingdoms and government of these parts. For which reasons,
and many more that might be alleged, I do not at all wonder
that you, who have a great heart, and all the Portuguese
nation, which has ever had notable men in all undertakings,
be eagerly bent upon performing this voyage."
In these letters we have outlined by Toscanelli the very voyage that
Columbus took in 1492, eighteen years after he had received this
precious information. In his journal of that voyage he makes mention
of "_the islands marked on the chart_"; he was constantly seeking the
island of Atlantis, and hoped eventually to arrive at the great and
noble city of Quinsai, as well as at Cipango and Cathay. As for the
"Grand Khan"--of whom he had been informed by Toscanelli, who obtained
his information from Marco Polo's works--he not only sent an embassy
in search of him, when in Cuba, but was looking for him throughout all
his voyages.
It is well known that Columbus was not aware that he had really
discovered a new world, but to the end of his days believed he had
merely arrived at the eastern coast of India. So persistent was he in
this belief that he falsified documents, and forced his crew to swear
to what they did not know--namely, that Cuba was a continent, and not
an island! He believed he had arrived at Cipango, when he heard the
Indian word, _cibao_, on the coast of Hispaniola; and he says, in a
letter written to Luis Santangel in 1493, "In Española there are
gold-mines, and thence to terra firma, as well as thence to the Grand
Khan, everything is on a splendid scale." Also, "When I arrived at
Juana [Cuba], I followed the coast to the westward, and found it so
extensive that I considered it must be a continent and a _province of
Cathay_!"
Columbus, it has been said by some investigators, was a man of one
idea--and that idea not his own! "It is impossible," says Washington
Irving, in his _Life of Columbus_--which is, throughout, an elegant
but labored apology for its hero--"to determine the precise time when
Columbus first conceived the design of seeking a western route to
India. It is certain, however, that he meditated it as early as the
year 1474, though as yet it lay crude and unmatured in his mind."
The year 1474, as we know, was that in which Toscanelli sent him the
letter and the chart. In that letter the route to India was laid down,
and on that chart it was made clear to any seafaring man how Cathay
might be reached, by merely sailing westward! By setting his helm, and
persisting in a westerly course, any one might reach the coast that
was supposed to lie opposite to Europe and Africa. Columbus did that,
according to directions received from Toscanelli eighteen years
before. He did nothing more, and he reached, not the coast of India,
but the outlying islands of a new world since called America.
The idea, then, which Columbus claimed as exclusively his own was
conveyed to him by Toscanelli--or, at least, it so appears--and
Toscanelli obtained it from the ancients. For, says one having
authority, "Eratosthenes, accepting the spherical theory, had advanced
the identical notion which nearly seventeen hundred years later
impelled Columbus to his voyage. He held the known world to span
one-third of the circuit of the globe, as Strabo did at a later day,
leaving an unknown two-thirds of sea; and if it were not that the vast
extent of the Atlantic Sea rendered it impossible, one might even sail
from the coast of Spain to that of India, along the same parallel."
And again: "An important element in the problem was the statement of
Marco Polo regarding a large island, which he called Cipango, and
which he represented as lying in the ocean off the eastern coast of
Asia. This carried the eastern verge of the Asiatic world farther
than the ancients had known, and, on the spherical theory, brought
land nearer westward from Europe than could earlier have been
supposed.... Humboldt has pointed out that neither Christopher
Columbus nor his son Ferdinand mentions Marco Polo; still, we know
that the former had read his book."[5]
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Justin Winsor, in _The Narrative and Critical History of America_.
[5] _Narrative and Critical History of America._
III
VESPUCCI'S FAVORITE AUTHORS
1485-1490
Books of any sort were few and precious during the youthful period of
Amerigo Vespucci's life, for the art of printing by the use of movable
type was invented about the time he was born, and most of the great
discoverers, including himself and Columbus, were to pass away before
the printing-press was introduced into America.[6]
In the library of Paul the Physicist, however, the ardent scholar,
Vespucci, must have seen many manuscripts which he was permitted to
read, and among them, doubtless, the account of Marco Polo's
wonderful journeys. It is thought that Toscanelli may have possessed,
indeed, one of the first copies of _Marco Polo_ ever printed, as it
issued from a German press in 1477; or at least of the second edition,
which appeared in 1481, the year before he died. A copy of the first
Latin edition was once owned by Fernando Columbus, and has marginal
marks ascribed to his father. This edition was printed in 1485, the
year in which Hernando Cortés was born, and when Vespucci was
thirty-four years old. Another Latin edition was brought out in 1490,
an Italian in 1496, and a Portuguese in 1502, followed by many others.
Marco Polo, the Venetian, exercised a strong and lasting influence
upon the minds of Toscanelli, Columbus, Vespucci, and, through them,
upon others, although he died in the first quarter of the century in
which the first-named of this distinguished triad was born. All these
had this birthright in common: they were Italians; and, moreover, it
was in Genoa, the reputed birthplace of Columbus, that Marco Polo's
adventures were first shaped into coherent narrative and given to the
world.
These adventures have been stigmatized as romances; but surely
nothing could be more romantic than the manner in which they came to
be published, finally, after existing many years in the crude form of
notes and journals made by the traveller during his journeyings. In
the year 1298, three years after he had returned from his wanderings
and settled down in Venice, Polo was called upon to assist in the
defence of Curzola, during the hostilities which existed between his
own republic and that of Genoa. To oppose the Genoese admiral, Doria,
who had invaded their seas with seventy galleys, the Venetians fitted
out a fleet under Andrea Dandolo, and a great battle was fought off
the island of Curzola. Marco Polo commanded a galley of his own, and
fought with valor; but, in common with the commanders of more than
eighty Venetian vessels, he was defeated, the Genoese winning an
overwhelming victory.
Taken as a prisoner to Genoa, he was cast into prison, where he
remained immured for a year. That was the year in which his wonderful
travels were woven into a story, for the entertainment of the young
Genoese nobility, who, when they learned that the famous Marco Polo
was a prisoner, flocked to his cell to see and converse with him.
Yielding to their solicitations, he sent to Venice for his notes of
travel, and during the days of his captivity dictated an account of
his experiences to a fellow-captive, one Rusticiano, of Pisa.
The delighted young nobles devoured his wonderful story with avidity,
and they could scarcely wait its unfolding from day to day, for it was
to them a veritable tale of the _Arabian Nights_. From the Italian, in
which the traveller dictated his story, it was translated into Latin
and French, and scattered over Europe for others to enjoy. Thus Marco
Polo acquired fame through the misfortune which befell him when
fighting for Venice, and long before printing was invented his name
became almost a household word in Europe. As one who, though
indirectly, stimulated by his Oriental researches the first great
ventures into the Occident, Marco Polo deserves a monument, or, at
least, should not be omitted from a memorial group that contains such
famous Italians as Columbus, Vespucci, Toscanelli, and Verrazano.
Admittedly, he deserves a chapter in this biography, and we cannot do
better, perhaps, than glance at his history.
If Marco had been consulted in the choice of his immediate ancestry,
he could not have done better than fortune served him in the person of
his father, Nicolo Polo, who was a nobleman and a merchant of Venice.
He was a traveller prior to the birth of his son, for just previous to
that event, which occurred nearly two hundred years before Amerigo
Vespucci was born, he and his brother set out for Constantinople.
Thence they went into Armenia, and around the south coast of the
Caspian Sea to Bokhara, where they met some Persian envoys who were
bound for Cathay, or China, and who persuaded them to go along.
At Peking, it is supposed, they met the great and powerful Kublai
Khan, Emperor of the Mongols, and Tartars, who received them kindly
and at whose court they remained a year. They were the first Europeans
he had ever seen, and such was his interest in their stories of
strange peoples and governments that he commissioned them as envoys to
the pope, giving them letters in which he expressed his desire that
Europeans learned in the arts and sciences should be sent for the
instruction of his people. Then they were reluctantly dismissed, with
gifts of gold and spices, and after many perilous adventures finally
reached their home in Venice. They had been gone almost ten years, and
when Nicolo Polo first saw his son, on his return to Venice, Marco was
a youth at school, well advanced in his studies.
Two years later, when Marco was about twelve, the three Polos set out
on their return to Cathay, accompanied by two friars, who were
"endowed with ample powers and privileges, the authority to ordain
priests and bishops, and to grant absolution in all cases, as fully as
if the pope were personally present." They took with them rich
presents for the khan, including a bottle of precious oil from the
holy sepulchre in Jerusalem, which was supposed to possess miraculous
virtues. The journey was commenced in or about the year 1271, but,
owing to innumerable and vexatious delays on the way, the Polos did
not reach the court of the grand khan until the spring of 1275. They
were more than three years in making the journey, but in spite of
difficulties and dangers these remarkable men persisted until the
object of their travels was accomplished. The friars had become
alarmed at the prospect of peril to themselves, and early in the
undertaking beat a retreat to Acre, so the three Venetians alone
arrived at Chambalu, and delivered to the grand khan the letters and
presents from the pope. They were received with extreme cordiality by
the khan, who was especially pleased with young Marco, and accepted
the presents with delight, the holy oil from Jerusalem being
reverently cherished.
Marco was introduced to the khan by Nicolo, as "your majesty's servant
and my son"; but had he been a son of the ruler himself he could not
have received greater honors than were bestowed upon him by the
emperor. Having a natural aptitude for acquiring languages, he soon
could read and write four different dialects, and being possessed of
great intelligence and shrewdness withal, he was sent by the khan on
important missions to various parts of his kingdom. He acquitted
himself so well on these embassies, some of which required his absence
from the capital for many months, and he brought back such interesting
accounts of the people he met and their customs, that he was
constantly employed.
In this manner he acquired, during many years of service in high
positions, a most intimate acquaintance with the khan's dominions, and
became immensely rich. His father and uncle shared wealth and honors
with him, for they likewise were congenially employed; but the time
came at last when their desire to revisit Venice became too strong to
resist. They craved the khan's permission to depart; but when the old
monarch heard their request he flew into a passion, declaring that he
would never allow them to go. They should remain with him and become
the richest men in the world.