THE SEARCH FOR THE INDIES.
_WESTWARD OR SPANISH ROUTE._
[Sidenote: Sources of information concerning the life of Columbus: Las
Casas and Ferdinand Columbus.]
[Sidenote: The Biblioteca Colombina at Seville.]
Our information concerning the life of Columbus before 1492 is far from
being as satisfactory as one could wish. Unquestionably he is to be
deemed fortunate in having had for his biographers two such men as his
friend Las Casas, one of the noblest characters and most faithful
historians of that or any age, and his own son Ferdinand Columbus, a
most accomplished scholar and bibliographer. The later years of
Ferdinand's life were devoted, with loving care, to the preparation of a
biography of his father; and his book--which unfortunately survives only
in the Italian translation of Alfonso Ulloa,[392] published in Venice in
1571--is of priceless value. As Washington Irving long ago wrote, it is
"an invaluable document, entitled to great faith, and is the cornerstone
of the history of the American continent."[393] After Ferdinand's
death, in 1539, his papers seem to have passed into the hands of Las
Casas, who, from 1552 to 1561, in the seclusion of the college of San
Gregorio at Valladolid, was engaged in writing his great "History of the
Indies."[394] Ferdinand's superb library, one of the finest in Europe,
was bequeathed to the cathedral at Seville.[395] It contained some
twenty thousand volumes in print and manuscript, four fifths of which,
through shameful neglect or vandalism, have perished or been scattered.
Four thousand volumes, however, are still preserved, and this library
(known as the "Biblioteca Colombina") is full of interest for the
historian. Book-buying was to Ferdinand Columbus one of the most
important occupations in life. His books were not only carefully
numbered, but on the last leaf of each one he wrote a memorandum of the
time and place of its purchase and the sum of money paid for it.[396]
This habit of Ferdinand's has furnished us with clues to the solution
of some interesting questions. Besides this, he was much given to making
marginal notes and comments, which are sometimes of immense value, and,
more than all, there are still to be seen in this library a few books
that belonged to Christopher Columbus himself, with very important notes
in his own handwriting and in that of his brother Bartholomew. Las Casas
was familiar with this grand collection in the days of its completeness,
he was well acquainted with all the members of the Columbus family, and
he had evidently read the manuscript sources of Ferdinand's book; for a
comparison with Ulloa's version shows that considerable portions of the
original Spanish text--or of the documents upon which it rested--are
preserved in the work of Las Casas.[397] The citation and adoption of
Ferdinand's statements by the latter writer, who was able independently
to verify them, is therefore in most cases equivalent to corroboration,
and the two writers together form an authority of the weightiest kind,
and not lightly to be questioned or set aside.
[Footnote 392: _Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; Nelle
quali s' ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de'
fatti dell' Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, suo padre: Et
dello scoprimento, ch' egli fece dell' Indie Occidentali, dette
Monde-Nuovo, hora possedute dal Sereniss. Re Catolico:
Nuouamente di lingua Spagnuola tradotte nell' Italiana dal S.
Alfonso Vlloa. Con. privilegio._ IN VENETIA, M D LXXI.
_Appresso Francesco de' Franceschi Sanese._ The principal
reprints are those of Milan, 1614; Venice, 1676 and 1678;
London, 1867. I always cite it as _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_.]
[Footnote 393: Irving's _Life of Columbus_, New York, 1868,
vol. iii. p. 375. My references, unless otherwise specified,
are to this, the "Geoffrey Crayon," edition.]
[Footnote 394: Las Casas, _Historia de las Indias, ahora por
primera vez dada á luz por el Marqués de la Fuensanta del Valle
y D. José Sancho Rayon_, Madrid, 1875, 5 vols. 8vo.]
[Footnote 395: "Fu questo D. Ernando di non minor valore del
padre, ma di molte più lettere et scienze dotato che quelle non
fu; et il quale lasciò alla Chiesa maggiore di Siviglia, dove
hoggi si vede honorevolmente sepolto, una, non sola
numerosissima, ma richissima libraria, et piena di molti libri
in ogni facoltà et scienza rarissimi: laquale da coloro che l'
han veduta, vien stimata delle più rare cose di tutta Europa."
Moleto's prefatory letter to _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, April 25,
1571.]
[Footnote 396: For example, "_Manuel de la Sancta Fe católica_,
Sevilla, 1495, in-4. Costó en Toledo 34 maravedis, año 1511, 9
de Octubre, No. 3004." "_Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea_,
Sevilla, 1502, in-4. Muchas figuras. Costó en Roma 25
cuatrines, por Junio de 1515. No. 2417," etc. See Harrisse,
_Fernand Colomb_, Paris, 1872, p. 13.]
[Footnote 397: "L' autorita di Las Casas è d' una suprema e
vitale importanza tanto nella storia di Cristoforo Colombo,
come nell' esame delle _Historie_ di Fernando suo figlio.... E
dal confronto tra questi due scrittori emergerà una omogeneità
si perfetta, che si potrebbe coi termini del frate domenicano
ritrovare o rifare per due terzi il testo originale spagnuolo
delle _Historie_ di Fernando Colombo." Peragallo, _L'
autenticità delle Historie di Fernando Colombo_, Genoa, 1884,
p. 23.]
[Sidenote: Bernaldez and Peter Martyr.]
[Sidenote: Letters of Columbus.]
Besides these books of most fundamental importance, we have valuable
accounts of some parts of the life of Columbus by his friend Andres
Bernaldez, the curate of Los Palacios near Seville.[398] Peter Martyr,
of Anghiera, by Lago Maggiore, was an intimate friend of Columbus, and
gives a good account of his voyages, besides mentioning him in sundry
epistles.[399] Columbus himself, moreover, was such a voluminous writer
that his contemporaries laughed about it. "God grant," says Zuñiga in a
letter to the Marquis de Pescara, "God grant that Gutierrez may never
come short for paper, for he writes more than Ptolemy, more than
Columbus, the man who discovered the Indies."[400] These writings are in
great part lost, though doubtless a good many things will yet be brought
to light in Spain by persistent rummaging. We have, however, from sixty
to seventy letters and reports by Columbus, of which twenty-three at
least are in his own handwriting; and all these have been
published.[401]
[Footnote 398: _Historia de los Reyes Católicos D. Fernando y
D^a Isabel. Crónica inédita del siglo XV, escrita por el
Bachiller Andrés Bernaldez, cura que fué de Los Palacios_,
Granada, 1856, 2 vols. small 4to. It is a book of very high
authority.]
[Footnote 399: _De orbe novo Decades_, Alcalá, 1516; _Opus
epistolarum_, Compluti (Alcalá), 1530; Harrisse, _Bibliotheca
Americana Vetustissima_, Nos. 88, 160.]
[Footnote 400: "A Gutierrez vuestro solicitador, ruego à Dios
que nunca le falte papel, porque escribe mas que Tolomeo y que
Colon, el que halló las Indias." Rivadeneyra, _Curiosidades
bibliográficas_, p. 59, apud Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_,
tom. i. p. 1.]
[Footnote 401: Harrisse, _loc. cit._, in 1884, gives the number
at sixty-four.]
[Sidenote: Defects in Ferdinand's information.]
Nevertheless, while these contemporary materials give us abundant
information concerning the great discoverer, from the year 1492 until
his death, it is quite otherwise with his earlier years, especially
before his arrival in Spain in 1484. His own allusions to these earlier
years are sometimes hard to interpret;[402] and as for his son
Ferdinand, that writer confesses, with characteristic and winning
frankness, that his information is imperfect, inasmuch as filial respect
had deterred him from closely interrogating his father on such points,
or, to tell the plain truth, being still very young when his father
died, he had not then come to recognize their importance.[403] This does
not seem strange when we reflect that Ferdinand must have seen very
little of his father until in 1502, at the age of fourteen, he
accompanied him on that last difficult and disastrous voyage, in which
the sick and harassed old man could have had but little time or strength
for aught but the work in hand. It is not strange that when, a quarter
of a century later, the son set about his literary task, he should now
and then have got a date wrong, or have narrated some incidents in a
confused manner, or have admitted some gossiping stories, the falsehood
of which can now plainly be detected. Such blemishes, which occur
chiefly in the earlier part of Ferdinand's book, do not essentially
detract from its high authority.[404] The limits which bounded the son's
accurate knowledge seem also to have bounded that of such friends as
Bernaldez, who did not become acquainted with Columbus until after his
arrival in Spain.
[Footnote 402: Sometimes from a slip of memory or carelessness
of phrasing, on Columbus's part, sometimes from our lacking the
clue, sometimes from an error in numerals, common enough at all
times.]
[Footnote 403: "Ora, l' Ammiraglio avendo cognizione delle
dette scienze, cominciò ad attendere al mare, e a fare alcuni
viaggi in levante e in ponente; de' quali, e di molte altre
cose di quei primi dì io non ho piena notizia; perciocchè egli
venne a morte a tempo che io non aveva tanto ardire, o pratica,
per la riverenza filiale, che io ardissi di richiederlo di
cotali cose; o, per parlare più veramente, allora mi ritrovava
io, come giovane, molto lontano da cotal pensiero." _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, cap. iv.]
[Footnote 404: Twenty years ago M. Harrisse published in
Spanish and French a critical essay maintaining that the _Vita
dell' Ammiraglio_ was not written by Ferdinand Columbus, but
probably by the famous scholar Perez de Oliva, professor in the
university of Salamanca, who died in 1530 (_D. Fernando Colon,
historiador de su padre_, Seville, 1871; _Fernand Colomb: sa
vie, ses oeuvres_, Paris, 1872). The Spanish manuscript of the
book had quite a career. As already observed, it is clear that
Las Casas used it, probably between 1552 and 1561. From
Ferdinand's nephew, Luis Columbus, it seems to have passed in
1568 into the hands of Baliano di Fornari, a prominent citizen
of Genoa, who sent it to Venice with the intention of having it
edited and published with Latin and Italian versions. All that
ever appeared, however, was the Italian version made by Ulloa
and published in 1571. Harrisse supposes that the Spanish
manuscript, written by Oliva, was taken to Genoa by some
adventurer and palmed off upon Baliano di Fornari as the work
of Ferdinand Columbus. But inasmuch as Harrisse also supposes
that Oliva probably wrote the book (about 1525) at Seville,
under Ferdinand's eyes and with documents furnished by him, it
becomes a question, in such case, how far was Oliva anything
more than an amanuensis to Ferdinand? and there seems really to
be precious little wool after so much loud crying. If the
manuscript was actually written "sous les yeux de Fernand et
avec documents fournis par lui," most of the arguments alleged
to prove that it could not have emanated from the son of
Columbus fall to the ground. It becomes simply a question
whether Ulloa may have here and there tampered with the text,
or made additions of his own. To some extent he seems to have
done so, but wherever the Italian version is corroborated by
the Spanish extracts in Las Casas, we are on solid ground, for
Las Casas died five years before the Italian version was
published. M. Harrisse does not seem as yet to have convinced
many scholars. His arguments have been justly, if somewhat
severely, characterized by my old friend, the lamented Henry
Stevens (_Historical Collections_, London, 1881, vol. i. No.
1379), and have been elaborately refuted by M. d'Avezac, _Le
livre de Ferdinand Colomb: revue critique des allegations
proposées contre son authenticité_, Paris, 1873; and by
Prospero Peragallo, _L' autenticità delle Historie di Fernando
Colombo_, Genoa, 1884. See also Fabié, _Vida de Fray Bartolomé
de Las Casas_, Madrid, 1869, tom. i. pp. 360-372.]
[Sidenote: Researches of Henry Harrisse.]
In recent years elaborate researches have been made, by Henry Harrisse
and others, in the archives of Genoa, Savona, Seville, and other places
with which Columbus was connected, in the hope of supplementing this
imperfect information concerning his earlier years.[405] A number of
data have thus been obtained, which, while clearing up the subject most
remarkably in some directions, have been made to mystify and embroil it
in others. There is scarcely a date or a fact relating to Columbus
before 1492 but has been made the subject of hot dispute; and some
pretty wholesale reconstructions of his biography have been
attempted.[406] The general impression, however, which the discussions
of the past twenty years have left upon my mind, is that the more
violent hypotheses are not likely to be sustained, and that the
newly-ascertained facts do not call for any very radical interference
with the traditional lines upon which the life of Columbus has
heretofore been written.[407] At any rate there seems to be no
likelihood of such interference as to modify our views of the causal
sequence of events that led to the westward search for the Indies; and
it is this relation of cause and effect that chiefly concerns us in a
history of the Discovery of America.
[Footnote 405: See Harrisse, _Christophe Colomb_, Paris, 1884,
2 vols., a work of immense research, absolutely indispensable
to every student of the subject, though here and there somewhat
over-ingenious and hypercritical, and in general unduly biased
by the author's private crotchet about the work of Ferdinand.]
[Footnote 406: One of the most radical of these reconstructions
may be found in the essay by M. d'Avezac, "Canevas
chronologique de la vie de Christophe Colomb," in _Bulletin de
la Société de Géographie_, Paris, 1872, 6e série, tom. iv. pp.
5-59.]
[Footnote 407: Washington Irving's _Life of Columbus_, says
Harrisse, "is a history written with judgment and impartiality,
which leaves far behind it all descriptions of the discovery of
the New World published before or since." _Christophe Colomb_,
tom. i. p. 136. Irving was the first to make use of the superb
work of Navarrete, _Coleccion de los viages y descubrimientos
que hicieron por mar los Españoles desde fines del siglo XV._,
Madrid, 1825-37, 5 vols. 4to. Next followed Alexander von
Humboldt, with his _Examen critique de l'histoire de la
géographie de Nouveau Continent_, Paris, 1836-39, 5 vols. 8vo.
This monument of gigantic erudition (which, unfortunately, was
never completed) will always remain indispensable to the
historian.]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Date of the birth of Columbus: archives of Savona.]
[Sidenote: Statement of Bernaldez.]
[Sidenote: Columbus's letter of September, 1501.]
[Sidenote: The balance of probability is in favour of 1436.]
The date of the birth of Columbus is easy to determine approximately,
but hard to determine with precision. In the voluminous discussion upon
this subject the extreme limits assigned have been 1430 and 1456, but
neither of these extremes is admissible, and our choice really lies
somewhere between 1436 and 1446. Among the town archives of Savona is a
deed of sale executed August 7, 1473, by the father of Christopher
Columbus, and ratified by Christopher and his next brother
Giovanni.[408] Both brothers must then have attained their majority,
which in the republic of Genoa was fixed at the age of twenty-five.
Christopher, therefore, can hardly have been less than seven and twenty,
so that the latest probable date for his birth is 1446, and this is the
date accepted by Muñoz, Major, Harrisse, and Avezac. There is no
documentary proof, however, to prevent our taking an earlier date; and
the curate of Los Palacios--strong authority on such a point--says
expressly that at the time of his death, in 1506, Columbus was "in a
good old age, seventy years a little more or less."[409] Upon this
statement Navarrete and Humboldt have accepted 1436 as the probable date
of birth.[410] The most plausible objection to this is a statement made
by Columbus himself in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, written in
1501. In this letter, as first given in the biography by his son,
Columbus says that he was of "very tender age" when he began to sail the
seas, an occupation which he has kept up until the present moment; and
in the next sentence but one he adds that "now for forty years I have
been in this business and have gone to every place where there is any
navigation up to the present time."[411] The expression "very tender
age" agrees with Ferdinand's statement that his father was fourteen
years old when he first took to the sea.[412] Since 1446 + 14-40 = 1500,
it is argued that Columbus was probably born about 1446; some sticklers
for extreme precision say 1447. But now there were eight years spent by
Columbus in Spain, from 1484 to 1492, without any voyages at all; they
were years, as he forcibly says, "dragged out in disputations."[413] Did
he mean to include those eight years in his forty spent upon the sea?
Navarrete thinks he did not. When he wrote under excitement, as in this
letter, his language was apt to be loose, and it is fair to construe it
according to the general probabilities of the case. This addition of
eight years brings his statement substantially into harmony with that of
Bernaldez, which it really will not do to set aside lightly. Moreover,
in the original text of the letter, since published by Navarrete,
Columbus appears to say, "now for _more than_ forty years," so that the
agreement with Bernaldez becomes practically complete.[414] The good
curate spoke from direct personal acquaintance, and his phrases
"seventy years" and "a good old age" are borne out by the royal decree
of February 23, 1505, permitting Columbus to ride on a mule, instead of
a horse, by reason of his old age (_ancianidad_) and infirmities.[415]
Such a phrase applies much better to a man of sixty-nine than to a man
of fifty-nine. On the whole, I think that Washington Irving showed good
sense in accepting the statement of the curate of Los Palacios as
decisive, dating as it does the birth of Columbus at 1436, "a little
more or less."
[Footnote 408: Harrisse, _op. cit._ tom. i. p. 196.]
[Footnote 409: "In _senectute bona_, de edad de setenta años
poco mas o menos." Bernaldez, _Reyes Católicos_, tom. i. p.
334.]
[Footnote 410: M. d'Avezac (_Canevas chronologique_, etc.)
objects to this date that we have positive documentary evidence
of the birth of Christopher's youngest brother Giacomo
(afterwards spanished into Diego) in 1468, which makes an
interval of 32 years; so that if the mother were (say) 18 in
1436 she must have borne a child at the age of 50. That would
be unusual, but not unprecedented. But M. Harrisse (tom. ii. p.
214), from a more thorough sifting of this documentary
evidence, seems to have proved that while Giacomo cannot have
been born later than 1468 he may have been born as early as
1460; so that whatever is left of M. d'Avezac's objection falls
to the ground.]
[Footnote 411: "Serenissimi principi, di età molto tenera io
entrai in mare navigando, et vi ho continovato fin' hoggi: ...
et hoggimai passano quaranta anni che io uso per tutte quelle
parti che fin hoggi si navigano." _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap.
iv.]
[Footnote 412: _Op. cit._ cap. iv. _ad fin_.]
[Footnote 413: "Traido en disputas," Navarrete, _Coleccion_,
tom. ii. p. 254.]
[Footnote 414: "Muy altos Reyes, de muy pequeña edad entré en
la mar navegando, é lo he continuado fasta hoy.... Yá pasan de
cuarenta años que yo voy en este uso: todo lo que hoy se
navega, todo lo he andado." Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. ii. p.
262. Observe the lame phrase "pasan de cuarenta;" what business
has that "de" in such a place without "mas" before it? "Pasan
mas de cuarenta," i. e. "more than forty;" writing in haste and
excitement, Columbus left out a little word; or shall we blame
the proof-reader? Avezac himself translates it "il y a plus de
quarante ans," and so does Eugène Müller, in his French version
of Ferdinand's book, _Histoire de la vie de Christophe Colomb_,
Paris, 1879, p. 15.]
[Footnote 415: That was the golden age of sumptuary laws.
Because Alfonso XI. of Castile (1312-1350), when he tried to
impress horses for the army, found it hard to get as many as he
wanted, he took it into his head that his subjects were raising
too many mules and not enough horses. So he tried to remedy the
evil by a wholesale decree prohibiting all Castilians from
riding upon mules! In practice this precious decree, like other
villainous prohibitory laws that try to prevent honest people
from doing what they have a perfect right to do, proved so
vexatious and ineffective withal that it had to be perpetually
fussed with and tinkered. One year you could ride a mule and
the next year you couldn't. In 1492, as we shall see, Columbus
immortalized one of these patient beasts by riding it a few
miles from Granada. But in 1494 Ferdinand and Isabella decreed
that nobody except women, children, and clergymen could ride on
mules,--"dont la marche est beaucoup plus douce que celle des
chevaux" (Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. iii. p. 338). This
edict remained in force in 1505, so that the Discoverer of the
New World, the inaugurator of the greatest historic event since
the birth of Christ, could not choose an easygoing animal for
the comfort of his weary old weather-shaken bones without the
bother of getting a special edict to fit his case. _Eheu, quam
parva sapientia regitur mundus!_]
[Sidenote: The family of Domenico Colombo, and its changes of
residence.]
With regard to the place where the great discoverer was born there ought
to be no dispute, since we have his own most explicit and unmistakable
word for it, as I shall presently show. Nevertheless there has been no
end of dispute. He has been claimed by as many places as Homer,[416] but
the only real question is whether he was born in the city of Genoa or in
some neighbouring village within the boundaries of the Genoese republic.
It is easy to understand how doubt has arisen on this point, if we trace
the changes of residence of his family. The grandfather of Columbus
seems to have been Giovanni Colombo, of Terrarossa, an inland hamlet
some twenty miles east by north from Genoa. Giovanni's son, Domenico
Colombo, was probably born at Terrarossa, and moved thence with his
father, somewhere between 1430 and 1445, to Quinto al Mare, four miles
east of Genoa on the coast. All the family seem to have been weavers.
Before 1445, but how many years before is not known, Domenico married
Susanna Fontanarossa, who belonged to a family of weavers, probably of
Quezzi, four miles northeast of Genoa. Between 1448 and 1451 Domenico,
with his wife and three children, moved into the city of Genoa, where he
became the owner of a house and was duly qualified as a citizen. In 1471
Domenico moved to Savona, thirty miles west on the Corniche road, where
he set up a weaving establishment and also kept a tavern. He had then
five children, Cristoforo, Giovanni, Bartolommeo, Giacomo, and a
daughter. Domenico lived in Savona till 1484. At that time his wife and
his son Giovanni were dead, Giacomo was an apprentice, learning the
weaver's trade, Christopher and Bartholomew had long been domiciled in
Portugal, the daughter had married a cheese merchant in Genoa, and to
that city Domenico returned in the autumn of 1484, and lived there until
his death, at a great age, in 1499 or 1500. He was always in pecuniary
difficulties, and died poor and in debt, though his sons seem to have
sent him from Portugal and Spain such money as they could spare.[417]
[Footnote 416: "Nous avons démontré l'inanité des théories qui
le font naître à Pradello, à Cuccaro, à Cogoleto, à Savona, à
Nervi, à Albissola, à Bogliasco, à Cosseria, à Finale, à
Oneglia, voire même en Angleterre ou dans l'isle de Corse."
Harrisse, tom. i. p. 217. In Cogoleto, about sixteen miles west
of Genoa on the Corniche road, the visitor is shown a house
where Columbus is said first to have seen the light. Upon its
front is a quaint inscription in which the discoverer is
compared to the dove (_Colomba_) which, when sent by Noah from
the ark, discovered dry land amid the waters:--
Con generoso ardir dall' Arca all' onde
Ubbidiente il vol Colomba prende,
Corre, s' aggira, terren scopre, e fronde
D' olivo in segno, al gran Noè ne rende.
L' imita in ciò Colombo, ne' s' asconde,
E da sua patria il mar solcando fende;
Terreno al fin scoprendo diede fondo,
Offerendo all' Ispano un Nuovo Mondo.
This house is or has been mentioned in Baedeker's _Northern
Italy_ as the probable birthplace, along with Peschel's absurd
date 1456. It is pretty certain that Columbus was _not_ born in
that house or in Cogoleto. See Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 148-155.]
[Footnote 417: Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 166-216.]
[Sidenote: Christopher tells us that he was born in the city of Genoa.]
The reader will observe that Christopher and his two next brothers were
born before the family went to live in the city of Genoa. It has hence
been plausibly inferred that they were born either in Quinto or in
Terrarossa; more likely the latter, since both Christopher and
Bartholomew, as well as their father, were called, and sometimes signed
themselves, Columbus of Terrarossa.[418] In this opinion the most
indefatigable modern investigator, Harrisse, agrees with Las Casas.[419]
Nevertheless, in a solemn legal instrument executed February 22, 1498,
establishing a _mayorazgo_, or right of succession to his estates and
emoluments in the Indies, Columbus expressly declares that he was born
in the city of Genoa: "I enjoin it upon my son, the said Don Diego, or
whoever may inherit the said _mayorazgo_, always to keep and maintain in
the City of Genoa one person of our lineage, because from thence I came
and in it I was born."[420] I do not see how such a definite and
positive statement, occurring in such a document, can be doubted or
explained away. It seems clear that the son was born while the parents
were dwelling either at Terrarossa or at Quinto, but what is to hinder
our supposing that the event might have happened when the mother was in
the city on some errand or visit? The fact that Christopher and his
brother were often styled "of Terrarossa" does not prove that they were
born in that hamlet. A family moving thence to Quinto and to Genoa would
stand in much need of some such distinctive epithet, because the name
Colombo was extremely common in that part of Italy; insomuch that the
modern historian, who prowls among the archives of those towns, must
have a care lest he get hold of the wrong person, and thus open a fresh
and prolific source of confusion. This has happened more than once.
[Footnote 418: Harrisse, tom. i. p. 188; _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, cap. xi.]
[Footnote 419: "Fué este varon escogido de nacion genovés, de
algun lugar de la provincia de Génova; cual fuese, donde nació
ó qué nombre tuvo el tal lugar, no consta la verdad dello más
de que se solia llamar ántes que llegase al estado que llegó,
Cristobal Colombo de Terra-rubia y lo mismo su hermano
Bartolomé Colon." Las Casas, _Historia de las Indias_, tom. i.
p. 42; cf. Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 217-222.]
[Footnote 420: "Mando al dicho D. Diego, mi hijo, ó á la
persona que heredare el dicho mayorazgo, que tenga y sostenga
siempre en la _Ciudad de Génova_ una persona de nuestro linage
... pues que della salí _y en ella naci_" [italics mine].
Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. ii. p. 232.]
[Sidenote: Christopher's early years.]
[Sidenote: Christopher and Bartholomew at Lisbon.]
On the whole, then, it seems most probable that the Discoverer of
America was born in the city of Genoa in 1436, or not much later. Of his
childhood we know next to nothing. Las Casas tells us that he studied at
the University of Pavia and acquired a good knowledge of Latin.[421]
This has been doubted, as incompatible with the statement of Columbus
that he began a seafaring life at the age of fourteen. It is clear,
however, that the earlier years of Columbus, before his departure for
Portugal, were not all spent in seafaring. Somewhere, if not at Pavia,
he not only learned Latin, but found time to study geography, with a
little astronomy and mathematics, and to become an expert draughtsman.
He seems to have gone to and fro upon the Mediterranean in merchant
voyages, now and then taking a hand in sharp scrimmages with Mussulman
pirates.[422] In the intervals of this adventurous life he was probably
to be found in Genoa, earning his bread by making maps and charts, for
which there was a great and growing demand. About 1470, having become
noted for his skill in such work, he followed his younger brother
Bartholomew to Lisbon,[423] whither Prince Henry's undertakings had
attracted able navigators and learned geographers until that city had
come to be the chief centre of nautical science in Europe. Las Casas
assures us that Bartholomew was quite equal to Christopher as a sailor,
and surpassed him in the art of making maps and globes, as well as in
the beauty of his handwriting.[424] In Portugal, as before in Italy, the
work of the brothers Columbus was an alternation of map-making on land
and adventure on the sea. We have Christopher's own word for it that he
sailed with more than one of those Portuguese expeditions down the
African coast;[425] and I think it not altogether unlikely that he may
have been with Santarem and Escobar in their famous voyage of 1471.
[Footnote 421: Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. i. p. 46.]
[Footnote 422: The reader must beware, however, of some of the
stories of adventure attaching to this part of his life, even
where they are confirmed by Las Casas. They evidently rest upon
hearsay, and the incidents are so confused that it is almost
impossible to extract the kernel of truth.]
[Footnote 423: The date 1470 rests upon a letter of Columbus to
King Ferdinand of Aragon in May, 1505. He says that God must
have directed him into the service of Spain by a kind of
miracle, since he had already been in Portugal, whose king was
more interested than any other sovereign in making discoveries,
and yet God closed his eyes, his ears, and all his senses to
such a degree that _in fourteen years_ Columbus could not
prevail upon him to lend aid to his scheme. "Dije
milagrosamente porque fui á aportar á Portugal, adonde el Rey
de allí entendia en el descubrir mas que otro: él le atajó la
vista, oido y todos los sentidos, que en catorce años no le
pude hacer entender lo que yo dije." Las Casas, _op. cit._ tom.
iii. p. 187; Navarrete, tom. iii. p. 528. Now it is known that
Columbus finally left Portugal late in 1484, or very early in
1485, so that fourteen years would carry us back to before 1471
for the first arrival of Columbus in that country. M. Harrisse
(_op. cit._ tom. i. p. 263) is unnecessarily troubled by the
fact that the same person was not king of Portugal during the
whole of that period. Alfonso V. (brother of Henry the
Navigator) died in 1481, and was succeeded by his son John II.;
but during a considerable part of the time between 1475 and
1481 the royal authority was exercised by the latter. Both
kings were more interested in making discoveries than any other
European sovereigns. Which king did Columbus mean? Obviously
his words were used loosely; he was too much preoccupied to be
careful about trifles; he probably had John in his mind, and
did not bother himself about Alfonso; King Ferdinand, to whom
he was writing, did not need to have such points minutely
specified, and could understand an elliptical statement; and
the fact stated by Columbus was simply that during a residence
of fourteen years in Portugal he had not been able to enlist
even that enterprising government in behalf of his novel
scheme.
In the town archives of Savona we find Christopher Columbus
witnessing a document March 20, 1472, endorsing a kind of
promissory note for his father August 26, 1472, and joining
with his mother and his next brother Giovanni, August 7, 1473,
in relinquishing all claims to the house in Genoa sold by his
father Domenico by deed of that date. It will be remembered
that Domenico had moved from Genoa to Savona in 1471. From
these documents (which are all printed in his _Christophe
Colomb_, tom. ii. pp. 419, 420, 424-426) M. Harrisse concludes
that Christopher cannot have gone to Portugal until after
August 7, 1473. Probably not, so far as to be domiciled there;
but inasmuch as he had long been a sailor, why should he not
have been in Portugal, or upon the African coast in a
Portuguese ship, in 1470 and 1471, and nevertheless have been
with his parents in Savona in 1472 and part of 1473? His own
statement "fourteen years" is not to be set aside on such
slight grounds as this. Furthermore, from the fact that
Bartholomew's name is not signed to the deed of August 7, 1473,
M. Harrisse infers that he was then a minor; i. e. under five
and twenty. But it seems to me more likely that Bartholomew was
already domiciled at Lisbon, since we are expressly told by two
good contemporary authorities--both of them Genoese writers
withal--that he moved to Lisbon and began making maps there at
an earlier date than Christopher. See Antonio Gallo, _De
navigatione Columbi per inaccessum antea Oceanum
Commentariolus_, apud Muratori, tom. xxiii. col. 301-304;
Giustiniani, _Psalterium_, Milan, 1516 (annotation to Psalm
xix.); Harrisse, _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima_, No. 88.
To these statements M. Harrisse objects that he finds (in
Belloro, _Notizie_, p. 8) mention of a document dated Savona,
June 16, 1480, in which Domenico Colombo gives a power of
attorney to his son Bartholomew to act for him in some matter.
The document itself, however, is not forthcoming, and the
notice cited by M. Harrisse really affords no ground for the
assumption that Bartholomew was in 1480 domiciled at Savona or
at Genoa.]
[Footnote 424: Las Casas, _op. cit._ tom. i. p. 224; tom. ii.
p. 80. He possessed many maps and documents by both the
brothers.]
[Footnote 425: "Spesse volte navigando da Lisbona a Guinea,"
etc. _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. iv. The original authority
is Columbus's marginal note in his copy of the _Imago Mundi_ of
Alliacus, now preserved in the Colombina at Seville: "Nota quod
sepius navigando ex Ulixbona ad austrum in Guineam, notavi cum
diligentia viam, etc." Compare the allusions to Guinea in his
letters, Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. i. pp. 55, 71, 101.]
[Sidenote: Philippa Moñiz de Perestrelo.]
[Sidenote: Personal appearance of Columbus.]
He had not been long in Portugal before he found a wife. We have already
met the able Italian navigator, Bartholomew Perestrelo, who was sent by
Prince Henry to the island of Porto Santo with Zarco and Vaz, about
1425. In recognition of eminent services Prince Henry afterwards, in
1446, appointed him governor of Porto Santo. Perestrelo died in 1457,
leaving a widow (his second wife, Isabella Moñiz) and a charming
daughter Philippa,[426] whom Columbus is said to have first met at a
religious service in the chapel of the convent of All Saints at Lisbon.
From the accounts of his personal appearance, given by Las Casas and
others who knew him, we can well understand how Columbus should have won
the heart of this lady, so far above him at that time in social
position. He was a man of noble and commanding presence, tall and
powerfully built, with fair ruddy complexion and keen blue-gray eyes
that easily kindled; while his waving white hair must have been quite
picturesque. His manner was at once courteous and cordial and his
conversation charming, so that strangers were quickly won, and in
friends who knew him well he inspired strong affection and respect.[427]
There was an indefinable air of authority about him, as befitted a man
of great heart and lofty thoughts.[428] Out of those kindling eyes
looked a grand and poetic soul, touched with that divine spark of
religious enthusiasm which makes true genius.
[Footnote 426: There are some vexed questions concerning this
lady and the connections between the Moñiz and Perestrelo
families, for which see Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 267-292.]
[Footnote 427: Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. i. p. 43. He
describes Bartholomew as not unlike his brother, but not so
tall, less affable in manner, and more stern in disposition,
_id._ tom. ii. p. 80.]
[Footnote 428: "Christoval Colon ... persona de gran corazon y
altos pensamientos." Mariana, _Historia de España_, tom. viii.
p. 341.]
[Sidenote: His marriage, and life upon the island of Porto Santo.]
The acquaintance between Columbus and Philippa Moñiz de Perestrelo was
not long in ripening into affection, for they were married in 1473. As
there was a small estate at Porto Santo, Columbus went home thither with
his bride to live for a while in quiet and seclusion. Such repose we may
believe to have been favourable to meditation, and on that little
island, three hundred miles out on the mysterious ocean, we are told
that the great scheme of sailing westward to the Indies first took shape
in the mind of Columbus.[429] His father-in-law Perestrelo had left a
quantity of sailing charts and nautical notes, and these Columbus
diligently studied, while ships on their way to and from Guinea every
now and then stopped at the island, and one can easily imagine the eager
discussions that must have been held over the great commercial problem
of the age,--how far south that African coast extended and whether there
was any likelihood of ever finding an end to it.
[Footnote 429: Upon that island his eldest son Diego was born.
This whole story of the life upon Porto Santo and its relation
to the genesis of Columbus's scheme is told very explicitly by
Las Casas, who says that it was told to him by Diego Columbus
at Barcelona in 1519, when they were waiting upon Charles V.,
just elected Emperor and about to start for Aachen to be
crowned. And yet there are modern critics who are disposed to
deny the whole story. (See Harrisse, tom. i. p. 298.) The
grounds for doubt are, however, extremely trivial when
confronted with Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. i. p. 54.]
[Sidenote: Alfonso V. asks advice of the great astronomer Toscanelli.]
How long Columbus lived upon Porto Santo is not known, but he seems to
have gone from time to time back to Lisbon, and at length to have made
his home--or in the case of such a rover we might better say his
headquarters--in that city. We come now to a document of supreme
importance for our narrative. Paolo del Pozzo dei Toscanelli, born at
Florence in 1397, was one of the most famous astronomers and
cosmographers of his time, a man to whom it was natural that questions
involving the size and shape of the earth should be referred. To him
Alfonso V. of Portugal made application, through a gentleman of the
royal household, Fernando Martinez, who happened to be an old friend of
Toscanelli. What Alfonso wanted to know was whether there could be a
shorter oceanic route to the Indies than that which his captains were
seeking by following the African coast; if so, he begged that Toscanelli
would explain the nature and direction of such a route. The Florentine
astronomer replied with the letter presently to be quoted in full, dated
June 25, 1474; and along with the letter he sent to the king a sailing
chart, exhibiting his conception of the Atlantic ocean, with Europe on
the east and Cathay on the west. The date of this letter is eloquent. It
was early in 1472 that Santarem and Escobar brought back to Lisbon the
news that beyond the Gold Coast the African shore turned southwards and
stretched away in that direction beyond the equator. As I have already
observed, this was the moment when the question as to the possibility of
a shorter route was likely to arise;[430] and this is precisely the
question we find the king of Portugal putting to Toscanelli some time
before the middle of 1474. Now about this same time, or not long
afterwards, we find Columbus himself appealing to Toscanelli. An aged
Florentine merchant, Lorenzo Giraldi, then settled in Lisbon, was going
back to his native city for a visit, and to him Columbus entrusted a
letter for the eminent astronomer. He received the following answer:
[Sidenote: Toscanelli's first letter to Columbus.]
"Paul, the physicist, to Christopher Columbus greeting.[431] I perceive
your great and noble desire to go to the place where the spices grow;
wherefore in reply to a letter of yours, I send you a copy of another
letter, which I wrote a few days ago [or some time ago] to a friend of
mine, a gentleman of the household of the most gracious king of Portugal
before the wars of Castile,[432] in reply to another, which by command
of His Highness he wrote me concerning that matter: and I send you
another sailing chart, similar to the one I sent him, by which your
demands will be satisfied. The copy of that letter of mine is as
follows:--
[Sidenote: Toscanelli's copy of his former letter to Martinez--enclosed
in his first letter to Columbus.]
"'Paul, the physicist, to Fernando Martinez, canon, at Lisbon,
greeting.[433] I was glad to hear of your intimacy and favour with your
most noble and illustrious king. I have formerly spoken with you about a
shorter route to the places of Spices by ocean navigation than that
which you are pursuing by Guinea. The most gracious king now desires
from me some statement, or rather an exhibition to the eye, so that even
slightly educated persons can grasp and comprehend that route. Although
I am well aware that this can be proved from the spherical shape of the
earth, nevertheless, in order to make the point clearer and to
facilitate the enterprise, I have decided to exhibit that route by means
of a sailing chart. I therefore send to his majesty a chart made by my
own hands,[434] upon which are laid down your coasts, and the islands
from which you must begin to shape your course steadily westward, and
the places at which you are bound to arrive, and how far from the pole
or from the equator you ought to keep away, and through how much space
or through how many miles you are to arrive at places most fertile in
all sorts of spices and gems; and do not wonder at my calling _west_ the
parts where the spices are, whereas they are commonly called _east_,
because to persons sailing persistently westward those parts will be
found by courses on the under side of the earth. For if [you go] by land
and by routes on this upper side, they will always be found in the east.
The straight lines drawn lengthwise upon the map indicate distance from
east to west, while the transverse lines show distances from south to
north. I have drawn upon the map various places upon which you may come,
for the better information of the navigators in case of their arriving,
whether through accident of wind or what not, at some different place
from what they had expected; but partly in order that they may show the
inhabitants that they have some knowledge of their country, which is
sure to be a pleasant thing. It is said that none but merchants dwell in
the islands.[435] For so great there is the number of navigators with
their merchandise that in all the rest of the world there are not so
many as in one very splendid port called Zaiton.[436] For they say that
a hundred great ships of pepper unload in that port every year, besides
other ships bringing other spices. That country is very populous and
very rich, with a multitude of provinces and kingdoms and cities without
number, under one sovereign who is called the Great Khan, which name
signifies King of Kings, whose residence is for the most part in the
province of Cathay. His predecessors two hundred years ago desired an
alliance with Christendom; they sent to the pope and asked for a number
of persons learned in the faith, that they might be enlightened; but
those who were sent, having encountered obstacles on the way,
returned.[437] Even in the time of Eugenius[438] there came one to
Eugenius and made a declaration concerning their great goodwill toward
Christians, and I had a long talk with him about many things, about the
great size of their royal palaces and the remarkable length and breadth
of their rivers, and the multitude of cities on the banks of the rivers,
such that on one river there are about two hundred cities, with marble
bridges very long and wide and everywhere adorned with columns. This
country is worth seeking by the Latins, not only because great treasures
may be obtained from it,--gold, silver, and all sorts of jewels and
spices,--but on account of its learned men, philosophers, and skilled
astrologers, and [in order that we may see] with what arts and devices
so powerful and splendid a province is governed, and also [how] they
conduct their wars. This for some sort of answer to his request, so far
as haste and my occupations have allowed, ready in future to make
further response to his royal majesty as much as he may wish. Given at
Florence 25th June, 1474.'
[Footnote 430: See above, p. 330.]
[Footnote 431: I translate this prologue from the Italian text
of the _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. viii. The original Latin
has nowhere been found. A Spanish version of the whole may be
found in Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. i. pp. 92-96. Las Casas,
by a mere slip of the pen, calls "Paul, the physicist," _Marco
Paulo_, and fifty years later Mariana calls him _Marco Polo,
physician_: "por aviso que le dió un cierto Marco Polo médico
Florentin," etc. _Historia de España_, tom. viii. p. 343. Thus
step by step doth error grow.]
[Footnote 432: He means that his friend Martinez has been a
member of King Alfonso's household ever since the time before
the civil wars that began with the attempted deposition of
Henry IV. in 1465 and can hardly be said to have come to an end
before the death of that prince in December, 1474. See
Humboldt, _Examen critique_, tom. i. p. 225.]
[Footnote 433: I translate this enclosed letter from the
original Latin text, as found, a few years ago, in the
handwriting of Columbus upon the fly-leaves of his copy of the
_Historia rerum ubique gestarum_ of Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini
(Pope Pius II.), published at Venice in 1477, in folio, and now
preserved in the Colombina at Seville. This Latin text is given
by Harrisse, in his _Fernand Colomb_, pp. 178-180, and also
(with more strict regard to the abbreviations of the original)
in his _Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima--Additions_, Paris,
1872, pp. xvi.-xviii. Very likely Columbus had occasion to let
the original MS. go out of his hands, and so preserved a copy
of it upon the fly-leaves of one of his books. These same
fly-leaves contain extracts from Josephus and Saint Augustine.
The reader will rightly infer from my translation that the
astronomer's Latin was somewhat rugged and lacking in literary
grace. Apparently he was anxious to jot down quickly what he
had to say, and get back to his work.]
[Footnote 434: A sketch of this most memorable of maps is given
opposite. Columbus carried it with him upon his first voyage,
and shaped his course in accordance with it. Las Casas
afterwards had it in his possession (_Hist. de las Indias_,
tom. i. pp. 96, 279). It has since been lost, that is to say,
it may still be in existence, but nobody knows where. But it
has been so well described that the work of restoring its
general outlines is not difficult and has several times been
done. The sketch here given is taken from Winsor (_Narr. and
Crit. Hist._, ii. 103), who takes it from _Das Ausland_, 1867,
p. 5. Another restoration may be found in St. Martin's _Atlas_,
pl. ix. This map was the source of the western part of Martin
Behaim's globe, as given below, p. 422.]
[Footnote 435: All the description that follows is taken by
Toscanelli from the book of Marco Polo.]
[Footnote 436: On modern maps usually called Chang-chow, about
100 miles S. W. from Fou-chow.]
[Footnote 437: I have given an account of this mission, above,
p. 281.]
[Footnote 438: Eugenius IV., pope from 1431 to 1447.]
[Sidenote: Conclusion of Toscanelli's first letter to Columbus.]
"From[439] the city of Lisbon due west there are 26 spaces marked on the
map, each of which contains 250 miles, as far as the very great and
splendid city of Quinsay.[440] For it is a hundred miles in
circumference and has ten bridges, and its name means City of Heaven,
and many wonderful things are told about it and about the multitude of
its arts and revenues. This space is almost a third part of the whole
sphere. That city is in the province of Mangi, or near the province of
Cathay in which land is the royal residence. But from the island of
Antilia, which you know, to the very splendid island of Cipango[441]
there are ten spaces. For that island abounds in gold, pearls, and
precious stones, and they cover the temples and palaces with solid gold.
So through the unknown parts of the route the stretches of sea to be
traversed are not great. Many things might perhaps have been stated more
clearly, but one who duly considers what I have said will be able to
work out the rest for himself. Farewell, most esteemed one."
[Footnote 439: This paragraph is evidently the conclusion of
the letter to Columbus, and not a part of the letter to
Martinez, which has just ended with the date. In _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_ the two letters are mixed together.]
[Footnote 440: On modern maps Hang-chow. After 1127 that city
was for some time the capital of China, and Marco Polo's name
_Quinsay_ represents the Chinese word _King-sse_ or "capital,"
now generally applied to Peking. Marco Polo calls it the finest
and noblest city in the world. It appears that he does not
overstate the circumference of its walls at 100 Chinese miles
or _li_, equivalent to about 30 English miles. It has greatly
diminished since Polo's time, while other cities have grown.
Toscanelli was perhaps afraid to repeat Polo's figure as to the
number of stone bridges; Polo says there were 12,000 of them,
high enough for ships to pass under! We thus see how his
Venetian fellow-citizens came to nickname him "Messer Marco
Milione." As Colonel Yule says, "I believe we must not bring
Marco to book for the literal accuracy of his statements as to
the bridges; but all travellers have noticed the number and
elegance of the bridges of cut stone in this part of China."
_Marco Polo_, vol. ii, p. 144.]
[Footnote 441: For Cipango, or Japan, see Yule's _Marco Polo_,
vol. ii. pp. 195-207. The venerable astronomer's style of
composition is amusing. He sets out to demonstrate to Columbus
that the part of the voyage to be accomplished through new and
unfamiliar stretches of the Atlantic is not great; but he is so
full of the glories of Cathay and Cipango that he keeps
reverting to that subject, to the manifest detriment of his
exposition. His argument, however, is perfectly clear.]
Some time after the receipt of this letter Columbus wrote again to
Toscanelli, apparently sending him either some charts of his own, or
some notes, or something bearing upon the subject in hand. No such
letter is preserved, but Toscanelli replied as follows:--
[Sidenote: Toscanelli's second letter to Columbus.]
"Paul, the physicist, to Christopher Columbus greeting.[442] I have
received your letters, with the things which you sent me, for which I
thank you very much. I regard as noble and grand your project of sailing
from east to west according to the indications furnished by the map
which I sent you, and which would appear still more plainly upon a
sphere. I am much pleased to see that I have been well understood, and
that the voyage has become not only possible but certain,[443] fraught
with honour as it must be, and inestimable gain, and most lofty fame
among all Christian people. You cannot take in all that it means except
by actual experience, or without such copious and accurate information
as I have had from eminent and learned men who have come from those
places to the Roman court, and from merchants who have traded a long
time in those parts, persons whose word is to be believed (_persone di
grande autorità_). When that voyage shall be accomplished, it will be a
voyage to powerful kingdoms, and to cities and provinces most wealthy
and noble, abounding in all sorts of things most desired by us; I mean,
with all kinds of spices and jewels in great abundance. It will also be
advantageous for those kings and princes who are eager to have dealings
and make alliances with the Christians of our countries, and to learn
from the erudite men of these parts,[444] as well in religion as in all
other branches of knowledge. For these reasons, and many others that
might be mentioned, I do not wonder that you, who are of great courage,
and the whole Portuguese nation, which has always had men distinguished
in all such enterprises, are now inflamed with desire[445] to execute
the said voyage."
[Footnote 442: The original of this letter is not forthcoming.
I translate from _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. viii.]
[Footnote 443: Yet poor old Toscanelli did not live to see it
accomplished; he died in 1482, before Columbus left Portugal.]
[Footnote 444: That is, of Europe, and especially of Italy.
Toscanelli again refers to Kublai Khan's message to the pope
which--more or less mixed up with the vague notions about
Prester John--had evidently left a deep impression upon the
European mind. In translating the above sentence I have
somewhat retrenched its excessive verbiage without affecting
the meaning.]
[Footnote 445: In including the "whole Portuguese nation" as
feeling this desire, the good astronomer's enthusiasm again
runs away with him.]
[Sidenote: Who first suggested the feasibleness of a westward route? Was
it Columbus?]
These letters are intensely interesting, especially the one to Martinez,
which reveals the fact that as early as 1474 the notion that a westward
route to the Indies would be shorter than the southward route had
somehow been suggested to Alfonso V.; and had, moreover, sufficiently
arrested his attention to lead him to make inquiries of the most eminent
astronomer within reach. Who could have suggested this notion to the
king of Portugal? Was it Columbus, the trained mariner and map-maker,
who might lately have been pondering the theories of Ptolemy and Mela as
affected by the voyage of Santarem and Escobar, and whose connection
with the Moñiz and Perestrelo families would now doubtless facilitate
his access to the court? On some accounts this may seem probable,
especially if we bear in mind Columbus's own statement implying that his
appeals to the crown dated almost from the beginning of his fourteen
years in Portugal.
[Sidenote: Perhaps it was Toscanelli.]
All the circumstances, however, seem to be equally consistent with the
hypothesis that the first suggestion of the westward route may have come
from Toscanelli himself, through the medium of the canon Martinez, who
had for so many years been a member of King Alfonso's household. The
words at the beginning of the letter lend some probability to this view:
"I have formerly spoken with you about a shorter route to the places of
Spices by ocean navigation than that which you are pursuing by Guinea."
It was accordingly earlier than 1474--how much earlier does not
appear--that such discussions between Toscanelli and Martinez must
probably have come to the ears of King Alfonso; and now, very likely
owing to the voyage of Santarem and Escobar, that monarch began to think
it worth while to seek for further information, "an exhibition to the
eye," so that mariners not learned in astronomy like Toscanelli might
"grasp and comprehend" the shorter route suggested. It is altogether
probable that the Florentine astronomer, who was seventy-seven years old
when he wrote this letter, had already for a long time entertained the
idea of a westward route; and a man in whom the subject aroused so much
enthusiasm could hardly have been reticent about it. It is not likely
that Martinez was the only person to whom he descanted[446] upon the
glory and riches to be found by sailing "straight to Cathay," and there
were many channels through which Columbus might have got some inkling of
his views, even before going to Portugal.
[Footnote 446: Luigi Pulci, in his famous romantic poem
published in 1481, has a couple of striking stanzas in which
Astarotte says to Rinaldo that the time is at hand when
Hercules shall blush to see how far beyond his Pillars the
ships shall soon go forth to find another hemisphere, for
although the earth is as round as a wheel, yet the water at any
given point is a plane, and inasmuch as all things tend to a
common centre so that by a divine mystery the earth is
suspended in equilibrium among the stars, just so there is an
antipodal world with cities and castles unknown to men of olden
time, and the sun in hastening westwards descends to shine upon
those peoples who are awaiting him below the horizon:--
Sappi che questa opinione è vana
Perchè più oltre navicar si puote,
Però che l' acqua in ogni parte è piana,
Benchè la terra abbi forma di ruote;
Era più grossa allor la gente umana,
Tal che potrebbe arrossirne le gote
Ercule ancor, d' aver posti que' segni,
Perchè più oltre passeranno i legni.
E puossi andar giù nell' altro emisperio,
Però che al centro ogni cosa reprime:
Sicchè la terra per divin misterio
Sospesa sta fra le stelle sublime,
E laggiù son città, castella, e imperio;
Ma nol cognobbon quelle gente prime.
Vedi che il sol di camminar s' affretta,
Dove io dico che laggiù s' aspetta.
Pulci, _Morgante Maggiore_, xxv. 229, 230.
This prophecy of western discovery combines with the
astronomical knowledge here shown, to remind us that the
Florentine Pulci was a fellow-townsman and most likely an
acquaintance of Toscanelli.]
[Sidenote: The idea was suggested by the globular form of the earth;]
[Sidenote: and was as old as Aristotle.]
[Sidenote: Opinions of ancient writers.]
However this may have been, the letter clearly proves that at that most
interesting period, in or about 1474, Columbus was already meditating
upon the westward route.[447] Whether he owed the idea to Toscanelli,
or not, is a question of no great importance so far as concerns his own
originality; for the idea was already in the air. The originality of
Columbus did not consist in his conceiving the possibility of reaching
the shores of Cathay by sailing west, but in his conceiving it in such
distinct and practical shape as to be ready to make the adventure in
his own person. As a matter of theory the possibility of such a voyage
could not fail to be suggested by the globular form of the earth; and
ever since the days of Aristotle that had been generally admitted by men
learned in physical science. Aristotle proved, from the different
altitudes of the pole-star in different places, that the earth must
necessarily be a globe. Moreover, says Aristotle, "some stars are seen
in Egypt or at Cyprus, but are not seen in the countries to the north of
these; and the stars that in the north are visible while they make a
complete circuit, there undergo a setting. So that from this it is
manifest, not only that the form of the earth is round, but also that it
is part of not a very large sphere; for otherwise the difference would
not be so obvious to persons making so small a change of place.
Wherefore we may judge that _those persons who connect the region in the
neighbourhood of the Pillars of Hercules with that towards India, and
who assert that in this way the sea is_ ONE, do not assert things very
improbable."[448] It thus appears that more than eighteen centuries
before Columbus took counsel of Toscanelli, "those persons" to whom
Aristotle alludes were discussing, as a matter of theory, this same
subject. Eratosthenes held that it would be easy enough to sail from
Spain to India on the same parallel were it not for the vast extent of
the Atlantic ocean.[449] On the other hand, Seneca maintained that the
distance was probably not so very great, and that with favouring winds a
ship might make the voyage in a few days.[450] In one of his tragedies
Seneca has a striking passage[451] which has been repeatedly quoted as
referring to the discovery of America, and is certainly one of the most
notable instances of prophecy on record. There will come a time, he
says, in the later years, when Ocean shall loosen the bonds by which we
have been confined, when an immense land shall lie revealed, and Tethys
shall disclose new worlds, and Thule will no longer be the most remote
of countries. In Strabo there is a passage, less commonly noticed, which
hits the truth--as we know it to-day--even more closely. Having argued
that the total length of the Inhabited World is only about a third part
of the circumference of the earth in the temperate zone, he suggests it
as possible, or even probable, that within this space there may be
another Inhabited World, or even more than one; but such places would be
inhabited by different races of men, with whom the geographer, whose
task it is to describe the _known_ world, has no concern.[452] Nothing
could better illustrate the philosophical character of Strabo's mind. In
such speculations, so far as his means of verification went, he was
situated somewhat as we are to-day with regard to the probable
inhabitants of Venus or Mars.
[Footnote 447: It was formerly assumed, without hesitation,
that the letter from Toscanelli to Columbus was written and
sent in 1474. The reader will observe, however, that while the
enclosed letter to Martinez is dated June 25, 1474, the letter
to Columbus, in which it was enclosed, has no date. But
according to the text as given in _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap.
viii., this would make no difference, for the letter to
Columbus was sent only a few days later than the original
letter to Martinez: "I send you a copy of another letter, which
I wrote a few days ago (_alquanti giorni fa_) to a friend of
mine, a gentleman of the household of the king of Portugal
before the wars of Castile, in reply to another," etc. This
friend, Martinez, had evidently been a gentleman of the
household of Alfonso V. since before the civil wars of Castile,
which in 1474 had been going on intermittently for nine years
under the feeble Henry IV., who did not die until December 12,
1474. Toscanelli apparently means to say "a friend of mine who
has for ten years or more been a gentleman of the royal
household," etc.; only instead of mentioning the number of
years, he alludes less precisely (as most people, and perhaps
especially old people, are apt to do) to the most notable,
mentionable, and glaring fact in the history of the Peninsula
for that decade,--namely, the civil wars of Castile. As if an
American writer in 1864 had said, "a friend of mine, who has
been secretary to A. B. since before the war," instead of
saying "for four years or more." This is the only reasonable
interpretation of the phrase as it stands above, and it was
long ago suggested by Humboldt (_Examen critique_, tom. i. p.
225). Italian and Spanish writers of that day, however, were
lavish with their commas and sprinkled them in pretty much at
haphazard. In this case Ferdinand's translator, Ulloa,
sprinkled in one comma too many, and it fell just in front of
the clause "before the wars of Castile;" so that Toscanelli's
sentence was made to read as follows: "I send you a copy of
another letter, which I wrote a few days ago to a friend of
mine, a gentleman of the household of the king of Portugal,
before the wars of Castile, in reply to another," etc. Now this
unhappy comma, coming after the word "Portugal," has caused
ream after ream of good paper to be inked up in discussion, for
it has led some critics to understand the sentence as follows:
"I send you a copy of another letter, which I wrote a few days
ago, before the wars of Castile, to a friend of mine," etc.
This reading brought things to a pretty pass. Evidently a
letter dated June 25, 1474, could not have been written before
the civil wars of Castile, which began in 1465. It was
therefore assumed that the phrase must refer to the "War of
Succession" between Castile and Portugal (in some ways an
outgrowth from the civil wars of Castile) which began in May,
1475, and ended in September, 1479. M. d'Avezac thinks that the
letter to Columbus must have been written after the latter
date, or more than five years later than the enclosed letter.
M. Harrisse is somewhat less exacting, and is willing to admit
that it may have been written at any time after this war had
fairly begun,--say in the summer of 1475, not more than a year
or so later than the enclosed letter. Still he is disposed on
some accounts to put the date as late as 1482. The phrase
_alquanti giorni fa_ will not allow either of these
interpretations. It means "a few days ago," and cannot possibly
mean a year ago, still less five years ago. The Spanish
retranslator from Ulloa renders it exactly _algunos dias há_
(Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. ii. p. 7), and Humboldt (_loc.
cit._) has it _il y a quelques jours_. If we could be sure that
the expression is a correct rendering of the lost Latin
original, we might feel sure that the letter to Columbus must
have been written as early as the beginning of August, 1474.
But now the great work of Las Casas, after lying in manuscript
for 314 years, has at length been published in 1875. Las Casas
gives a Spanish version of the Toscanelli letters (_Historia de
las Indias_, tom. i. pp. 92-97), which is unquestionably older
than Ulloa's Italian version, though perhaps not necessarily
more accurate. The phrase in Las Casas is not _algunos dias
há_, but _há dias_, i. e. not "a few days ago," but "some time
ago." Just which expression Toscanelli used cannot be
determined unless somebody is fortunate enough to discover the
lost Latin original. The phrase in Las Casas admits much more
latitude of meaning than the other. I should suppose that _há
dias_ might refer to an event a year or two old, which would
admit of the interpretation considered admissible by M.
Harrisse. I should hardly suppose that it could refer to an
event five or six years old; if Toscanelli had been referring
in 1479 or 1480 to a letter written in 1474, his phrase would
probably have appeared in Spanish as _algunos años há_, i. e.
"a few years ago," not as _há dias_. M. d'Avezac's hypothesis
seems to me not only inconsistent with the phrase _há dias_,
but otherwise improbable. The frightful anarchy in Castile,
which began in 1465 with the attempt to depose Henry IV. and
alter the succession, was in great measure a series of ravaging
campaigns and raids, now more general, now more local, and can
hardly be said to have come to an end before Henry's death in
1474. The war which began with the invasion of Castile by
Alfonso V. of Portugal, in May, 1475, was simply a later phase
of the same series of conflicts, growing out of disputed claims
to the crown and rivalries among great barons, in many respects
similar to the contemporary anarchy in England called the Wars
of the Roses. It is not likely that Toscanelli, writing at any
time between 1475 and 1480, and speaking of the "wars of
Castile" in the plural, could have had 1474 in his mind as a
date previous to those wars; to his mind it would have rightly
appeared as a date in the midst of them. In any case,
therefore, his reference must be to a time before 1465, and
Humboldt's interpretation is in all probability correct. The
letter from Toscanelli to Columbus was probably written within
a year or two after June 25, 1474.
On account of the vast importance of the Toscanelli letters,
and because the early texts are found in books which the reader
is not likely to have at hand, I have given them entire in the
Appendix at the end of this work.]
[Footnote 448: [Greek: Hôste ta hyper tês kephalês astra
megalên echein tên metabolên, kai mê tauta phainesthai pros
arkton te kai mesêmbrian metabainousin; enioi gar en Aigyptô
men asteres horôntai, kai peri Kypron; en tois pros arkton de
chôrious ouch horôntai kai ta dia pantos en tois pros arkton
phainomena tôn astrôn, en ekeinois tois topois poieitai dysin.
Hôst' ou monon ek toutôn dêlon peripheres on to schêma tês gês,
alla kai sphairas ou megalês. Ou gar an houtô tachy epidêlon
epoiei methistemenois houtô brachy. Dio tous hypolambanontas
synaptein ton peri tas Hêrakleious stêlas topon tô peri tên
Indikên, kai touton ton tropon einai tên Thalattan mian, mê
lian hypolambanein apista dokein.] Aristotle, _De Coelo_, ii.
14. He goes on to say that "those persons" allege the existence
of elephants alike in Mauretania and in India in proof of their
theory.]
[Footnote 449: [Greek: Hôst' ei mê to megethos tou Atlantikou
pelagous ekôlye, kan plein hêmas ek tês Ibêrias eis tên Indikên
dia tou autou parallêlou.] Strabo, i. 4, § 6.]
[Footnote 450: "Quantum enim est, quod ab ultimis litoribus
Hispaniæ usque ad Indos jacet? Paucissimorum dierum spatium, si
navem suus ventus implevit." Seneca, _Nat. Quæst._, i. præf. §
11.]
[Footnote 451:
Venient annis sæcula seris,
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus,
Tethysque novos detegat orbes,
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.
Seneca, _Medea_, 376.
In the copy of Seneca's tragedies, published at Venice in
1510, bought at Valladolid by Ferdinand Columbus in March,
1518, for 4 reals (plus 2 reals for binding), and now to be
seen at the Biblioteca Colombina, there is a marginal note
attached to these verses: "hæc prophetia expleta [=e] per
patr[=e] meuz[=z] cristofor[=u] col[=o] almir[=a]t[=e] anno
1492."]
[Footnote 452: [Greek: Kaloumen gar oikoumenên hên oikoumen kai
gnôrizomen; endeketai de kai en tê autê eukratô zônê kai dyo
oikoumenas einai ê kai pleious.] Strabo, i. 4, § 6; [Greek: kai
gar ei houtôs echei, ouch hypo toutôn ge oikeitai tôn par'
hêmin; all' ekeinên allên oikoumenên theteon. hoper esti
pithanon. Hêmin de ta en autê tauta lekteon.] Id. ii. 5, § 13.
This has always seemed to me one of the most remarkable
anticipations of modern truth in all ancient literature. Mr.
Bunbury thinks it may have suggested the famous verses of
Seneca just quoted. _History of Ancient Geography_, vol. ii. p.
224.]
[Sidenote: Opinions of Christian writers.]
[Sidenote: Roger Bacon.]
[Sidenote: The "Imago Mundi" of Petrus Alliacus.]
Early in the Christian era we are told by an eminent Greek astronomer
that the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was accepted by all
competent persons except the Epicureans.[453] Among the Fathers of the
Church there was some difference of opinion; while in general they
denied the existence of human beings beyond the limits of their
Oecumene, or Inhabited World, this denial did not necessarily involve
disbelief in the globular figure of the earth.[454] The views of the
great mass of people, and of the more ignorant of the clergy, down to
the time of Columbus, were probably well represented in the book of
Cosmas Indicopleustes already cited.[455] Nevertheless among the more
enlightened clergy the views of the ancient astronomers were never quite
forgotten, and in the great revival of intellectual life in the
thirteenth century the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was again
brought prominently into the foreground. We find Dante basing upon it
the cosmical theory elaborated in his immortal poem.[456] In 1267 Roger
Bacon--stimulated, no doubt, by the reports of the ocean east of
Cathay--collected passages from ancient writers to prove that the
distance from Spain to the eastern shores of Asia could not be very
great. Bacon's argument and citations were copied in an extremely
curious book, the "Imago Mundi," published in 1410 by the Cardinal
Pierre d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, better known by the Latinized form of
his name as Petrus Alliacus. This treatise, which throughout the
fifteenth century enjoyed a great reputation, was a favourite book with
Columbus, and his copy of it, covered with marginal annotations in his
own handwriting, is still preserved among the priceless treasures of the
Biblioteca Colombina.[457] He found in it strong confirmation of his
views, and it is not impossible that the reading of it may have first
put such ideas into his head. Such a point, however, can hardly be
determined. As I have already observed, these ideas were in the air.
What Columbus did was not to originate them, but to incarnate them in
facts and breathe into them the breath of life. It was one thing to
suggest, as a theoretical possibility, that Cathay might be reached by
sailing westward; and it was quite another thing to prove that the
enterprise was feasible with the ships and instruments then at command.
[Footnote 453: [Greek: Hoi de hêmeteroi] [i. e. the Stoics]
[Greek: kai apo mathêmatôn pantes, kai hoi pleious tôn apo tou
Sôkratikou didaskaleiou sphairikon einai to schêma tês gês
diebebaiôsanto.] Cleomedes, i. 8; cf. Lucretius, _De Rerum
Nat._, i. 1052-1082; Stobæus, _Eclog._ i. 19; Plutarch, _De
facie in Orbe Luna_, cap. vii.]
[Footnote 454: See Augustine, _De civitate Dei_, xvi. 9;
Lactantius, _Inst. Div._, iii. 23; Jerome, _Comm. in Ezechiel_,
i. 6; Whewell's _History of the Inductive Sciences_, vol i. p.
196.]
[Footnote 455: See above, p. 266.]
[Footnote 456: For an account of the cosmography of the Divine
Comedy, illustrated with interesting diagrams, see Artaud de
Montor, _Histoire de Dante Alighieri_, Paris, 1841.]
[Footnote 457: It was first printed without indication of place
or date, but probably the place was Paris and the date
somewhere from 1483 to 1490. Manuscript copies were very
common, and Columbus probably knew the book long before that
time. There is a good account of it in Humboldt's _Examen
critique_, tom. i. pp. 61-76, 96-108. Humboldt thinks that such
knowledge as Columbus had of the opinions of ancient writers
was chiefly if not wholly obtained from Alliacus. It is
doubtful if Columbus had any direct acquaintance with the works
of Roger Bacon, but he knew the _Liber Cosmographicus_ of
Albertus Magnus and the _Speculum Naturale_ of Vincent de
Beauvais (both about 1250), and drew encouragement from them.
He also knew the book of Mandeville, first printed in French at
Lyons in 1480, and a Latin translation of Marco Polo, published
in 1485, a copy of which, with marginal MS. notes, is now in
the Colombina.]
[Illustration: Annotations by Columbus.]
[Sidenote: Ancient estimates of the size of the globe and the length of
the Oecumene.]
The principal consideration, of course, was the distance to be
traversed; and here Columbus was helped by an error which he shared with
many geographers of his day. He somewhat underestimated the size of the
earth, and at the same time greatly overestimated the length of Asia.
The first astronomer to calculate, by scientific methods, the
circumference of our planet at the equator was Eratosthenes (B. C.
276-196), and he came--all things considered--fairly near the truth; he
made it 25,200 geographical miles (of ten stadia), or about one seventh
too great. The true figure is 21,600 geographical miles, equivalent to
24,899 English statute miles.[458] Curiously enough, Posidonius, in
revising this calculation a century later, reduced the figure to 18,000
miles, or about one seventh too small. The circumference in the latitude
of Gibraltar he estimated at 14,000 miles; the length of the Oecumene,
or Inhabited World, he called 7,000; the distance across the Atlantic
from the Spanish strand to the eastern shores of Asia was the other
7,000. The error of Posidonius was partially rectified by Ptolemy, who
made the equatorial circumference 20,400 geographical miles, and the
length of a degree 56.6 miles.[459] This estimate, in which the error
was less than one sixteenth, prevailed until modern times. Ptolemy also
supposed the Inhabited World to extend over about half the circumference
of the temperate zone, but the other half he imagined as consisting
largely of bad lands, quagmires, and land-locked seas, instead of a vast
and open ocean.[460]
[Footnote 458: See Herschel's _Outlines of Astronomy_, p. 140.
For an account of the method employed by Eratosthenes, see
Delambre, _Histoire de l'astronomie ancienne_, tom. i. pp.
86-91; Lewis, _Astronomy of the Ancients_, p. 198.]
[Footnote 459: See Bunbury's _History of Ancient Geography_,
vol. ii. pp. 95-97, 546-579; Müller and Donaldson, _History of
Greek Literature_, vol. iii. p. 268.]
[Footnote 460: Strabo, in arguing against this theory of bad
lands, etc., as obstacles to ocean navigation--a theory which
seems to be at least as old as Hipparchus--has a passage which
finely expresses the loneliness of the sea:--[Greek: Hoite gar
periplein epicheirêsantes, eita anastrepsantes, ouch hypo
êpeirou tinos antipiptousês kai kôlyousês, ton epekeina ploun
anakrousthênai phasin, alla hypo aporias kai erêmias, ouden
hêtton tês thalattês echousês ton poron] (lib. i. cap. i. § 8).
When one thinks of this [Greek: aporia] and [Greek: erêmia],
one fancies oneself far out on the Atlantic, alone in an open
boat on a cloudy night, bewildered and hopeless.]
[Sidenote: Toscanelli's calculation of the size of the earth,]
[Sidenote: and of the position of Cipango.]
Ptolemy's opinion as to the length of the Inhabited World was
considerably modified in the minds of those writers who toward the end
of the Middle Ages had been strongly impressed by the book of Marco
Polo. Among these persons was Toscanelli. This excellent astronomer
calculated the earth's equatorial circumference at almost exactly the
true figure; his error was less than 124 English miles in excess. The
circumference in the latitude of Lisbon he made 26 × 250 × 3 = 19,500
miles.[461] Two thirds of this figure, or 13,000 miles, he allowed for
the length of the Oecumene, from Lisbon eastward to Quinsay (i. e.
Hang-chow), leaving 6,500 for the westward voyage from Lisbon to
Quinsay. Thus Toscanelli elongated Asia by nearly the whole width of the
Pacific ocean. His Quinsay would come about 130° W., a few hundred miles
west of the mouth of the Columbia river. Zaiton (i. e. Chang-chow), the
easternmost city in Toscanelli's China, would come not far from the tip
end of Lower California. Thus the eastern coast of Cipango, about a
thousand miles east from Zaiton, would fall in the Gulf of Mexico
somewhere near the ninety-third meridian, and that island, being over a
thousand miles in length north and south, would fill up the space
between the parallel of New Orleans and that of the city of Guatemala.
The westward voyage from the Canaries to Cipango, according to
Toscanelli, would be rather more than 3,250 miles, but at a third of the
distance out he placed the imaginary island of "Antilia," with which he
seems to have supposed Portuguese sailors to be familiar.[462] "So
through the unknown parts of the route," said the venerable astronomer,
"the stretches of sea to be traversed are not great,"--not much more
than 2,000 English miles, not so long as the voyage from Lisbon to the
Guinea coast.
[Sidenote: Columbus's opinion of the size of the globe, the length of
the Oecumene, and the width of the Atlantic ocean.]
[Sidenote: The fourth book of Esdras.]
While Columbus attached great importance to these calculations and
carried Toscanelli's map with him upon his first voyage, he improved
somewhat upon the estimates of distance, and thus made his case still
more hopeful. Columbus was not enough of an astronomer to adopt
Toscanelli's improved measurement of the size of the earth. He accepted
Ptolemy's figure of 20,400 geographical miles for the equatorial
girth,[463] which would make the circumference in the latitude of the
Canaries about 18,000; and Columbus, on the strength of sundry passages
from ancient authors which he found in Alliacus (cribbed from Roger
Bacon), concluded that six sevenths of this circumference must be
occupied by the Oecumene, including Cipango, so that in order to reach
that wonderful island he would only have to sail over one seventh, or
not much more than 2,500 miles from the Canaries.[464] An authority upon
which he placed great reliance in this connection was the fourth book
of Esdras, which although not a canonical part of the Bible was approved
by holy men, and which expressly asserted that six parts of the earth
(i. e. of the length of the Oecumene, or north temperate zone) are
inhabited and only the seventh part covered with water. From the general
habit of Columbus's mind it may be inferred that it was chiefly upon
this scriptural authority that he based his confident expectation of
finding land soon after accomplishing seven hundred leagues from the
Canaries. Was it not as good as written in the Bible that land was to be
found there?
[Footnote 461: See above, p. 360. Toscanelli's mile was nearly
equivalent to the English statute mile. See the very important
note in Winsor, _Narr. and Crit. Hist._, vol. i. p. 51.]
[Footnote 462: The reader will also notice upon Toscanelli's
map the islands of Brazil and St. Brandan. For an account of
all these fabulous islands see Winsor, _Narr. and Crit. Hist._,
vol. i. pp. 46-51. The name of "Antilia" survives in the name
"Antilles," applied since about 1502 to the West India islands.
All the islands west of Toscanelli's ninetieth meridian belong
in the Pacific. He drew them from his understanding of the
descriptions of Marco Polo, Friar Odoric, and other travellers.
These were the islands supposed, rightly, though vaguely, to
abound in spices.]
[Footnote 463: Columbus was confirmed in this opinion by the
book of the Arabian astronomer Alfragan, written about A. D.
950, a Latin translation of which appeared in 1447. There is a
concise summary of it in Delambre, _Histoire de l'astronomie du
Moyen Âge_, pp. 63-73. Columbus proceeded throughout on the
assumption that the length of a degree at the equator is 56.6
geographical miles, instead of the correct figure 60. This
would oblige him to reduce all Toscanelli's figures by about
six per cent., to begin with. Upon this point we have the
highest authority, that of Columbus himself, in an autograph
marginal note in his copy of the _Imago Mundi_, where he
expresses himself most explicitly: "Nota quod sepius navigando
ex Ulixbona ad Austrum in Guineam, notavi cum diligentia viam,
ut solitum naucleris et malineriis, et preteria accepi
altitudinem solis cum quadrante et aliis instrumentis plures
vices, et inveni concordare cum Alfragano, videlicet respondere
quemlibet gradum milliariis 56-2/3. Quare ad hanc mensuram
fidem adhibendam. Tunc igitur possumus dicere quod circuitus
Terræ sub aræ equinoctiali est 20,400 milliariorum. Similiter
que id invenit magister Josephus phisicus et astrologus et alii
plures missi specialiter ad hoc per serenissimum regem
Portugaliæ," etc.; _anglicè_, "Observe that in sailing often
from Lisbon southward to Guinea, I carefully marked the course,
according to the custom of skippers and mariners, and moreover
I took the sun's altitude several times with a quadrant and
other instruments, and in agreement with Alfragan I found that
each degree [i. e. of longitude, measured on a great circle]
answers to 56-2/3 miles. So that one may rely upon this
measure. We may therefore say that the equatorial circumference
of the earth is 20,400 miles. A similar result was obtained by
Master Joseph, the physicist [or, perhaps, physician] and
astronomer, and several others sent for this special purpose by
the most gracious king of Portugal."--Master Joseph was
physician to John II. of Portugal, and was associated with
Martin Behaim in the invention of an improved astrolabe which
greatly facilitated ocean navigation.--The exact agreement with
Ptolemy's figures shows that by a mile Columbus meant a
geographical mile, equivalent to ten Greek stadia.]
[Footnote 464: One seventh of 18,000 is 2,571 geographical
miles, equivalent to 2,963 English miles. The actual length of
Columbus's first voyage, from last sight of land in the
Canaries to first sight of land in the Bahamas, was according
to his own dead reckoning about 3,230 geographical miles. See
his journal in Navarrete, _Coleccion_, tom. i. pp. 6-20.
I give here in parallel columns the passage from Bacon and the
one from Alliacus upon which Columbus placed so much reliance.
In the Middle Ages there was a generous tolerance of much that
we have since learned to stigmatize as plagiarism.
From Roger Bacon, _Opus From Petrus Alliacus, _De
Majus_ (A. D. 1267), London, imagine Mundi_ (A. D. 1410),
1733, ed. Jebb, p. 183:--"Sed Paris, cir. 1490, cap. viii. fol.
Aristoteles vult in fine secundi 13 b:--"Summus Aristoteles
Coeli et Mundi quod plus [terræ] dicit quod mare parvum est inter
habitetur quam quarta pars. Et finem Hispaniæ a parte occidentis
Averroes hoc confirmat. Dicit et inter principium Indiæ
Aristoteles quod mare parvum a parte orientis, et vult quod
est inter finem Hispaniæ a parte plus habitetur quam quarta
occidentis et inter principium pars, et Averroes hoc confirmat.
Indiæ a parte orientis. Et Seneca, Insuper Seneca libro
libro quinto Naturalium, quinto Naturalium, dicit quod
dicit quod mare hoc est navigabile mare est navigabile in paucis
in paucissimis diebus si diebus si ventus sit conveniens.
ventus sit conveniens. Et Plinius Et Plinius docet in Naturalibus,
docet in Naturalibus quod libro secundo, quod navigatum
navigatum est a sinu Arabico est a sinu Arabico usque ad
usque ad Gades: unde refert Gades Herculis non multum
quendam fugisse a rego suo magno tempore,
præ timore et intravit sinum
Maris Rubri ... qui circiter
spatium navigationis annualis
distat a Mari Indico: ... ex
quo patet principium Indiæ in
oriente multum a nobis distare
et ab Hispania, postquam tantum
distat a principio Arabiæ
versus Indiam. A fine Hispaniæ unde concludunt
sub terra tam parvum mare est aliqui, quod mare non est
quod non potest cooperire tres tantum quod possit cooperire
quartas terræ. Et hoc per tres quartas terræ. Accedit ad
auctoritatem alterius considerationis hoc auctoritas Esdræ libro suo
probatur. Nam Esdras quarto, dicentis quod sex partes
dicit quarto libro, quod sex
partes terræ sunt habitatæ et terrae sunt habitatæ et septima
septima est cooperta aquis. Et est cooperta aquis,
ne aliquis impediat hanc auctoritatem,
dicens quod liber ille
est apocryphus et ignotæ auctoritatis,
dicendum est quod cujus libri auctoritatem sancti
sancti habuerunt illum librum habuerunt in reverentia."
in usu et confirmant veritates
sacras per illum librum."
Columbus must either have carried the book of Alliacus with him
on his voyages, or else have read his favourite passages until
he knew them by heart, as may be seen from the following
passage of a letter, written from Hispaniola in 1498 to
Ferdinand and Isabella (Navarrete, tom i. p. 261):--"El
Aristotel dice que este mundo es pequeño y es el agua muy poca,
y que facilmente se puede pasar de España à las Indias, y esto
confirma el Avenryz [Averroes], y le alega el cardenal Pedro de
Aliaco, autorizando este decir y aquel de Seneca, el qual
conforma con estos.... À esto trac una autoridad de Esdras del
tercero libro suyo, adonde dice que de siete partes del mundo
las seis son descubiertas y la una es cubierta de agua, la cual
autoridad es aprobada por Santos, los cuales dan autoridad al
3^o é 4^o libro de Esdras, ansí come es S. Agustin é S.
Ambrosio en su _exámeron_," etc.--"Singular period," exclaims
Humboldt, "when a mixture of testimonies from Aristotle and
Averroes, Esdras and Seneca, on the small extent of the ocean
compared with the magnitude of continental land, afforded to
monarchs guarantees for the safety and expediency of costly
enterprises!" _Cosmos_, tr. Sabine, vol. ii. p. 250. The
passages cited in this note may be found in Humboldt, _Examen
critique_, tom. i. pp. 65-69. Another interesting passage from
_Imago Mundi_, cap. xv., is quoted on p. 78 of the same work.]
[Sidenote: Fortunate mixture of truth and error.]
[Sidenote: The whole point and purport of Columbus's scheme.]
Thus did Columbus arrive at his decisive conclusion, estimating the
distance across the Sea of Darkness to Japan at something less than the
figure which actually expresses the distance to the West Indies. Many a
hopeful enterprise has been ruined by errors in figuring, but this wrong
calculation was certainly a great help to Columbus. When we consider
how difficult he found it to obtain men and ships for a voyage supposed
to be not more than 2,500 miles in this new and untried direction, we
must admit that his chances would have been poor indeed if he had
proposed to sail westward on the Sea of Darkness for nearly 12,000
miles, the real distance from the Canaries to Japan. It was a case where
the littleness of the knowledge was not a dangerous but a helpful thing.
If instead of the somewhat faulty astronomy of Ptolemy and the very hazy
notions prevalent about "the Indies," the correct astronomy of
Toscanelli had prevailed and had been joined to an accurate knowledge of
eastern Asia, Columbus would surely never have conceived his great
scheme, and the discovery of America would probably have waited to be
made by accident.[465] The whole point of his scheme lay in its promise
of a shorter route to the Indies than that which the Portuguese were
seeking by way of Guinea. Unless it was probable that it could furnish
such a shorter route, there was no reason for such an extraordinary
enterprise.
[Footnote 465: See below, vol. ii. p. 96.]
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Columbus's speculations on climate.]
[Sidenote: His voyage to Guinea.]
[Sidenote: His voyage into the Arctic ocean, 1477.]
The years between 1474 and 1480 were not favourable for new maritime
ventures on the part of the Portuguese government. The war with Castile
absorbed the energies of Alfonso V. as well as his money, and he was
badly beaten into the bargain. About this time Columbus was writing a
treatise on "the five habitable zones," intended to refute the old
notions about regions so fiery or so frozen as to be inaccessible to
man. As this book is lost we know little or nothing of its views and
speculations, but it appears that in writing it Columbus utilized sundry
observations made by himself in long voyages into the torrid and arctic
zones. He spent some time at the fortress of San Jorge de la Mina, on
the Gold Coast, and made a study of that equinoctial climate.[466] This
could not have been earlier than 1482, the year in which the fortress
was built. Five years before this he seems to have gone far in the
opposite direction. In a fragment of a letter or diary, preserved by his
son and by Las Casas, he says:--"In the month of February, 1477, I
sailed a hundred leagues beyond the island of Thule, [to?] an island of
which the south part is in latitude 73°, not 63°, as some say; and it
[i. e. Thule] does not lie within Ptolemy's western boundary, but much
farther west. And to this island, which is as big as England, the
English go with their wares, especially from Bristol. When I was there
the sea was not frozen. In some places the tide rose and fell twenty-six
fathoms. It is true that the Thule mentioned by Ptolemy lies where he
says it does, and this by the moderns is called Frislanda."[467]
[Footnote 466: _Vita dell' Ammiraglio_, cap. iv.; Las Casas,
_Historia_, tom. i. p. 49.]
[Footnote 467: "Io navigai l' anno M CCCC LXXVII nel mese di
Febraio oltra Tile isola cento leghe, la cui parte Australe è
lontana dall' Equinottiale settantatrè gradi, e non
sessantatrè, come alcuni vogliono; nè giace dentro della linea,
che include l' Occidente di Tolomeo, ma è molto più
Occidentale. Et a questa isola, che è tanto grande, come
l'Inghilterra, vanno gl' Inglesi con le loro mercatantie,
specialmente quelli di Bristol. Et al tempo che io vi andai,
non era congelato il mare, quantunque vi fossero si grosse
maree, che in alcuni luoghi ascendeva ventisei braccia, e
discendeva altretanti in altezza. È bene il vero, che Tile,
quella, di cui Tolomeo fa mentione, giace dove egli dice; &
questa da' moderni è chiamata Frislanda." _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, cap. iv. In the original edition of 1571, there
are no quotation-marks; and in some modern editions, where
these are supplied, the quotation is wrongly made to end just
before the last sentence, so as to make it appear like a gloss
of Ferdinand's. This is, however, impossible. Ferdinand died in
1539, and the Zeno narrative of Frislanda was not published
till 1558, so that the only source from which that name could
have come into his book was his father's document. The
genuineness of the passage is proved by its recurrence, almost
word for word, in Las Casas, _Historia_, tom. i. p. 48.]
[Sidenote: He may have reached Jan Mayen island,]
[Sidenote: and stopped at Iceland.]
Taken as it stands this passage is so bewildering that we can hardly
suppose it to have come in just this shape from the pen of Columbus. It
looks as if it had been abridged from some diary of his by some person
unfamiliar with the Arctic seas; and I have ventured to insert in
brackets a little preposition which may perhaps help to straighten out
the meaning. By Thule Columbus doubtless means Iceland, which lies
between latitudes 64° and 67°, and it looks as if he meant to say that
he ran beyond it as far as the little island, just a hundred leagues
from Iceland and in latitude 71°, since discovered by Jan Mayen in 1611.
The rest of the paragraph is more intelligible. It is true that Iceland
lies thirty degrees farther west than Ptolemy placed Thule; and that for
a century before the discovery of the Newfoundland fisheries the English
did much fishing in the waters about Iceland, and carried wares
thither, especially from Bristol.[468] There can be no doubt that by
Frislanda Columbus means the Færoe islands,[469] which do lie in the
latitude though not in the longitude mentioned by Ptolemy. As for the
voyage into the Jan Mayen waters in February, it would be dangerous but
by no means impossible.[470] In another letter Columbus mentions
visiting England, apparently in connection with this voyage,[471] and it
is highly probable that he went in an English ship from Bristol.
[Footnote 468: See Thorold Rogers, _The Economic Interpretation
of History_, London, 1888, pp. 103, 319.]
[Footnote 469: See above, p. 236.]
[Footnote 470: See the graphic description of a voyage in these
waters in March, 1882, in Nansen's _The First Crossing of
Greenland_, London, 1890, vol. i. pp. 149-152.]
[Footnote 471: "E vidi tutto il Levante, e tutto il Ponente,
che si dice per andare verso il Settentrione, cioè
l'Inghilterra, e ho camminato per la Guinea." _Vita dell'
Ammiraglio_, cap. iv.]
[Sidenote: The hypothesis that Columbus "must have" heard and understood
the story of the Vinland voyages.]
The object of Columbus in making these long voyages to the equator and
into the polar circle was, as he tells us, to gather observations upon
climate. From the circumstance of his having made a stop at some point
in Iceland, it was conjectured by Finn Magnusson that Columbus might
have learned something about Vinland which served to guide him to his
own enterprise or to encourage him in it. Starting from this suggestion,
it has been argued[472] that Columbus must have read the geographical
appendix to Adam of Bremen's "Ecclesiastical History;" that he must
have understood, as we now do, the reference therein made to Vinland;
that he made his voyage to Iceland in order to obtain further
information; that he there not only heard about Vinland and other
localities mentioned in the sagas, but also mentally placed them about
where they were placed in 1837 by Professor Rafn; that, among other
things, he thus obtained a correct knowledge of the width of the
Atlantic ocean in latitude 28° N.; and that during fifteen subsequent
years of weary endeavour to obtain ships and men for his westward
voyage, he sedulously refrained from using the most convincing argument
at his command,--namely that land of continental dimensions had actually
been found (though by a very different route) in the direction which he
indicated.
[Footnote 472: See Anderson's _America not discovered by
Columbus_, Chicago, 1874; 3d ed. enlarged, Chicago, 1883.]
[Sidenote: That hypothesis has no evidence in its favour.]
I have already given an explanation of the process by which Columbus
arrived at the firm belief that by sailing not more than about 2,500
geographical miles due west from the Canaries he should reach the coast
of Japan. Every step of that explanation is sustained by documentary
evidence, and as his belief is thus completely accounted for, the
hypothesis that he may have based it upon information obtained in
Iceland is, to say the least, superfluous. We do not need it in order to
explain his actions, and accordingly his actions do not afford a
presumption in favour of it. There is otherwise no reason, of course,
for refusing to admit that he might have obtained information in
Iceland, were there any evidence that he did. But not a scrap of such
evidence has ever been produced. Every step in the Scandinavian
hypothesis is a pure assumption.
[Sidenote: It is not probable that Columbus knew of Adam of Bremen's
allusion to Vinland,]
[Sidenote: or that he would have understood it if he had read it.]
First it is assumed that Columbus _must_ have read the appendix to Adam
of Bremen's history. But really, while it is not impossible that he
should have read that document, it is, on the whole, improbable. The
appendix was first printed in Lindenbrog's edition, published at Leyden,
in 1595. The eminent Norwegian historian, Gustav Storm, finds that in
the sixteenth century just six MSS. of Adam's works can now be traced.
Of these, two were preserved in Denmark, two in Hamburg, one had
_perhaps_ already wandered southward to Leyden, and one as far as
Vienna. Dr. Storm, therefore, feels sure that Columbus never saw Adam's
mention of Vinland, and pithily adds that "had Columbus known it, it
would not have been able to show him the way to the West Indies, but
perhaps to the North Pole."[473] From the account of this mention and
its context, which I have already given,[474] it is in the highest
degree improbable that if Columbus had read the passage he could have
understood it as bearing upon his own problem. There is, therefore, no
ground for the assumption that Columbus went to Iceland in order to
make inquiries about Vinland.
[Footnote 473: "Det er derfor sikkert, at Columbus ikke, som
nogle har formodet, kan have kjendt Adam af Bremens Beretning
on Vinland; vi kan gjerne tilføie, at havde Columbus kjendt
den, vilde den ikke have kunnet vise ham Vei til Vesten
(Indien), men kanske til Nordpolen." _Aarbøger for Nordisk
Oldkyndighed_, 1887, ii. 2, p. 301.]
[Footnote 474: See above, p. 210.]
[Sidenote: It is doubtful if Columbus would have stumbled upon the story
in Iceland.]
It may be argued that even if he did not go for such a purpose,
nevertheless when once there he could hardly have failed incidentally to
get the information. This, however, is not at all clear. Observe that
our sole authority for the journey to Iceland is the passage above
quoted at second-hand from Columbus himself; and there is nothing in it
to show whether he staid a few hours or several weeks ashore, or met
with any one likely to be possessed of the knowledge in question. The
absence of any reference to Vinland in the Zeno narrative is an
indication that the memory of it had faded away before 1400, and it was
not distinctly and generally revived until the time of Torfæus in
1705.[475]
[Footnote 475: In 1689 the Swedish writer, Ole Rudbeck, could
not understand Adam of Bremen's allusion to Vinland. The
passage is instructive. Rudbeck declares that in speaking of a
wine-growing country near to the Arctic ocean, Adam must have
been misled by some poetical or figurative phrase; he was
deceived either by his trust in the Danes, or by his own
credulity, for he manifestly refers to _Finland_, for which the
form _Vinland_ does not once occur in Sturleson, etc.:--"Ne
tamen poetis solis hoc loquendi genus in suis regionum
laudationibus familiare fuisse quis existimet, sacras adeat
literas quæ Palæstinæ fæcunditatem appellatione _fluentorum
lactis & mellis_ designant. Tale aliquid, sine omne dubio,
Adamo Bremensi quondam persuaserat insulam esse in ultimo
septentrione sitam, mari glaciali vicinam, vini feracem, & ea
propter fide tamen Danorum, _Vinlandiam_ dictam prout ipse ...
fateri non dubitat. Sed deceptum eum hae sive Danorum fide,
sive credulitate sua planum facit affine isti vocabulum
_Finlandiæ_ provinciæ ad Regnum nostrum pertinentis, pro quo
apud Snorronem & in Hist. Regum non semel occurrit _Vinlandiæ_
nomen, cujus promontorium ad ultimum septentrionem & usque ad
mare glaciale sese extendit." Rudbeck, _Atland eller Manheim_,
Upsala, cir. 1689, p. 291.]
[Sidenote: If he had heard it, he would probably have classed it with
such tales as that of St. Brandan's isle.]
But to hear about Vinland was one thing, to be guided by it to Japan was
quite another affair. It was not the mention of timber and peltries and
Skrælings that would fire the imagination of Columbus; his dreams were
of stately cities with busy wharves where ships were laden with silks
and jewels, and of Oriental magnates decked out with "barbaric pearl and
gold," dwelling in pavilions of marble and jasper amid flowery gardens
in "a summer fanned with spice." The mention of Vinland was no more
likely to excite Columbus's attention than that of St. Brandan's isle or
other places supposed to lie in the western ocean. He was after higher
game.
[Sidenote: He could not have obtained from such a source his opinion of
the width of the ocean.]