Footnote 393:Irving'sLife of Columbus, New York, 1868, vol. iii. p. 375. My references, unless otherwise specified, are to this, the "Geoffrey Crayon," edition.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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 toVita dell' Ammiraglio, April 25, 1571.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 397:"L' autorita di Las Casas è d' una suprema e vitale importanza tanto nella storia di Cristoforo Colombo, come nell' esame delleHistoriedi 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 delleHistoriedi Fernando Colombo." Peragallo,L' autenticità delle Historie di Fernando Colombo, Genoa, 1884, p. 23.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 398:Historia de los Reyes Católicos D. Fernando y DaIsabel. 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 399:De orbe novo Decades, Alcalá, 1516;Opus epistolarum, Compluti (Alcalá), 1530; Harrisse,Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, Nos. 88, 160.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 401:Harrisse,loc. cit., in 1884, gives the number at sixty-four.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 404:Twenty years ago M. Harrisse published in Spanish and French a critical essay maintaining that theVita dell' Ammiragliowas 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 œuvres, 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.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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," inBulletin de la Société de Géographie, Paris, 1872, 6esérie, tom. iv. pp. 5-59.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 407:Washington Irving'sLife 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 hisExamen 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 408:Harrisse,op. cit.tom. i. p. 196.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 409:"Insenectute bona, de edad de setenta años poco mas o menos." Bernaldez,Reyes Católicos, tom. i. p. 334.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 412:Op. cit.cap. iv.ad fin.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 413:"Traido en disputas," Navarrete,Coleccion, tom. ii. p. 254.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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![Back to Main Text]
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' ondeUbbidiente il vol Colomba prende,Corre, s' aggira, terren scopre, e frondeD' 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'sNorthern Italyas the probable birthplace, along with Peschel's absurd date 1456. It is pretty certain that Columbus wasnotborn in that house or in Cogoleto. See Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 148-155.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 417:Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 166-216.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 418:Harrisse, tom. i. p. 188;Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xi.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 420:"Mando al dicho D. Diego, mi hijo, ó á la persona que heredare el dicho mayorazgo, que tenga y sostenga siempre en laCiudad de Génovauna persona de nuestro linage ... pues que della salíy en ella naci" [italics mine]. Navarrete,Coleccion, tom. ii. p. 232.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 421:Las Casas,Historia, tom. i. p. 46.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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 thatin fourteen yearsColumbus 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 hisChristophe 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 424:Las Casas,op. cit.tom. i. p. 224; tom. ii. p. 80. He possessed many maps and documents by both the brothers.[Back to Main Text]
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 theImago Mundiof 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.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 428:"Christoval Colon ... persona de gran corazon y altos pensamientos." Mariana,Historia de España, tom. viii. p. 341.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 430:See above, p.330.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 431:I translate this prologue from the Italian text of theVita 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 himMarco 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.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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 theHistoria rerum ubique gestarumof 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 hisFernand Colomb, pp. 178-180, and also (with more strict regard to the abbreviations of the original) in hisBibliotheca 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.[Back to Main Text]
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 fromDas Ausland, 1867, p. 5. Another restoration may be found in St. Martin'sAtlas, pl. ix. This map was the source of the western part of Martin Behaim's globe, as given below, p.422.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 435:All the description that follows is taken by Toscanelli from the book of Marco Polo.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 436:On modern maps usually called Chang-chow, about 100 miles S. W. from Fou-chow.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 437:I have given an account of this mission, above, p.281.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 438:Eugenius IV., pope from 1431 to 1447.[Back to Main Text]
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. InVita dell' Ammiragliothe two letters are mixed together.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 440:On modern maps Hang-chow. After 1127 that city was for some time the capital of China, and Marco Polo's nameQuinsayrepresents the Chinese wordKing-sseor "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 orli, 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 441:For Cipango, or Japan, see Yule'sMarco 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 442:The original of this letter is not forthcoming. I translate fromVita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. viii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 443:Yet poor old Toscanelli did not live to see it accomplished; he died in 1482, before Columbus left Portugal.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 445:In including the "whole Portuguese nation" as feeling this desire, the good astronomer's enthusiasm again runs away with him.[Back to Main Text]
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 vanaPerchè 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 goteErcule 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 misterioSospesa 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.[Back to Main Text]
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 inVita 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 phrasealquanti giorni fawill 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 exactlyalgunos dias há(Navarrete,Coleccion, tom. ii. p. 7), and Humboldt (loc. cit.) has itil 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 notalgunos dias há, buthá 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 thathá diasmight 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 asalgunos años há, i. e. "a few years ago," not ashá dias. M. d'Avezac's hypothesis seems to me not only inconsistent with the phrasehá 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 448:Ὥστε τὰ ὑπὲρ τῆς κεφαλῆς ἄστρα μεγάλην ἔχειν τὴν μεταβολὴν, καὶ μὴ ταῦτα φαίνεσθαι πρὸς ἄρκτον τε καὶ μεσημβρίαν μεταβαίνουσιν· ἔνιοι γὰρ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ μὲν ἀστέρες ὁρῶνται, καὶ περὶ Κύπρον· ἐν τοῖς πρὸς ἄρκτον δὲ χωρίους οὐχ ὁρῶνται καὶ τὰ διὰ παντὸς ἐν τοῖς πρὸς ἀρκτὸν φαινόμενα τῶν ἀστρῶν, ἐν ἐκείνοις τοῖς τόποις ποιεῖται δύσιν. Ὥστ' οὐ μόνον ἐκ τούτων δῆλον περιφερὲς ὂν τὸ σχῆμα τῆς γῆς, ἀλλὰ καὶ σφαίρας οὐ μεγάλης. Οὐ γὰρ ἂν οὕτω ταχὺ ἐπίδηλον ἐποίει μεθιστεμένοις οὕτω βραχύ. Διὸ τοὺς ὑπολαμβάνοντας συνάπτειν τὸν περὶ τὰς Ἡρακλείους στήλας τόπον τῷ περὶ τὴν Ἰνδικὴν, καὶ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον εἶναι τὴν Θάλατταν, μὴ λίαν ὑπολαμβάνειν ἄπιστα δοκεῖν. Aristotle,De Cœlo, 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 449:Ὥστ' εἰ μὴ τὸ μέγεθος τοῦ Ἀτλαντικοῦ πελάγους ἐκώλυε, κᾂν πλεῖν ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῆς Ἰβηρίας εἰς τὴν Ἰνδικὴν διὰ τοῦ αὐτοῦ παραλλήλου. Strabo, i. 4, § 6.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 451:
Venient annis sæcula seris,Quibus Oceanus vincula rerumLaxet, 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 ē per patrē meuʒ cristoforū col almirātē anno 1492."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 452:Καλοῦμεν γὰρ οἰκουμένην ἣν οἰκοῦμεν καὶ γνωρίζομεν· ἐνδέκεται δὲ καὶ ἐν τῇ αὐτῇ εὐκράτῳ ζώνῃ καὶ δύο οἰκουμένας εἶναι ἢ καὶ πλείους. Strabo, i. 4, § 6; καὶ γὰρ εἰ οὕτως ἔχει, οὐχ ὑπὸ τούτων γε οἰκεῖται τῶν παρ' ἡμῖν· ἀλλ' ἐκείνην ἄλλην οἰκουμένην θετέον. ὅπερ ἐστὶ πιθανόν. Ἡμῖν δὲ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ ταῦτα λεκτέον. 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 453:Οἱ δὲ ἡμέτεροι [i. e. the Stoics] καὶ ἀπὸ μαθημάτων πάντες, καὶ οἱ πλείους τῶν ἀπὸ τοῦ Σωκρατικοῦ διδασκαλείου σφαιρικὸν εἶναι τὸ σχῆμα τῆς γῆς διεβεβαιώσαντο. Cleomedes, i. 8; cf. Lucretius,De Rerum Nat., i. 1052-1082; Stobæus,Eclog.i. 19; Plutarch,De facie in Orbe Luna, cap. vii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 454:See Augustine,De civitate Dei, xvi. 9; Lactantius,Inst. Div., iii. 23; Jerome,Comm. in Ezechiel, i. 6; Whewell'sHistory of the Inductive Sciences, vol i. p. 196.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 455:See above, p.266.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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'sExamen 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 theLiber Cosmographicusof Albertus Magnus and theSpeculum Naturaleof 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 458:See Herschel'sOutlines 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 459:See Bunbury'sHistory of Ancient Geography, vol. ii. pp. 95-97, 546-579; Müller and Donaldson,History of Greek Literature, vol. iii. p. 268.[Back to Main Text]
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:—Οἵτε γὰρ περιπλεῖν ἐπιχειρήσαντες, εἶτα ἀναστρέψαντες, οὐχ ὑπὸ ἠπείρου τινὸς ἀντιπιπτούσης καὶ κωλυούσης, τὸν ἐπέκεινα πλοῦν ἀνακρουσθῆναι φασὶν, ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ ἀπορίας καὶ ἐρημίας, οὐδὲν ἧττον τῆς θαλάττης ἐχούσης τὸν πόρον (lib. i. cap. i. § 8). When one thinks of this ἀπορία and ἐρημία, one fancies oneself far out on the Atlantic, alone in an open boat on a cloudy night, bewildered and hopeless.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 463:Columbus was confirmed in this opinion by the book of the Arabian astronomer Alfragan, written aboutA. 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 theImago 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 56-2/3miles. 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.[Back to Main Text]
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.
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 3oé 4olibro de Esdras, ansí come es S. Agustin é S. Ambrosio en suexámeron," 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 fromImago Mundi, cap. xv., is quoted on p. 78 of the same work.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 465:See below, vol. ii. p. 96.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 466:Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. iv.; Las Casas,Historia, tom. i. p. 49.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 467:"Io navigai l' annoM CCCC LXXVIInel 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 468:See Thorold Rogers,The Economic Interpretation of History, London, 1888, pp. 103, 319.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 469:See above, p.236.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 470:See the graphic description of a voyage in these waters in March, 1882, in Nansen'sThe First Crossing of Greenland, London, 1890, vol. i. pp. 149-152.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 472:See Anderson'sAmerica not discovered by Columbus, Chicago, 1874; 3d ed. enlarged, Chicago, 1883.[Back to Main Text]
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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 474:See above, p.210.[Back to Main Text]
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 toFinland, for which the formVinlanddoes 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 appellationefluentorum lactis & mellisdesignant. 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,Vinlandiamdictam prout ipse ... fateri non dubitat. Sed deceptum eum hae sive Danorum fide, sive credulitate sua planum facit affine isti vocabulumFinlandiæprovinciæ ad Regnum nostrum pertinentis, pro quo apud Snorronem & in Hist. Regum non semel occurritVinlandiænomen, cujus promontorium ad ultimum septentrionem & usque ad mare glaciale sese extendit." Rudbeck,Atland eller Manheim, Upsala, cir. 1689, p. 291.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 476:The source of such a confusion of ideas is probably the ridiculous map in Rafn'sAntiquitates Americanæ, upon which North America is represented in all the accuracy of outline attainable by modern maps, and then the Icelandic names are put on where Rafn thought they ought to go, i. e. Markland upon Nova Scotia, Vinland upon New England, etc. Any person using such a map is liable to forget that it cannot possibly represent the crude notions of locality to which the reports of the Norse voyages must have given rise in an ignorant age. (The reader will find the map reproduced in Winsor,Narr. and Crit. Hist., i. 95.) Rafn's fault was, however, no greater than that committed by the modern makers of so-called "ancient atlases"—still current and in use in schools—when, for example, they take a correct modern map of Europe, with parts of Africa and Asia, and upon countries so dimly known to the ancients as Scandinavia and Hindustan, but now drawn with perfect accuracy, they simply print the ancient names!! Nothing but confusion can come from using such wretched maps. The only safe way to study the history of geography is to reproduce the ancient maps themselves, as I have done in the present work. Many of the maps given below in the second volume will illustrate the slow and painful growth of the knowledge of the North American coast during the two centuries after Columbus.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 477:"The fault that we find with Columbus is, that he was not honest and frank enough to tell where and how he had obtained his previous information about the lands which he pretended to discover." Anderson,America not discovered by Columbus, p. 90.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 478:See below, p.398, note.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 479:For example, the pilot Martin Vicenti told Columbus that 1,200 miles west of Cape St. Vincent he had picked up from the sea a piece of carved wood evidently not carved with iron tools. Pedro Correa, who had married Columbus's wife's sister, had seen upon Porto Santo a similar piece of carving that had drifted from the west. Huge reeds sometimes floated ashore upon those islands, and had not Ptolemy mentioned enormous reeds as growing in eastern Asia? Pine-trees of strange species were driven by west winds upon the coast of Fayal, and two corpses of men of an unknown race had been washed ashore upon the neighbouring island of Flores. Certain sailors, on a voyage from the Azores to Ireland, had caught glimpses of land on the west, and believed it to be the coast of "Tartary;" etc., etc. SeeVita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. ix. Since he cited these sailors, why did he not cite the Northmen also, if he knew what they had done?[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 480:Larger History of the United States, p. 54.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 481:"Terram veró Landa Rolfoni quæsitam existimarem esse Vinlandiam olim Islandis sic dictam; de qua alibi insulam nempe Americæ e regione Gronlandiæ, quæ fortè hodie Estotilandia," etc.Crymogœa, Hamburg, 1610, p. 120.
Abraham Ortelius in 1606 speaks of the Northmen coming to America, but bases his opinion upon the Zeno narrative (published in 1558) and upon the sound of the nameNorumbega, and apparently knows nothing of Vinland:—"Iosephus Acosta in his bookDe Natura noui orbisindeuors by many reasons to proue, that this part ofAmericawas originally inhabited by certaine Indians, forced thither by tempestuous weather ouer the South sea which now they call Mare del Zur. But to me it seemes more probable, out of the historie of the two Zeni, gentlemen of Venice, ... that this New World many ages past was entred upon by some islanders ofEurope, as namely ofGrœnland, Island, and Frisland; being much neerer thereunto than the Indians, nor disioyned thence ... by an Ocean so huge, and to the Indians so vnnauigable. Also, what else may we coniecture to be signified by thisNorumbega[the name of a North region ofAmerica] but that fromNorway, signifying a North land, some Colonie in times past hath hither beene transplanted?"Theatre of the Whole World, London, 1606, p. 5. These passages are quoted and discussed by Reeves,The Finding of Wineland the Good, pp. 95, 96. The supposed connection ofNorumbegawithNorwayis very doubtful. Possibly Stephanius, in his map of 1570 (Torfæus,Gronlandia antiqua, 1706), may have had reference to Labrador or the north of Newfoundland.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 482:Gallo,De navigatione Columbi, apud Muratori,Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, tom. xxiii. col. 302.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 483:Lafuente,Historia de España, tom. ix, p. 428.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 484:Vasconcellos,Vida del rey Don Juan II., lib. iv.; La Clède,Histoire de Portugal, lib. xiii.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 485:The Portuguese have never been able to forgive Columbus for discovering a new world for Spain, and their chagrin sometimes vents itself in amusing ways. After all, says Cordeiro, Columbus was no such great man as some people think, for he did not discover what he promised to discover; and, moreover, the Portuguese geographers were right in condemning his scheme, because it really is not so far by sea from Lisbon around Africa to Hindustan as from Lisbon by any practicable route westward to Japan! See Luciano Cordeiro,De la part prise par les Portugais dans la découverte d'Amérique, Lisbon, 1876, pp. 23, 24, 29, 30. Well, I don't know that there is any answer to be made to this argument. Logic is logic, says the wise Autocrat:—
"End of the wonderful one-hoss shay,Logic is logic, that's all I say."