Ferdinand, who, as is well known, was a learned author and a capable seaman, always felt that he was an Italian; he always spoke Italian on his voyages; he made his will in that language, and mixed almost exclusively with Italians; and yet it is asserted that in spite of himself, and in opposition to his natural inclination, he wrote the Historie in Spanish. We learn from the title-page that the Italian edition is a translation. This, however, is only external evidence. The internal evidence, the contradictions contained in the book itself, are more important. All the world knows and has long known that Christopher Columbus was a Genoese; he tells us so himself: "By birth I belong to the city of Genoa." Is it possible that his son was not aware of this fact? Are we to believe, can we believe, the statement of the Historie that Ferdinand did not know when and where his father was born-that he knew nothing of his father's early years? This is only one of the many evidently false statements in the book. At Genoa, and all along the coast of the Riviera, the sea was the centre of existence; every business, every occupation, led to the sea, to the ships which carried the merchants' goods and the captains who loved voyages of adventure. The progress of the Portuguese discoveries in Africa was becoming known throughout the land; it was said that mountains of gold might be bought for a mere nothing. It was natural enough that the spirit of the time should seize hold on the young Columbus. So he went to Portugal to seek his fortune. No doubt he had before this been engaged frequently in coasting voyages, and had taken the opportunity to do a little business on a small scale. We have evidence in a legal document that he was concerned in a wine business in 1470. At this period he visited the Greek islands, and we learn that he reached Chios. It is quite possible that he had some little experience of sea life at a very early age, as he tells us himself, though he did not give up his principal occupation as a a weaver. In the year 1471 the great expedition from If, then, we are to regard this tale as a Lisbon to Guinea, under the leadership lie-we are forced to speak plainly—we of Joño de Santarem and Pedro Escalone, are fully justified in refusing to accept had taken place. A rich, luxuriant coun- as strictly true the story told in the Histry had been found. An exaggerated retorie that in the month of February (!), port of its wealth spread far and wide. 1477, Columbus sailed 100 leagues (leghe) Gold, it was said, might be had in abun- beyond Iceland (Tile, i. e. Thule), and by dance, as well as ivory and pepper. his own incorrect calculation reached at was attractive to enterprising people. least 80° latitude north. Lest we should Columbus wanted to gain anything in be inclined to suspect a printer's error in Portugal, it could only be as a sailor. the figures, the author of the Historie goes He had to pretend, therefore, that he had on to say explicitly in words that the lived at sea ever since his boyhood. We south of Iceland lies at a distance of 73°, hear no more of the weaving; so com- not 63°, from the equator. Now if even pletely does he keep silence about the the southern part of Iceland is to be humble position of his family that the placed so far north, and Columbus sailed chroniclers and historians of the time in 100 leagues beyond the northern extremSpain and Portugal can only tell us that ity of the island, we must suppose him to he was a Genoese. This fact Columbus have reached at least 80°. Did the sailor always emphasized, for his connection himself reckon the degree of latitude with the influential seaport could not be which he gives? Was he in charge of other than a recommendation. the expedition? If it was really a correction of earlier statements about the position of the island, how is it that later maps took no notice of it? There is not one on which we find Iceland in the position which Columbus gave it. And he sailed 100 leagues farther, and that in February! And lastly, how is it that a seaman uses the old doubtful classical name Thule, while sea-charts only know of Iceland? That is suspicious. And we are told that all this information was This If There are quite a number of piquant anecdotes in circulation, which gain credence from the fact that they are taken from the Historie, of which Ferdinand Columbus is alleged to be the author. But it is impossible that Ferdinand Columbus composed the Historie in the form in which the book has come down to us-we have nothing earlier than the Venice edition of 1571-though it may contain genuine pieces of his work, for contained in a treatise by Columbus on the habitability of all five zones. Where is this treatise? Unfortunately, lost. Well, all sorts of information are to be obtained from manuscripts which have got lost. The By a great piece of good fortune Columbus became connected with a family of position. In the Convent of the Saints ("de Santos," not "ogni Santi" (All Saints), as we find in the Historie) ladies of noble family lived, wearing the dress We must also regard with like suspi- of nuns, but always retaining the right cion another story from the same source to come out into the world and marry. of the miraculous deeds of Columbus. Of Columbus used to go there to mass, and course the hero of the Historie must en- there he became acquainted with Filippa ter Portugal in a striking manner. We Moniz, and won her love. She was the must have a real coup de théâtre. An daughter of the feudal lord and hereditary ordinary mortal who wanted to take part captain of Porto Santo, an island near in the discoveries in Africa would make Madeira. Her father, Bartolomeo Pereshis way quietly from Genoa to Lisbon as trello, a nobleman from Piacenza, had a sailor, and would then try to find work married Elizabeth Moniz as his second according to his trade. But that is far wife, but had died in the spring of 1458. too simple a proceeding for the future The widow was associated with her brodiscoverer of America. For him a furi- ther, Diego Gil Moniz, in the guardianous sea-fight off Cape St. Vincent must be ship of her son, Bartolomeo Perestrello provided. The ship is on fire. Columbus the younger, a child of eight years. leaps overboard, and swims a distance of elder Bartolomeo's first wife had a son two leagues to land. And so even at by a previous marriage, Pedro Correa da his début in Portugal he is accompanied Cuntra, who was intrusted with the manby a due measure of fanfaronade. The agement of the affairs of Porto Santo reader may think that the battle off Cape during the minority of the young BarSt. Vincent was a pure fiction. Not at tolomeo; he only held the post till 1473. all. The battle took place, but in 1485, When Columbus arrived in Portugal, when Columbus was already living in therefore, Bartolomeo had already taken Spain. the government of the island into his own The following story will show how hands. Whether Columbus ever lived easily he may have been mistaken for an- at Porto Santo after his marriage must other Columbus, and the name is as com- remain doubtful. We really know nomon in Italy as Meier or Müller is in thing of his married life. In the rough Germany. In 1477 the Italian Lomellino copy of a letter, probably written in 1500, mentions in a letter that a certain Co- Columbus mourns over the fact that he lombo was in the port of Lisbon with his had left his wife and children when he ships. This man was described by every came to Spain to carry out his projects, one as a man of Savona. No wonder and would never see them again.* This that modern historians have supposed him brief communication, again, throws a cuto be our Columbus; and yet, beyond a rious light on the statement of the Hisdoubt, he was the notorious corsair Vin- torie, that Columbus did not leave Porcenz Colombo, who was hanged as a pirate tugal till after his wife's death. We know in December, 1492. But we need not trou- little about his life. Perhaps he was ocble ourselves with these stories. We shall cupied in making maps. Whether he not find it so difficult to believe a state- lived at Porto Santo, and there looked ment which occurs in another part of the through the papers left by his father-inHistorie: "I have sailed," says Colum- law, and collected all the vague, uncerbus, "over the whole Mediterranean. I tain information about the islands and have been as far north as England (though countries in the distant ocean, or whether not to Ireland), and as far south as Guin- he remained at Lisbon and made voyages thence, we cannot decide one way or the other with certainty. But on one or two points we have information. It is probable that he visited England, and that in 1477 he went to Bristol, then the most im ea. He stated, in his own handwriting in Cardinal d'Ailly's work-his favorite book-that he had seen Castle Mina on the Gold Coast. We will now turn to the statements which concern his stay in Portugal, and may therefore be regarded as trustworthy, as really historical. "Y como vine à servir estos principes de tan lejos, y dejé muger y fijos que jamás vi por ello." Navarrete, Colece, ii., p. 283. Second edition. portant port. Certainly he undertook the voyage to the Gold Coast later on, after 1481. These voyages gave him his schooling in knowledge of the sea. It was in Portugal, too, that he formed his plan of making a voyage westward to Asia. The Florentine doctor, Paul Toscanelli, was the first to give a definite shape to this idea. The true theory of the rotundity of the earth, which classical antiquity had clearly formulated, but which in the earlier Middle Ages had been ridiculed as an idle fancy of the philosophers or proscribed as an impious heresy, gained credit again in the fourteenth century, and in the fifteenth was disputed by no person of education. And if there were only three continents -and these made up the old world-it was necessary to suppose that Asia formed the western boundary of the ocean. The extreme east of Asia was, owing to the rotundity of the earth, also the extreme west. But then, how wide was the ocean? How far east did Asia extend from the Mediterranean? The best answer to these questions was given by Marco Polo, the most distinguished traveller of the Middle Ages, a Venetian by birth. At the end of the thirteenth century he spent about twenty-five years in travelling as a merchant. He made his way right through Asia, visited the busy ports of China, and thence sailed round India back to Persia. Without scientific training, but endowed with an open, receptive mind, he gathered impressions in the highlands of Asia, the fruit fields of China, and on the tropical coast of the Sunda Isles, and wrote an account of what he had seen. It is not surprising that he overestimates the distances traversed in his journeys through the Asiatic mountain country and his voyages, which took him far south of China. It was very natural that all who afterwards read the story of his travels-and Columbus possessed a copy-should imagine the extent of Asia to be much greater than is really the case. And the more Asia was enlarged in this fashion, the more the ocean contracted. And this conclusion was all the more welcome because the whole shining array of classical authors, from the great Aristotle downwards, had taught that the ocean was relatively small, and that the land made up by far the greater part of the surface of the earth. After Marco Polo, yet another Italian, Nicolo de Conti, had been in India (at the beginning of the fifteenth century), and had reached the Spice Islands by way of the Sunda Isles. After his return he made a report of his journey to the Pope, and Toscanelli also gained information from him by word of mouth. Toscanelli possessed energy and genius. His experience of life was wide. He lived to be a hundred years old, and he had considerable geographical knowledge. It was natural enough that such a man should conceive the idea of representing in visible form on a globe the distribution of land and water. The coast-line of Europe from Scotland southwards, and the western coast of Africa as far as Guinea, had been correctly depicted by the skilled cartographers of Italy and Spain. Now it was necessary, from the information given by Polo in writing and by Conti in conversation, to construct a picture of the position and size of the countries of Asia, a picture which might claim to give a true, or, at all events, a probable, presentation of the facts. it quite clear to the Italian cosmographer that the western ocean was very small. The conviction gradually grew stronger, and he came to think that a man in the neighborhood of Mexico, for example--if I may borrow the geographical language of our own time-would be on the east coast of Japan. He knew how the Portuguese were exerting themselves to find a way to India round Africa. From the Italian agents at Lisbon he constantly heard of new attempts. His sketch map showed him that this route must be decidedly longer, even without taking into account the fact that no one had the least idea how far Africa extended to the south. He wished to put the Portuguese on the right track, and with this object he made an indirect application to the King of Portugal. A sketch made His letter to the King's confessor, Canon Hernam Martiny, at Lisbon, is dated from Florence, June 25, 1474, and assures for him the honor of being the first to project a voyage to the west. At this time Columbus was scarcely established in Lisbon, and it is impossible that he should have heard of the letter at once, as it was intended in the first instance only for the King and his intimate councillors. The project was regarded with little favor in Portugal, at all events on the part of the crown, and was probably kept as a state secret. But even if this had not been the case, it is inconceivable that an absolute stranger, a common sailor, without money and without friends, should have heard of the matter at once. It was only at a later period-in my opinion it was years later that Columbus showed an interest in the idea. His social position at Lisbon was now established. He could speak Portuguese with such freedom that no one would take him for a foreigner. His relationship with a distinguished family would make access to the court possible to him. News was continually coming in from the ocean. His active mind and his lively fancy were occupied more and more with the great sea in the west. It was at this time, probably at the beginning of the eighties, that he applied to Toscanelli and asked for information. It is necessary to preface Toscanelli's letter with this explanation, because, as we shall see, the letter itself has been tampered with. Toscanelli wrote to Columbus as follows: "I perceive your great and noble desire to travel to the land where the spices grow. I therefore send as an answer to your letter a copy of a letter which I sent a few days ago to one of my friends, who was in the service of his Majesty the King of Portugal before the Castilian wars, in answer to one which he was commissioned by the King to address me on the subjects concerned, and I send you a nautical map which corresponds with the one I sent him." The letter to Martiny referred to belongs to June, 1474, and is, as Toscanelli says, not the first which he had written to Portugal about the matter. We are therefore justified in assuming that Columbus had not conceived a similar plan when Toscanelli had already sketched a map to illustrate it. In the letter given above there is a contradiction involved in the italicized words which cannot possibly have come from Toscanelli's pen; the intention of claiming priority for Columbus is as clear as daylight. The Castilian wars fell in the years 1474-9. The expression "before the Castilian wars" could only be employed if the wars were at an end-that is, after 1479-otherwise a man would write "before the beginning of the wars." But then Toscanelli could not refer to his letter of June 25, 1474, as having been sent "a few days ago." If instead of "days" we read "years," the whole thing is intelligi ble. We get this letter only in the Historie. The object of the writer of the Historie is to claim for Columbus as early as 1474 the idea of a journey to the west. The plan of a voyage to the west was sketched out and described in this famous letter with such assurance, such certainty of success, that any sailor could steer his way thereby. Toscanelli had added an accurate map, on which the coasts of well-known countries were to be seen depicted with great exactness; he had introduced the islands Antilia and Zipangu (Japan), and China, according to calculations made from Polo's travels, and had described the route in such definite terms that a man might steer blindly by it. Columbus had this plan on board on his first voyage, and guided himself thereby. On September 25, 1492, he sent it to his captain on the Pinta, Martin Alonso Pinzon, no doubt that he might take counsel with this experienced seaman concerning the direction in which they should continue their voyage-a matter about which he may well have begun to feel hesitation. The question was whether they could put entire trust in Toscanelli's map. We learn this from a passage from the log-books of the first voyage, extracts from which are given by Las Casas. He remarks with reference to this passage: "This is the map which the doctor Paulo [Toscanelli] the Florentine sent him. It is, together with some other articles which belonged to the Admiral, in my possession." The original is now, unfortunately, lost, but we may, I think, prove the existence of a copy which will be equally useful. About the time when Columbus left Portugal, another foreigner, a German named Martin Behaim, made his appearance. He soon obtained influence in Lisbon through his knowledge of nautical instruments, the uses of which he had learned from his former teacher, the famous astronomer Regiomontanus. As cosmographer he accompanied the Portuguese voyage of discovery which, under the command of Diego Cão, nearly reached the Cape. He was afterwards knighted, and was a persona grata at court. Every map or chart which had any bearing on the new discoveries was at his disposal. Is it conceivable, then, that Toscanelli's map remained unknown to him? In the year 1492, at his native city of Numerberg, he made a globe for the use of his fellow-citizens, which is still preserved. America had not yet been discovered; the western ocean and the coast of Asia could only be drawn in accordance with Polo's statements, or from the information supplied by the spoken or written words of other travellers. It is a curious fact that one may use Behaim's globe to illustrate Toscanelli's letter; one finds that not only Toscanelli's statements, but also the remarks which on his first voyage Columbus made with reference to Toscanelli's map, suit Behaim's globe admirably. We may surely conjecture that Behaim copied the ocean and surrounding lands from Toscanelli's map. Other maps of the sixteenth century follow the same original. Not till 1570 do all traces of it disappear from the delineation of eastern Asia. In this part of the world Toscanelli's influence is maintained till the Portuguese penetrate from Cathaja India into the Japanese waters. We may therefore with confidence insert Behaim's map as a copy of Toscanelli's, and trace out on it the plan of the Florentine doctor; it is the map which Columbus followed almost slavishly. If one carefully follows the voyage, one is confirmed in the opinion that Columbus was guided by an authority. That cannot be questioned; but still there remains to the Genoese the undiminished glory of having held to his purpose with wonderful tenacity and perseverance till, after years of waiting, he accomplished it. It was he who actually did the great deed; that is his title to honor. Quinsay is in the province of Mangi [South China], near the province of Katay [China], where the King's residence is. But from the island Antilia (known to you by the name Sete Cidades) to the famous island Cippangu [Japan] there are ten spaces. This island is very rich in gold, pearls, and precious stones; the temples and palaces are covered with solid gold. The unimportant stretches of sea must be crossed by routes which are not yet known." We see from this that Toscanelli described the course which Columbus was to steer from Lisbon, past Antilia and Zipangu, to China, and even gave him the distances on the map. There was also |