[6] The first printing-press in America was set up in Mexico in 1535, the first book printed on it was probably La Escala de San Juan Climaco, date 1536, and the first printer was Juan Pablos. The oldest existing example of this first Mexican printing is said to be the Manual de Adultos, bearing date 1540.
IV
IN THE SERVICE OF SPAIN
1490
Before we revert to the real hero of this biography, let us seek to identify the various names we find in Marco Polo's book, and in Toscanelli's letter to Columbus, with the objects to which they were applied. We will imagine ourselves with the first-named in far Cathay, with the second in his library at Florence, and with the third as he gropes his way along the shores of islands for the first time then revealed to European eyes.
If Columbus had known—what we now know—that thousands of miles intervened between the places he was seeking and those to which he misapplied their names, he would not have died in the belief that he had discovered a new way to the Old World. To anticipate a little what will be revealed later in the unfolding of this story: it was Amerigo Vespucci, and not Columbus, who first applied to this newly discovered hemisphere the title Mundus Novus, or New World. However, we will not discuss that question now, but merely remark that Cathay was identical with northern China, while Mangi was the southern territory of that vast empire which, in Marco Polo's time, was in possession of Kublai Khan. Chambalu, or Peking, was its capital, while the "most noble and vast city of Quinsay," or Cansay, is the ancient King-sze connected with Peking by the grand canal.
The large island of Cipango, or Zipangu, outlying upon the coast of Cathay, was probably Japan, or Formosa; though its golden-tiled temples may never have been seen by the Polos, nor its red pearls have come into their hands. Forty years after Columbus began his vain search, Pizarro found and plundered the gold-plated temples of Cuzco, which were as rich as any described by Marco Polo in his account of Cipango; and in the Bahamas archipelago, through which the Spaniards passed in the voyage of 1492, precious pink pearls have been discovered in great numbers and of surpassing beauty.
Vasco da Gama, in 1497, was to open the way by water to the vast Oriental seas—to Calicut and Cathay—but until the last quarter of the fifteenth century the commerce of the eastern hemisphere depended mainly upon transportation by land. "Voyages of much extent were almost unknown, and the mariner confined himself to inland waters, or hovered along the shores of the great Western Ocean, without venturing out of sight of land.... The thriving republics of Italy were the carriers of the world. For many centuries their citizens were almost the only agents for commercial communication with the countries of the East. Venice and Genoa maintained establishments on the farthest shores of the Mediterranean and Black seas.