CHAPTER II. INVENTION AND DISCOVERY: THE RENAISSANCE.
We have glanced at the new life of Europe in its political manifestations. We have now to view this new life in other relations: we have to inquire how it acted as a stimulus to intellectual effort in different directions.
The term Renaissance is frequently applied at present not only to the "new birth" of art and letters, but to all the characteristics, taken together, of the period of transition from the Middle Ages to modern life. The transformation in the structure and policy of states, the passion for discovery, the dawn of a more scientific method of observing man and nature, the movement towards more freedom of intellect and of conscience, are part and parcel of one comprehensive change,—a change which even now has not reached its goal. It was not so much "the arts and the inventions, the knowledge and the books, which suddenly became vital at the time of the Renaissance," that created the new epoch: it was "the intellectual energy, the spontaneous outburst of intelligence, which enabled mankind at that moment to make use of them."
INVENTIONS: GUNPOWDER.—In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, there were brought into practical use several inventions most important in their results to civilization. Of these the principal were gunpowder, the mariner's compass, and printing by movable types. Gunpowder was not first made by Schwartz, a monk of Freiburg, as has often been asserted. We have notices, more or less obscure, of the use of an explosive material resembling it, among the Chinese, among the Indians in the East as early as Alexander the Great, and among the Arabs. It was first brought into use in firearms in the middle of the fourteenth century. The effect was to make infantry an effective force, and to equalize combatants, since a peasant could handle a gun as well as a knight. Another consequence has been to mitigate the brutalizing influence of war on the soldiery, by making it less a hand-to-hand encounter, an encounter with swords and spears, attended with bloodshed, and kindling personal animosity; and by rendering it possible to hold in custody large numbers of captives, whose lives, therefore, can be spared.
THE COMPASS.—The properties of the magnetic needle were not first applied to navigation, as has been thought, by Flavio Gioja, but long before his time, as early as the twelfth century, the compass came into general use. Navigation was no longer confined to the Mediterranean and to maritime coasts. The sailor could push out into the ocean without losing himself on its boundless waste.
PRINTING.—Printing, which had been done to some extent by wooden blocks, was probably first done with movable types (about 1450) by John Gutenberg, who was born at Meniz, but who lived long at Strasburg. He was furnished with capital by an associate, Faust, and worked in company with a skillful copyist of manuscripts, Schöffer. Gutenberg brought the art to such perfection, that in 1456 a complete Latin Bible was printed. Within a short time, printing-presses were set up in all the principal cities of Germany and Italy. As an essential concomitant, linen and cotton paper came into vogue in the room of the costly parchment. Books were no longer confined to the rich. Despite the censorship of the press, thought traveled from city to city and from land to land. It was a sign of a new era, that Maximilian in Germany and Louis XI. in France founded a postal system.
NEW ROUTE TO INDIA.—The discovery by the Portuguese of the islands of Porto Santo and Madeira (1419-1420), of the Canary Islands and of the Azores, was followed by their discovery of the coast of Upper Guinea, with its gold-dust, ivory, and gums (1445). The Pope, to whom was accorded the right to dispose of the heathen and of newly discovered lands, granted to the Portuguese the possession of these regions, and of whatever discoveries they should make as far as India. From Lower Guinea (Congo), Bartholomew Diaz reached the southern point of Africa (1486), which King John II. named the Cape of Good Hope. Then, under Emanuel the Great (1495-1521), Vasco da Gama found the way to East India, round the Cape, by sailing over the Indian Ocean to the coast of Malabar, and into the harbor of Calicut (1498). The Portuguese encountered the resistance of the Mohammedans to their settlement; but by their valor and persistency, especially by the agency of their leaders Almeida and the brave Albuquerque, their trading-posts were established on the coast.
DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.—The grand achievement in maritime exploration in this age was the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa. The conviction that India could be reached by sailing in a westerly direction took possession of his mind. Having sought in vain for the patronage of John II. of Portugal, and having sent his brother Bartholomew to apply for aid from Henry VII. of England, he was at length furnished with three ships by Queen Isabella of Castile, to whom Granada had just submitted (1492). Columbus was to have the station of grand admiral and viceroy over the lands to be discovered, with a tenth part of the incomes to be drawn from them, and the rank of a nobleman for himself and his posterity. The story of an open mutiny on his vessels does not rest on sufficient proof: that there were alarm and discontent among the sailors, may well be believed. On the 11th of October, Columbus thought that he discovered a light in the distance. At two o'clock in the morning of Oct. 12, a sailor on the Pinta espied the dim outline of the beach, and shouted, "Land, land!" It was an island called Guanahani, named by Columbus, in honor of Jesus, San Salvador. Its beauty and productiveness excited admiration; but neither here nor on the large islands of Cuba (or Juana) and Hayti (Hispaniola), which were discovered soon after, were there found the gold and precious stones which the navigators and their patrons at home so eagerly desired. Columbus built a fort on the island of Hispaniola, and founded a colony. The name of West Indies was applied to the new lands. Columbus lived and died in the belief that the region which he discovered belonged to India. Of an intermediate continent, and of an ocean beyond it, he did not dream. The Pope granted to Ferdinand and Isabella all the newly discovered regions of America, from a line stretching one hundred leagues west of the Azores. Afterwards Ferdinand allowed to the king of Portugal that the line should run three hundred and seventy, instead of one hundred, leagues west of these islands. In two subsequent voyages (1493-1496, 1498-1500), Columbus discovered Jamaica and the Little Antilles, the Caribbean Islands, and finally the mainland at the mouths of the Orinoco (1498). In 1497 John Cabot, a Venetian captain living in England, while in quest of a north-west passage to India, touched at Cape Breton, and followed the coast of North America southward for a distance of nine hundred miles. Shortly after, Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine, employed first by Spain and then by Portugal, explored in several voyages the coast of South America. The circumstance that his full descriptions were published (1504) caused the name of America, first at the suggestion of the printer, to be attached to the new world.
LATER VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS.—On his return from his first voyage, Columbus was received with distinguished honors by the Spanish sovereigns. But he suffered from plots caused by envy, both on the islands and at court. Once he was sent home in fetters by Bobadilla, a commissioner appointed by Ferdinand. He was exonerated from blame, but the promises which had been made to him were not fulfilled. A fourth voyage was not attended by the success in discovery which he had hoped for, and the last two years of his life were weary and sad. Isabella had died; and in 1506 the great explorer, who with all his other virtues combined a sincere piety, followed her to the tomb.
THE PACIFIC.—The spirit of adventure, the hunger for wealth and especially for the precious metals, and zeal for the conversion of the heathen, were the motives which combined in different proportions to set on foot exploring and conquering expeditions to the unknown regions of the West. The exploration of the North-American coast, begun by John Cabot (perhaps also by his son), and the Portuguese Cortereal (1501), continued from Labrador to Florida. In 1513 Balboa, a Spaniard at Darien, fought his way to a height on the Isthmus of Panama, whence he descried the Pacific Ocean. Descending to the shore, and riding into the water up to his thighs, in the name of the king he took possession of the sea. In 1520 Magellan, a Portuguese captain, sailed round the southern cape of America, and over the ocean to which he gave the name of Pacific. He made his way to the East Indies, but was killed on one of the Philippine Islands, leaving it to his companions to finish the voyage around the globe. A little later the Spaniards added first Mexico, and then Peru, to their dominions.