MYTH OF ATLANTIS
In the second place, men had long believed that west of Europe, beyond the strait of Gibraltar, lay mysterious lands. This notion first appears in the writings of the Greek philosopher, Plato, [19] who repeats an old tradition concerning Atlantis. According to Plato, Atlantis had been an island continental in size, but more than nine thousand years before his time it had sunk beneath the sea. Medieval writers accepted this account as true and found support for it in traditions of other western islands, such as the Isles of the Blest, where Greek heroes went after death, and the Welsh Avalon, whither King Arthur, [20] after his last battle, was borne to heal his wounds. A widespread legend of the Middle Ages also described the visit made by St. Brandan, an Irish monk, to the "promised land of the Saints," an earthly paradise far out in the Atlantic. St. Brandan's Island was marked on early maps, and voyages in search of it were sometimes undertaken.
BEHAIM'S GLOBE
The ideas of European geographers in the period just preceding the discovery of America are represented on a map, or rather a globe, which dates from 1492 A.D. It was made by a German navigator, Martin Behaim, for his native city of Nuremberg, where it is still preserved. Behaim shows the mythical island of St. Brandan, lying in mid-ocean, and beyond it Japan (Cipango) and the East Indies. It is clear that he greatly underestimated the distance westward between Europe and Asia. The error was natural enough, for Ptolemy had reckoned the earth's circumference to be about one-sixth less than it is, and Marco Polo had given an exaggerated idea of the distance to which Asia extended on the east. When Columbus set out on his voyage, he firmly believed that a journey of four thousand miles would bring him to Cipango.
[Illustration: BEHAIM'S GLOBE The outlines of North America and South America do not appear on the original globe.]
COLUMBUS, 1446(?)-1506 A.D.
Christopher Columbus was a native of Genoa, where his father followed the humble trade of a weaver. He seems to have obtained some knowledge of astronomy and geography as a student in the university of Pavia, but at an early age he became a sailor. Columbus knew the Mediterranean by heart; he once went to the Guinea coast; and he may have visited Iceland. He settled at Lisbon as a map-maker and married a daughter of one of Prince Henry's sea-captains. As Columbus pored over his maps and charts and talked with seamen about their voyages, the idea came to him that much of the world remained undiscovered and that the distant East could be reached by a shorter route than that which led around Africa.
[Illustration: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, (Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid)
The oldest known portrait of Columbus.]
RESEARCHES OF COLUMBUS
Columbus was a well-read man, and in Aristotle, Ptolemy, and other ancient authorities he found apparent confirmation of his grand idea. Columbus also owned a printed copy of Marco Polo's book, and from his comments, written on the margin, we know how interested he was in Polo's statements referring to Cathay and Cipango. Furthermore, Columbus brought together all the information he could get about the fabled islands of the Atlantic. If he ever went to Iceland, some vague traditions may have reached him there of Norse voyages to Greenland and Vinland. Such hints and rumors strengthened his purpose to sail toward the setting sun in quest of the Indies.