"Paul, the physicist, to Christopher Columbus greeting.[442] I have received your letters, with the things which you sent me, for which I thank you very much. Toscanelli's second letter to Columbus. I regard as noble and grand your project of sailing from east to west according to the indications furnished by the map which I sent you, and which would appear still more plainly upon a sphere. I am much pleased to see that I have been well understood, and that the voyage has become not only possible but certain,[443] fraught with honour as it must be, and inestimable gain, and most lofty fame among all Christian people. You cannot take in all that it means except by actual experience, or without such copious and accurate information as I have had from eminent and learned men who have come from those places to the Roman court, and from merchants who have traded a long time in those parts, persons whose word is to be believed (persone di grande autorità). When that voyage shall be accomplished, it will be a voyage to powerful kingdoms, and to cities and provinces most wealthy and noble, abounding in all sorts of things most desired by us; I mean, with all kinds of spices and jewels in great abundance. It will also be advantageous for those kings and princes who are eager to have dealings and make alliances with the Christians of our countries, and to learn from the erudite men of these parts,[444] as well in religion as in all other branches of knowledge. For these reasons, and many others that might be mentioned, I do not wonder that you, who are of great courage, and the whole Portuguese nation, which has always had men distinguished in all such enterprises, are now inflamed with desire[445] to execute the said voyage."
These letters are intensely interesting, especially the one to Martinez, which reveals the fact that as early as 1474 the notion that a westward route to the Indies would be shorter than the southward route had somehow been suggested to Alfonso V.; Who first suggested the feasibleness of a westward route? Was it Columbus? and had, moreover, sufficiently arrested his attention to lead him to make inquiries of the most eminent astronomer within reach. Who could have suggested this notion to the king of Portugal? Was it Columbus, the trained mariner and map-maker, who might lately have been pondering the theories of Ptolemy and Mela as affected by the voyage of Santarem and Escobar, and whose connection with the Moñiz and Perestrelo families would now doubtless facilitate his access to the court? On some accounts this may seem probable, especially if we bear in mind Columbus's own statement implying that his appeals to the crown dated almost from the beginning of his fourteen years in Portugal.
All the circumstances, however, seem to be equally consistent with the hypothesis that the first suggestion of the Perhaps it was Toscanelli. westward route may have come from Toscanelli himself, through the medium of the canon Martinez, who had for so many years been a member of King Alfonso's household. The words at the beginning of the letter lend some probability to this view: "I have formerly spoken with you about a shorter route to the places of Spices by ocean navigation than that which you are pursuing by Guinea." It was accordingly earlier than 1474—how much earlier does not appear—that such discussions between Toscanelli and Martinez must probably have come to the ears of King Alfonso; and now, very likely owing to the voyage of Santarem and Escobar, that monarch began to think it worth while to seek for further information, "an exhibition to the eye," so that mariners not learned in astronomy like Toscanelli might "grasp and comprehend" the shorter route suggested. It is altogether probable that the Florentine astronomer, who was seventy-seven years old when he wrote this letter, had already for a long time entertained the idea of a westward route; and a man in whom the subject aroused so much enthusiasm could hardly have been reticent about it. It is not likely that Martinez was the only person to whom he descanted[446] upon the glory and riches to be found by sailing "straight to Cathay," and there were many channels through which Columbus might have got some inkling of his views, even before going to Portugal.
However this may have been, the letter clearly proves that at that most interesting period, in or about 1474, Columbus was already meditating upon the westward route.[447] Whether he owed the idea to Toscanelli, or not, is a question of no great The idea was suggested by the globular form of the earth; importance so far as concerns his own originality; for the idea was already in the air. The originality of Columbus did not consist in his conceiving the possibility of reaching the shores of Cathay by sailing west, but in his conceiving it in such distinct and practical shape as to be ready to make the adventure in his own person. As a matter of theory the possibility of such a voyage could not fail to be suggested by the globular form of the earth; and ever since the days of Aristotle that had been generally admitted by men learned in physical science. Aristotle proved, from the different altitudes of the pole-star in different places, that the earth must necessarily be a globe. Moreover, says Aristotle, "some stars are seen in Egypt or at Cyprus, but are not seen in the countries to the north of these; and the stars that in the north are visible while they make a complete circuit, there undergo a setting. So that from this it is manifest, not only that the form of the earth is round, but also that it is part of not a very large sphere; for otherwise the difference would not be so obvious to persons making so small a change of place. Wherefore we may judge that those persons who connect the region in the neighbourhood of the Pillars of Hercules with that towards India, and who assert that in this way the sea is ONE, do not assert things very improbable."[448] It thus appears that more than eighteen centuries before and was as old as Aristotle. Columbus took counsel of Toscanelli, "those persons" to whom Aristotle alludes were discussing, as a matter of theory, this same subject. Eratosthenes held that it would be easy enough to sail from Spain to India on the same parallel were it not for the vast extent of the Atlantic ocean.[449] On the other hand, Seneca maintained that the distance was probably not so very great, and that with favouring winds a ship might make the voyage in a few days.[450] In one of his tragedies Seneca has a striking passage[451] which has been repeatedly quoted as referring to the discovery of America, and is certainly one of the most notable instances of prophecy on record. There will come a time, he says, in the later years, when Ocean shall loosen the bonds by which we have been confined, when an immense land shall lie revealed, and Opinions of ancient writers. Tethys shall disclose new worlds, and Thule will no longer be the most remote of countries. In Strabo there is a passage, less commonly noticed, which hits the truth—as we know it to-day—even more closely. Having argued that the total length of the Inhabited World is only about a third part of the circumference of the earth in the temperate zone, he suggests it as possible, or even probable, that within this space there may be another Inhabited World, or even more than one; but such places would be inhabited by different races of men, with whom the geographer, whose task it is to describe the known world, has no concern.[452] Nothing could better illustrate the philosophical character of Strabo's mind. In such speculations, so far as his means of verification went, he was situated somewhat as we are to-day with regard to the probable inhabitants of Venus or Mars.
Early in the Christian era we are told by an eminent Greek astronomer that the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was accepted by all competent persons except the Epicureans.[453] Among the Fathers of the Church there was some difference of opinion; while in general they Opinions of Christian writers. denied the existence of human beings beyond the limits of their Œcumene, or Inhabited World, this denial did not necessarily involve disbelief in the globular figure of the earth.[454] The views of the great mass of people, and of the more ignorant of the clergy, down to the time of Columbus, were probably well represented in the book of Cosmas Indicopleustes already cited.[455] Nevertheless among the more enlightened clergy the views of the ancient astronomers were never quite forgotten, and in the great revival of intellectual life in the thirteenth century the doctrine of the earth's sphericity was again brought prominently into the foreground. We find Dante basing upon it the cosmical theory elaborated in his immortal poem.[456] In 1267 Roger Bacon. Roger Bacon—stimulated, no doubt, by the reports of the ocean east of Cathay—collected passages from ancient writers to prove that the distance from Spain to the eastern shores of Asia could not be very great. Bacon's argument and citations were copied in an extremely curious book, the "Imago Mundi," published in 1410 by the Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly, Bishop of Cambrai, better known by the Latinized form of his name as The "Imago Mundi" of Petrus Alliacus. Petrus Alliacus. This treatise, which throughout the fifteenth century enjoyed a great reputation, was a favourite book with Columbus, and his copy of it, covered with marginal annotations in his own handwriting, is still preserved among the priceless treasures of the Biblioteca Colombina.[457] He found in it strong confirmation of his views, and it is not impossible that the reading of it may have first put such ideas into his head. Such a point, however, can hardly be determined. As I have already observed, these ideas were in the air. What Columbus did was not to originate them, but to incarnate them in facts and breathe into them the breath of life. It was one thing to suggest, as a theoretical possibility, that Cathay might be reached by sailing westward; and it was quite another thing to prove that the enterprise was feasible with the ships and instruments then at command.
Annotations by Columbus.
The principal consideration, of course, was the distance to be traversed; and here Columbus was helped by an error which he shared with many geographers of his day. He somewhat underestimated the size of the earth, and at the same time greatly overestimated the length of Asia. The first astronomer to calculate, by scientific methods, the circumference of our planet at the equator was Ancient estimates of the size of the globe and the length of the Œcumene. Eratosthenes (B. C. 276-196), and he came—all things considered—fairly near the truth; he made it 25,200 geographical miles (of ten stadia), or about one seventh too great. The true figure is 21,600 geographical miles, equivalent to 24,899 English statute miles.[458] Curiously enough, Posidonius, in revising this calculation a century later, reduced the figure to 18,000 miles, or about one seventh too small. The circumference in the latitude of Gibraltar he estimated at 14,000 miles; the length of the Œcumene, or Inhabited World, he called 7,000; the distance across the Atlantic from the Spanish strand to the eastern shores of Asia was the other 7,000. The error of Posidonius was partially rectified by Ptolemy, who made the equatorial circumference 20,400 geographical miles, and the length of a degree 56.6 miles.[459] This estimate, in which the error was less than one sixteenth, prevailed until modern times. Ptolemy also supposed the Inhabited World to extend over about half the circumference of the temperate zone, but the other half he imagined as consisting largely of bad lands, quagmires, and land-locked seas, instead of a vast and open ocean.[460]