About four hundred years ago there came to Spain an Italian sailor who believed that the earth is round. Such a belief may not seem at all strange to us, but to the people of that time it appeared to be very foolish and unreasonable. Almost everybody laughed at the Italian, and called him a silly fellow.
“Have you eyes?” they asked. “If so, you need only to open them and look about you to see that the earth is as flat as the top of a table.”
“You may think it is flat,” he answered, “and indeed it does appear to be so. But I know it is round; and if I had only a good ship or two, and some trusty sailors, I would prove it to you. I would sail westward across the great ocean, and in the end would reach the Indies and China, which must be on the other side of the great round world.”
“Who ever heard of such nonsense!” cried his learned critics. “Everybody knows that China and the Indies are in the far East, and that they can be reached only by a dangerous voyage through the Mediterranean Sea, and long journeys with camels across the great desert. Yet, here is Mr. Crack-brain, an Italian sailor, who says he can go to the East by sailing west. One might as well try to reach the moon by going down into a deep well.”
“But you don’t understand me,” answered the man whom they had called Mr. Crack-brain. “Here is an apple. Let us suppose that it is the earth. I stick a pin on this side, and call it Spain. On the other side I stick another pin, and call it the Indies. Now suppose a fly lights upon the apple at the point which I have called Spain. By turning to the right, or eastward, he can travel round to the Indies with but little trouble; or by turning to the left, or westward, he can reach the same place with just as much ease, and in really a shorter time. Do you see?”
“Do we see?” said his hearers. “Most certainly we see the apple, and we can imagine that we see the fly. It is very hard, however, to imagine that the earth is an apple, or anything like it. For, suppose that it were so: what would become of all the water in the seas and the great ocean? Why, it would run off at the blossom end of the apple, which you call the South Pole; and all the rocks and trees and men would follow it. Or, suppose that men could stick to the lower part of the earth as the fly does to the lower part of the apple—how very silly it would be to think of them walking about with their heads hanging down!”
“And suppose,” said one of the doubters, who thought himself very wise,—“suppose that the earth is round, and suppose that the water should not spill off, and suppose you should sail to the other side, as you want to do, how are you to get back? Did anybody ever hear of a ship sailing uphill?”
And so, with sneering remarks, the wise men dismissed the whole subject. They said it was not worth while for them to spend their time in talking about such things. But the man whom they had called Mr. Crack-brain would not give up his theory. He was not the first man to believe that the earth is round—this he knew; but he hoped to be the first to prove it by sailing westward, and thus finally reaching the Indies, and the rich countries of the far East. And yet he had no ship, he was very poor, and the few friends whom he had were not able to give him any help.
“My only hope,” he said, “is to persuade the king and queen to furnish me with a ship.”
But how should an unknown Italian sailor make himself heard by the king and queen of the most powerful country in Europe?