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Covilham was furnished with a very curious map for these times, by the Prince Emanuel, afterwards king of Portugal, which had been copied and composed, with great care and secrecy, by the licentiate Calzadilla, afterwards bishop of Viseo, assisted by Doctor Rodrigo, and a Jewish physician named Moses; which map asserted the practicability of passing by sea to India round the southern extremity of Africa, on some obscure information which had been collected by those who constructed it.
While matters were in this train, by the advice of one Doctor Calzadilla in whom he reposed great confidence, the king of Portugal resolved to dispatch a caravel in secret to attempt making the discovery which my father had proposed to him; as, if he could make the discovery in this clandestine manner, he should be freed from the obligation of bestowing any great reward on the occasion.
King John, however, referred the matter to three persons on whom he placed great reliance in matters relating to cosmography and discovery; one of these was Don James Ortez, bishop of Ceuta who was a Spaniard, born at Calzadilla in the commandary of St Jago, and commonly called the Doctor Calzadilla; the other two were Roderick and Joseph, two Jewish physicians.
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