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Updated: May 9, 2025
Columbus was consulted, and supported the ideas of Toscanelli with all his influence; but without result, for the King of Portugal, who was engaged at the time in war with Spain, died, without having been able to give any attention to maritime discoveries. His successor, John II., adopted the plans of Columbus and Toscanelli with enthusiasm.
His geographical ideas were derived, they say, from Behaim and Toscanelli; his nautical skill from Pinzon; his certainty of finding new lands from Alonzo Sanchez; his courage and daring from some of his fellow-voyagers. We are pointed to his double reckoning on his first voyage, by which he deceived his sailors as to their true distance from Spain, as evidence of a false nature.
Martin Béhaim, of whom we have already spoken, was amongst his correspondents, and also the celebrated Florentine astronomer, Toscanelli, whose opinions in some degree influenced those of Columbus. At this time Columbus, according to the portrait of him given by his biographer Washington Irving, was a tall man, of robust and noble presence.
Toscanelli said it was easy enough: "You may be certain of meeting with extensive kingdoms, populous cities, and rich provinces, abounding in all sorts of precious stones; and your visit will cause great rejoicing to the king and princes of those distant lands, besides opening a way for communication between them and the Christians, and the instruction of them in the Catholic religion and the arts we possess."
Columbus never alludes to this superstition. He had always meant to sail first for the Canaries, which were the most western land then known in the latitude of his voyage. From Lisbon to the famous city of "Quisay," or "Quinsay," in Asia, Toscanelli, his learned correspondent, supposed the distance to be less than one thousand leagues westward.
In fact, a Florentine astronomer named Toscanelli furnished Columbus with a map showing how this voyage could be accomplished, and Columbus afterwards used this map in determining his route. That the idea was not original with Columbus takes nothing from his fame; his greatness lies in being the first fully to grasp its meaning, fully to believe it, fully to devote his life to it.
It became his bedside companion; and his copy of it, full of notes in his own handwriting and in that of his brother Bartholomew as well, may be seen to-day in the Columbian Library in Sevilla. For centuries it has been asserted by men who have written about Columbus that the most important event during his Lisbon days was his correspondence with a learned astronomer named Paolo Toscanelli.
See Vignaud, Toscanelli and Columbus. Dutton, New York, 1902. The time approacheth and now is, that we of England may share and part stakes, both with the Spaniard and the Portingale, in part of America, and other regions yet undiscovered. No feeling of exultation accompanied the discovery of America.
It is unnecessary to give further refutation to this charge, especially as it is clear that Columbus communicated his idea of discovery to Paulo Toscanelli of Florence, in 1474, ten years previous to the date assigned by Garcilasso de la Vega for this occurrence. No. Martin Behem. This able geographer was born in Nuremburg, in Germany, about the commencement of the year 1430.
It is to this period that I attribute the inception, if not the execution, of the forgery of the Toscanelli correspondence, if, as I believe, it was a forgery.
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