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The seemingly well-established view that Columbus when he discovered America was in search of a direct western route to the East Indies and Cathay, and that he had been led to form this plan by correspondence with the Florentine scholar Toscanelli, was attacked by Henry Vignaud, La Lettre et la Carte de Toscanelli sur la Route des Indes par L'Orient , and in a translation and extension of the same work under the title Toscanelli and Columbus . Vignaud considers the letter of Toscanelli a forgery, and the object of Columbus in making the voyage the discovery of a certain island of which he had been informed by a dying pilot.
He made his application, and the busy monarchs once more adopted their usual polite tactics. They appointed a junta, which was presided over by no less a person than the Cardinal of Spain, Gonzales de Mendoza: Once more the weary business was gone through, but Columbus must have had some hopes of success, since he did not produce his forged Toscanelli correspondence.
This old name afterwards gave the name by which the French still call the West Indies, Les Antilles. And from Antilia to Japan it will be two hundred and twenty-five leagues." Toscanelli says again, "You see that the voyage that you wish to attempt is much legs difficult than would be thought. You would be sure of this if you met as many people as I do who have been in the country of spices."
Columbus had long before, however, had a knowledge of the work, if not by actual inspection, at least through his correspondence with Toscanelli in 1474, and had derived from it all the light it was capable of furnishing, before he ever came to Palos.
In a map drawn by the Florentine physician, Toscanelli, which was sent by him to Columbus in 1474 to give his impression of the Asiatic coast, lying, as he supposed, across the Atlantic, there appears the island of St. Brandan.
Some of the captains took an interest in the sailor who made such splendid maps and was so eager to go on dangerous exploring trips, and they brought him to the notice of the King of Portugal. One of them, Toscanelli, wrote of the young Christopher's "great and noble desire to pass to where the spices grow," and listened with interest to his plans to reach those rich spice lands by sailing west.
But the strange thing is that Columbus never made use of it in pleading before kings, nor did he even mention Toscanelli and the route to India. Most Columbian scholars therefore doubt its genuineness, and think it was not written by Toscanelli in 1474, but by some one in Lisbon long after Columbus had actually made his discovery.
It was a risky thing to do, and must in any case be used only as a very last resource; which would account for the fact that the Toscanelli correspondence was never used at all, and is not mentioned in any document known to men written until long after Columbus's death.
But there was a learned mathematician, Toscanelli of Florence, who perceived that, as the world was round, a mariner must necessarily reach Japan, China, and India by sailing westwards from Europe, and as early as 1474 he produced maps and other proofs of the correctness of his theory. It was Columbus, by his boldness and ability, who converted this theory into fact.
He tells us that his attention was drawn to this subject by the writings of Averroes, but among his friends he numbered Toscanelli, a Florentine, who had turned his attention to astronomy, and had become a strong advocate of the globular form. In Genoa itself Columbus met with but little encouragement. He then spent many years in trying to interest different princes in his proposed attempt.
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