Columbus on Himself by Armesto
Ref: Felipe Fernandez-Armesto (1992). Columbus on Himself. The Folio Society London.
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Summary
Columbus had, perhaps, more influence on mankind than any individual since Muhammad. Despite his humble origins, he rose by dint of spectacular achievements to fame and fortune; he was hailed in his lifetime as a prophet and ‘a new apostle’. Yet he died in the misery of embittered frustration.
The reader of these pages will probably be happy to have avoided Columbus in the flesh. His tireless self-recommendation must have been wearying to others. His egotism approached the obsessive and his self-righteousness, the paranoid. He was loquacious rather than eloquent and he gives the impression of having wearied enemies into opposition and bored friends into assent.
The most consistent single purpose to which Columbus’s life was dedicated was the desire to found a great noble dynasty of his own: the priorities he claimed- the service of God and of the Monarchs of Spain, the advancement of science- appear, by comparison, a subordinate or ancillary.
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Christopher Columbus
Name: Cristoforo Columbo (Italy), Admiral Don Cristobal Colon (Portugal), Christopher Columbus (Spain).
Early Life:
1451: Columbus is born in Genoa, Italy.
1476: Columbus moves to Lisbon, Portugal, after surviving a shipwreck off Cape Saint Vincent. In Portugal, His way of life involved sugar buying trips to islands of the Atlantic- certainly Madeira and Porto Santo and presumably to the Azores and the Canaries.
1478: A young Columbus trades sugar in Madeira for Genoese businessmen.
1478-1480: Marriage of Columbus to Dona Felip Moniz.
1482-1485: Columbus trades along the coast of W. Africa.
1484: Columbus begins seeking support for an attempt to reach Asia by sailing westwards. King John II of Portugal rejects his requests for ships and men. It was Columbus’s egregious demands that deterred the Portuguese from supporting him.
1485: Columbus moves to Spain.
Navigation
Relative or very approximate latitude- sufficient for practical, if not for scientific, purposes- could be gauged by judging the height of the sun at noon or the Pole Star at evening with the naked eye.
Columbus’s preferred method was to time the hours of daylight and read the corresponding latitude from a published chart.
Columbus espoused an estimate for the length of a degree, and therefore the size of the globe, which was too small by about 25%, and about 8% smaller than that of the most favorable estimate at the time.
“I have found that my measurements endorse the opinion of Alfraganus: that is, that to any one degree, 56 and 2/3 miles correspond. Therefore, his estimate can be relied on. Therefore, we may say that the perimeter of the Earth at the equator is 20,400 miles.”-Columbus.
Personality
He shared prejudices common in his day, regarding Judaism as a source of heretical depravity, and was inclined to suspect his opponents of the taint of Jewish provenance.
Egregious social ambition was one of the great driving forces of his life.
Wishful thinking was one of Columbus’s most consistent mental characteristics.
Columbus seems to have come to regard himself as an almost messianic figure.
Three aspects of his character seem to have drawn him towards this rather egotistical cosmology: his habit of turning to God in adversity; a mental condition approaching paranoia; and a tendency to crack under strain.
The learned sources to which he had access; the Imago Mundi of Pierre d’Ailly, Ptolemy’s Geography, and the Historia Rerum of Pius II.
“My signature which it is my present custom to use, which is an .X with an .S above it and an .M with a Roman .A above it and above that an .S and after it a .Y with an .S above.”
.S
.S.A.S.
XMY
El Almirante
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First Voyage
Motivations: The gold of Marco Polo’s reputed Island of Cipangu (most prominent), evangelization of the native populations, extension of the territories of Spain, social ambition for his family, service to God, and the reconquest of Jerusalem (as a necessary precondition to the Last World Emperor and the cosmic struggle of that hero with the Antichrist that, according to Joachim of Fiore, preceded the last days).
Ships
Nina: Supplied by the Pinzon family and commanded by Vicente Yanez.
Pinta: Supplied by the Pinzon family and commanded by Martin Alonso Pinzon.
Santa Maria: Supplied and commanded by Juan de la Cosa?
Navigation
The Atlantic could only be crossed with the aid of prevailing winds; these could be picked up in the Canaries but not much further S. or N.
Columbus kept two logs: a false one showing the shorter distances and a true one the longer.
The estimated speed was compared with the passage of time, reckoned from sand-clocks turned at half hour intervals by ships boys; a boy’s negligence or excessive zeal or eagerness to speed the change of watch could all throw the calculations seriously awry. At a typical juncture of his first ocean crossing, Columbus’s pilots differed by a margin of 10% in their estimates of distance traversed. Columbus’ estimates on distance were subject to an error commonly of ~100%.
Discoveries
Guanahani: Named San Salvador by Columbus; small, flat, fertile, and dotted with pools. It was largely protected by a reef, with what Columbus calls a lagoon in the middle.
Cuba: Columbus seems to have realized almost at once that Cuba was not Cipangu, as he had hoped during his approach: thereafter, references to Cipangu cease, and those to Cathay multiply.
Central Antilles: Visited by Columbus and populated by the Arawak peoples- the Taino and Ciguayo.
Villa de Navidad: A “great town” named by Columbus on Hispaniola.
Misc
Columbus suffered the loneliness of command; he was a member of none of the almost ethnic groups of which his crews were composed- the Basques, for instance, who rioted together, or the men of Palos and Moguer, who were friends of the employees of Pinzon. He suffered unremitting fear of mutiny of perfidy.
His first religious experience occurred on his way home from his first voyage, and the conviction that he was an agent of providence grew on him from then onwards.
Misc Quotes (1st Voyage)
“Some paint themselves white and some red and others with whatever pigment they find.”-Columbus on San Salvador (11 Oct, 1492).
“They must make good servants, of ready grasp, for I see that they very smartly repeat whatever is said to them. And I believe that they will easily be made Christians.”-Columbus on San Salvador (11 Oct, 1492).
“None of them is black, but of the color of the Canary Islanders.”-Columbus (13 Oct, 1492).
“This island is fairly big and very flat, with very green trees and plenty of fresh water, and a huge lagoon in the middle, with no mountains, and it is all very green.”-Columbus on San Salvador (13 Oct, 1492).
“As your Highness will see from seven of them whom I ordered to be seized to take them off and learn our language and then return them. But your Highness, when you so order, can take the whole population off to Castile, or keep them as captives on the island itself, because with a garrison of 50 men they could all be held in subjection and could be made to do whatever is required.”-Columbus on San Salvador (14 Oct, 1492).
“I have no wish to raise sail, but want rather to go on to seek and explore plenty of islands in order to find gold.”-Columbus (15 Oct, 1492).
“On to another very large island which I think must be Cipangu, to judge from the sign language used by the Indians."-Columbus on Isabela (21 Oct, 1492).
I am determined to go to the mainland, to the city of Qui and give your Highnesses letters to the Great Khan and ask for a reply and return with it.”-Columbus on Isabela (21 Oct, 1492).
“Today I should like to leave for the island of Cuba, which I think must be Cipangu.”-Columbus on Isabela (23 Oct, 1492).
“They were the fairest men and women they had found up to that time, so pale skinned that, if they wore clothes and protected themselves from the sun and air, they would be as white as people are in Spain…I treat them as if they were already your subjects.”-Columbus in a village 20km W. of the Trois Rivieres (16 Dec, 1492).
“This people has no recognizable religion nor are they idolaters. But they are very meek and do not know that it is to wreak evil or murder or enslave others; and they are without weapons of war and are so timid that a 100 of them will flee from one of our men.”-Columbus in the mouth of the River Sun- Sania Bay? (12 Nov, 1492).
“Caniba is none other than the people of the Great Khan.”-Columbus at Puerto de la Concepcion (11 Dec, 1492).
“I hope in God that on my return, which I hope to make from Castile, I will find a barrel of gold, traded for by those I am leaving behind; and that they will have found the gold mine and the spicery in such quantities that within 3y, the King and Queen could undertake to prepare to conquer the Holy House: for thus did I insist to your highness that all the profit from this enterprise of mine should be spent, in the conquest of Jerusalem.”-Columbus aboard the Nina (26 Dec, 1942).
“This night we will depart on this voyage in the name of our Lord, without delaying for anything, since I have found what I was looking for and because I want no further unpleasantness with Martin Alonso until their Highnesses hear the news of his journey and of what he has done.-Columbus off Punta Roja or Punta Cabo Isabela (9 Jan, 1492).
“The Behavior of wicked men of scant virtue.”-Columbus on Martin Alonso Pinzon (Jan, 1492).
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Second Voyage
Motivations
Columbus had no difficulty in obtaining a commission to return to his discovery to establish a colony, initiate trade and extend exploration. He was further commanded to produce a map that could be used for negotiations with Portugal on the division of the spoils of the exploration.
Discoveries
The Indians, whom he had extolled as peaceful and labeled as biddable, had risen up and massacred the garrison he had left behind.
Misc
One by one, Columbus’s earlier false predictions- about the gold, the climate, the Indians- are stripped away and the horrible reality of life on a savage frontier is exposed.
Misc Quotes (2nd Voyage)
“Grant a license and permits for sufficient numbers of caravels to come here every year and bring the said cattle and other provisions and the things needed to settle the country and exploit the soil- and to do so at reasonable prices and at the carrier’s expense. The good could be paid for with salves, drawn from among the cannibals.”-Columbus (1494).
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Third Voyage
Misc Quotes (3rd Voyage)
“Maize, which is a kind of grain which grows in spiky cob resembling a spindle.”-Columbus (1498).
“I find that the sea is full of a weed of a kind that resembles pine branches very heavily laden with a growth like that of the mastic plant. And so thick is it that on my first voyage I thought it was a shoal.”-Columbus (1498).
“The result is that I have had more trouble from the Christians than the Indians, am still not at the end of it.”-Columbus (1498).
“I should be their viceroy and Governor in those lands. I should have the tenth part of whatever should be found or had or yielded by way of profit similar the 8th part of the lands.”-Columbus (1498).
“I concluded that the globe is not round in the way they say, but is of the same shape as a pear, which may be very round all over but not in the part where the stalk is, which sticks up; or it is as if someone had a very round ball, and at one point on its surface it was as if a woman’s nipple had been put there; and this teat-like part would be the most prominent and nearest to the sky; an it would be on the equator…And so from all the foregoing it appears that the very mild climate which is to be found there is a result of behing higher up in the world, closer to the refined atmosphere which I am describing.”-Columbus (1498).
“Holy scriptures bear witness that or Lord made the earthly paradise and placed there the tree of life and that from it flows a fountain from which issues the four chief rivers of this world: the Ganges in India, the Tigris and Euphrates in…which divide the mountains and create the land of Mesopotamia and flows into Persia, and the Nile, which rises in Ethiopia and joins the sea at Alexandria.”-Columbus (1498).
“I have come to believe that this land is an enormous continent, of which until not nothing has been known.”-Columbus (13 Aug, 1498).
May it please god to free me of them (of the pains in his eyes), for he well knows that I do not endure these hardships to gather treasure nor find riches for myself, for, to be sure, I know that all is vanity that is accomplished in this world, save what is to the honor and service fo God, which is not to build up riches or causes of pride or many of the other things we use in this world to which we are better affected than to the things that can save our souls.”-Columbus (1498).
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Fourth Voyage
Motivations
“I wrote to my King and Lady Queen, promising that within 7y I would pay for 50K foot and 5K horses for the conquest of the Holy House, and within 5y more another 50K foot and another 5K horse.”-Columbus.
Discoveries
Columbus made at least a tentative identification in his mind of the strait of Malacca, through which Marco Polo had traveled at the foot of the Golden Chersonese (Malay Peninsula).
Misc
The most disturbing feature of Columbus’s mental state at this time was that he sought to circumvent the fact of his failure by senselessly affirming that he had succeeded.
Misc Quotes (4th Voyage)
“Was there ever a man born- not excepting Job himself- who would not die of despair at being denied refuge, at the hazard of his life and soul and those of his son and brothers and companions, in the very land and harbours which, by God’s will and sweating blood, I won for Spain?”-Columbus (1503).
“For, to my sorrow, the 20y of service I have rendered, with so much hardship and danger, have done me so little good that today in Castile I do not possess so much as a tile for my roof. If I want to eat or sleep I have nowhere to go save the inn or the tavern, and more often than not I am without the price of a shirt.”-Columbus (1503).
“This world is small. Land covers six parts of it and only the seventh is covered by water. I say the world is not as big as commonly supposed and that one degree measured along the Earth’s surface at the equator corresponds to 56 and 2/3 miles, as sure as I stand here.”-Columbus (1503).
“For it is certain that if the things that have befallen here are examined, it could be said of them, ‘How much they resemble the experiences of the people of Israel!’-Columbus (1503).
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People
Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566): Spanish explorer appointed as first resident bishop of Chiapas and the first officially appointed ‘Protector of the Indians’. His extensive writings describe the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples.
Las Casas was guided by two considerations above all. First, he was concerned to fulfill his role as protector of the Indians. He collected material designed to show the inhabitants of the New World in the best possible light, as possessing rational intellects, legitimate polities, natural rights, and inherent goodness. Second, he had a providential conception of history, according to which the discovery of the New World was ordained at a propitious moment for the salvation of the natives’ souls, and Columbus was divinely elected as the instrument of it.
Juan de la Cosa (1450-1510): Castilian navigator, cartographer, Explorer, and owner of the ‘Santa Maria’; made the first world map (mappa mundi) depicting the new discoveries of the Americas. De la Cosa died in an armed confrontation with indigenous locals while trying to gain possession of Urabá.
Jose Vizinho (XX-YY): Portuguese Jew and early scientists who translated tables of latitude based on the angle of the declination of the sun.
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397-1482): Italian scientists; among the first to create a map on a grid system.
Luis de Santangel (d. 1498): Treasurer of the Crown of Aragon; instrumental in putting together the consortium that advanced the money for the Columbus enterprise.
Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512): Italian explorer and navigator; the namesake for ‘America’. After befriending Columbus, Vespucci published his claim to have been the first discover of the American continent, which he called “New World”. The claim inspired cartographer Martin Waldseemüller to recognize Vespucci’s accomplishments in 1507 by applying the Latinized form “America” on a map of the new world. Other cartographers followed suit.
Diego Mendez de Salcedo (1472-1536): Undertook one of the most daring adventurers of Columbus’ 4th expedition, canoeing from Jamaica to Hispaniola with a native oarsman, accompanied by a second canoe with a Genoese officer, Bartolomeo Fieschi. The canoes labored against the current; the fresh water gave out; the oarsmen began to die of third and Mendez fell sick. At least, after 5d toiling at the paddles, both canoes reached Hispaniola safely, though at a point far distant from Santo Domingo.
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Misc Quotes
“People have come from Cathay by heading towards the East. We have seen a good deal of evidence of this, most particularly, in Galway in Ireland, a man and a woman in two wooden boats, carried off by a storm in marvelous fashion.”
“As one goes, one’s knowledge grows.”-Columbus.
“For a drop of water can wear a hole even in a stone.”-Columbus.
“All your afflictions are engraved in letters of marble and there is a purpose behind them all.”
“Though the king was in no hurry to satisfy Columbus- delay was the crowns’ constant resource in dealing with petitioners.”
“St. Augustine says that in the end of this world must come in the 7th millennium after its creation. From the creation of the world or of Adam until the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, there elapsed 5343y and 318d. Adding to them 1501 which is not yet finished, makes in all 6844 rising 45. By this account, only 155y are wanting to complete 7000…A very great part of the prophecies and Holy Scriptures has now been fulfilled.”-Columbus.
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Terminology
Cariba (‘Caniba’).
Cipangu: The wealthy island, inspired by Japan, which Marco Polo had rumored to lie in the depths of the Ocean, 1500 miles beyond the coast of China.
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Chronology
1509: Don Diego Colon, Columbus’ son, is appointed Governor-General of the Indies.-Columbus by Armesto.
19 May, 1506: Death of Columbus in Valladolid, Spain.-Columbus by Armesto.
26 Nov, 1504: Death of Castilian Queen Isabella; succeeded by her daughter and son-in-law, Juana and Felipe, while Ferdinand remained in Castile as regent.-Columbus by Armesto.
9 May, 1502-1504: Columbus’s 4th (and last) expedition to the Americas with 4 caravels. Forbidden to enter Hispaniola, he sails southwards to Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama, failing to find either a strait to India or the treasures he has promised.-Columbus by Armesto.
1504: Struck by a hurricane, taxed almost beyond endurance by adverse winds, enfeebled by Malaria, attacked by hostile Indians on the Panama coast, marooned at last on Jamaica, threatened with starvation and repudiated by many of his men, Columbus was to be driven into a mental refuge compounded of wishful thinking, mysticism, and fantasy.-Columbus by Armesto.
1503: Columbus lands on the Jamaican coast at modern St. Ann’s Bay, effectively as castaways, since their ships were unusable and the nearest Spanish settlement, at Santo Domingo, was over 450 miles away including more than 100 miles of open water. A year was spent on the rebellious and incommodious island before relief arrived.-Columbus by Armesto.
6 Jan, 1503: The Feast of Kings; Columbus’s fleet arrives at the mouth of the river which Columbus calls Belen- Bethlehem.-Columbus by Armesto.
End Jul, 1502: Columbus reaches the coast of Belize, near Bonacca, at the E. end of the Bay Islands.-Columbus by Armesto.
Jun-Jul, 1502: Opposed by southerly winds, Columbus could not resume his explorations on the coast of Paria and heads W.-Columbus by Armesto.
Jun, 1502: In a storm off Hispaniola, Ovando loses 19 ships, >500 sailors. The records of Columbus and Bobadilla’s administration are lost, and so is the largest shipment of gold yet dispatched for Spain. The only ship to reach Castile was one that bore part of Columbus’s own revenues.-Columbus by Armesto.
9 May, 1502: Columbus departs for the Americas on his 4th voyage with 4 caravels that make the crossing in only 21d.-Columbus by Armesto.
Feb, 1502: The New Governor of Hispaniola, Nicolas de Ovando, departs for the Indies with 30 ships.-Columbus by Armesto.
Feb, 1502: Columbus obtains leave to make a further voyage across the Ocean Sea.-Columbus by Armesto.
1499: Alonso de Hojeda voyages to the pearl fisheries of Paria with Amerigo Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa.-Columbus by Armesto.
1498-1500: Columbus’s 3rd voyage to the Americas with 6 ships; they explore Trinidad and some of Northern S. America; allegations of antagonization by him and his brothers to indigenous chiefs and poor administration lead Columbus and his brothers to be returned to Spain in chains (Britannica).
Columbus left two accounts of the crossing: the first is in the form of a partial copy by Las Casas of a letter written to Ferdinand and Isabella on arrival in Hispaniola and sent to Spain in Oct, 1498; the second survives in a few fragments extracted from a journal and included in a work of Las Casas.-Columbus by Armesto.
1499: Columbus arrives in Hispaniola to find chaos; Francisco Roldan had rebelled against the rule of Bartolome Colon and had withdrawn with followers of his own to live off the Indians.-Columbus by Armesto.
5 Aug, 1498: Columbus makes the first recorded European landing on the American mainland, at an unk site, possibly Ensenada Yacua.-Columbus by Armesto.
Aug, 1498: Columbus anchors in the mouth of a river (River Guiria). Many natives arrive, calling the region the land of Paria.-Columbus by Armesto.
31 Jul, 1498: Columbus’s ships spot the island they name ‘Trinidad’, naming the cape they enter the ‘Cape of Galera’.-Columbus by Armesto.
30 May, 1498: Columbus departs Sanlucar for the America’s on his third voyage, sailing from Spain to Madeira to Gran Canaria and thence to the Cape Verde Islands, at which point he heads S. to the equator close to the parallel of Sierra Leone in Guinea where the heat was so intense and the sun’s rays so hot “I expected to burn.”-Columbus by Armesto.
1496: Jose Vizinho translates the astronomical tables of Zacuto, revolutionizing oceanic exploration by allowing mariners to accurately determine their position while at sea (Britannica).
1494: The Treaty of Tordesillas is signed between Spain and Portugal dividing the Western Hemisphere between the two (Britannica).
1493-1496: Columbus 2nd Voyage to the Americas with 17 ships and 1300 men that make the crossing in 29d. He returns to Hispaniola, explores the Caribbean, and founds several cities. Columbus leaves two of his brothers in charge on Hispaniola.-Columbus by Armesto.
3 Aug, 1492- Mar, 1493: Columbus 1st Voyage; with 3 caravels and a combined crew of 90 sailors, Columbus crosses the Atlantic in 33d and discovers the Americas.-Columbus by Armesto.
15 Mar, 1493: Columbus arrives in Palos, Spain after departing Portugal 6 days prior.-Columbus by Armesto.
4 Mar, 1493: Columbus arrives in Lisbon, taking refuge there, and conducts three interviews with the King of Portugal before leaving 9 days later.-Columbus by Armesto.
Feb-Mar, 1493: Fierce storms ravage Columbus’s ships, splitting them apart and pushing the Santa Maria N. towards Portugal.-Columbus by Armesto.
14 Feb, 1493: Columbus runs into a terrible storm which provokes the first of a long series of increasingly febrile religious experiences. Two days later, he reaches the Azores.-Columbus by Armesto.
15 Jan, 1493: Columbus’s crews set sail for Spain, encountering a fair wind. They lose sight of Hispaniola the following day.-Columbus by Armesto.
10 Jan, 1493: Columbus’s crews carry off four Indian men and two boys by force at Rio de Gracia or Puerto Blanco; And when it was time to set sail from there, he carried off four Indian men and two boys by force. The Admiral orders them to be well dressed and return to shore.-Columbus by Armesto.
6 Jan, 1493: Martin Alonso Pinzon rejoins the expedition, bearing a further large quantity of gold which he claims to have obtained by trading.-Columbus by Armesto.
Early morning, 25 Dec, 1492: Columbus’s ship the Santa Maria is lost after running aground on a reef. Columbus’s thoughts turn homewards and he fits the disaster of the loss of his ship into his providential scheme of things by characterizing it as a miracle intended to provide him with the means of building a fort.-Columbus by Armesto.
20 Nov, 1492: Martin Alonso Pinzon sails off without leave.-Columbus by Armesto.
17 Oct, 1492: The first big piece of gold is reported.-Columbus by Armesto.
15-23 Oct, 1492: Columbus and his crew reconnoiter the three small islands which he names Santa Maria de le Concepcion, Fernandina, and Isabela.-Columbus by Armesto.
12 Oct, 1492: Columbus’ fleet makes landfall in the Bahamas.-Columbus by Armesto.
Thu, 11 Oct, 1492: Columbus records European’s first sight of the America’s, which he names ‘San Salvador’ and its natives, whom he calls ‘naked people’. As he was approaching from the latitude of Gomera and heading SW, Columbus could have arrived at almost any of the islands of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos.-Columbus by Armesto.
3 Oct, 1492: Columbus privately reckons they had covered over 2000 miles of open water.-Columbus by Armesto.
19 Sep, 1492: Columbus’ pilots declare their calculated positions; the Nina’s pilot ~440 leagues beyond the Canaries; the Pinta’s ~420; and the Santa Maria ~400.-Columbus by Armesto.
0800, 3 Aug, 1492: Columbus departs Palos from the bar of Saltes to cross the Atlantic with three ships. By 9 Aug the pass Tenerife as it erupts. After a brief stay in the Canaries, they depart from Gomera on 6 Sep.-Columbus by Armesto.
12 May, 1492: Columbus departs Granada by land for Palos to prepare his three caravels for voyage.-Columbus by Armesto.
1492: Martin Behaim produces a globe of the Earth in Nuremberg.-Columbus by Armesto.
1489: A world map depicting Cipangu in a position most nearly corresponding to that of Cuba is made by Henricus Martellus Germanus.-Columbus by Armesto.
1484: Columbus presents his plans to the Portuguese king for a western route to the Indies which is evaluated by a committee of experts headed by Martin Behaim. The committee decide against Columbus’ plans to sail west, correctly judging that Columbus had seriously underestimated the size of the world (Britannica).-Columbus by Armesto.
1483: Jose Vizinho voyages to the Gulf of Guinea and produces detailed maps of areas of the Eastern Atlantic that had been unknown to Europeans until then (Britannica).-Columbus by Armesto.
Late 13c: In prophetic writings, Arnau de Vilanova ascribes an eschatological role for Aragonese Kings, including the renovation of the Church, the conquest of Jerusalem, and the creation of a united world-wide empire. This programme was borrowed from the late 12c biblical divinations of Abbot Joachim of Fiore, who was one of the most influential sources of Late Medieval Chiliastic traditions- Joachimism.-Columbus by Armesto.
Early 7c: Etymologies is written by St. Isidore of Sevilla, showing the earth as spherical (Britannica).
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