Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/865

 TOSCANELLI

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TOSCANELLI

that the western route across the ocean could only cover 130°. For a half century the Portuguese had sought to sail around Africa towards the east. Tos- caneUi seems to have made them repeated proposals as to the possibility of a western route, without, how- ever, being able to convince the Portuguese of the feasibility of his theory.

If we may believe the tradition connecting Tos- canelli and Columbus, then Toscanelli wrote, in answer to repeated requests of King Alfonso, the cele- brated letter dated 2.5 June, 1474, to the confessor Canon Ferdam Martins of Lisbon whom he knew. In this letter, which was accompanied by a map, he sug- gested clear directions for the carrying out of his scheme. This letter had no decisive effect upon the king but probably influenced the adventurous Chris- topher Columbus, then in the full vigour of manhood. Columbus, who had lived in Lisbon from 1476, heard

Toscanelli's chart, however, has not been preserved, either in the original or in a copy. A successful reconstruction of this chart was made by Hermann Wagner of Gottingen which shows that Toscanelli covered the customary nautical chart of the fifteenth century with the reticulations of a square flat chart, upon which direction and distance could be correctly measured by means of the spaces. It is not surpris- ing that Columbus was overwhelmed with delight when he saw it, that he took it with him on his first westward voyage, and had absolute confidence in it. Consequently his two biographers are right in laying so much emphasis on the controlling influence of Tos- canelli over Columbus. They even praise the Flor- entine scholar as the actual father of the great idea of sailing to India by the western route. A diametri- cally opposite opinion has been expressed by the French scholar Henri Vignaud, who since the holding

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ToscANELu's Chart, made in 1474, reconstructed by H. Wagner, 1894 It is believed that Columbus, on hia first voyage to the New World, carried a copy of this chart \

of the correspondence between Toscanelh and the Court. According to the tradition it was only through the intervention of the friend of Columbus, Lorenzo Giraldi, that the former obtained from Tos- canelli, in answer to a personal inquiry, an explana- tion of his scheme of a voyage westwards. Tosca- nelli is said to have sent Columbus, for this purpose, a copy of his letter and chart. At the beginning and end of the letter Toscanelli added a few words addressed especially to Columbus. The two biog- raphies of Columbus, that of his son Fernando and that of Bishop LasCasas, both include and give the text of another letter from Toscanelli in reply to a second letter sent him by Columbus. Unfortunately Toscanelli's two letters no longer exist in an authentic form. Both apparently have been greatly altered in the Italian translation of Fernando's "Historic", and in the .Spanish biography by the Bishop Las Casas of Chiapaz. However, by good fortune, the middle p.art of ToscanelU's first letter, that is a copy of the letter of 2.5 ,June, 1474, has been preserved in its original form. Harri.«.se discovered in the "Bibliothera Col- ombina" at Seville a copy, made by Columbus him- self, of the letter to Martins on the cover of an edit ion of the "Hi.storia rerum ubique gestanmi" of jEneivs Silvius. This document makes it po.ssiblc to deter- mine fairly accurately Toscanelli's opinion, which has been so variously interpreted, concerning the western route and the distance apart of the coasts of the two mainlands.

of the American Congress at Paris in 1900 has at- tempted to prove that Toscanelli's correspondence with Martins and Columbus, including the accom- panying chart, is a forgery. This has led to a violent controversy over the "Toscanelh question", in which Itahan, American, Enghsh, French, and German scholars have supported the traditional behef of the connexion between Toscanelli and Columbus. Not- withstanding this, Vignaud in 190.5 and 1911 pub- hshed monogiaphs on the life of Columbus for the purpose of maintaining his views. Vignaud's argu- ments, however, are not decisive. Even though the correspondence between Toscanelli and Columbus be proved to be apocryphal, still Toscanelli's knowl- edge and ability as a cosmographer does not suffer in the slightest so long as the letter of 1474 is taken as the expression of his cosmographic ideas, and so long as the letter of Duke Ercole of Este, written to his ambassador Manfredo on 26 June, 1494, is regarded as .authentic. This letter says that Toscanelli had really occupied himself with the idea of a voyage towards the west. The titles of only three of Tos- canelli's works are known, none of them, unfortu- nately, have been preserved: the "Prospettiva", the " Mcteorologia agricola", and also, according to Uzi- elli, a translation of Ptolemy's geography. K single manuscript is one of the treasures of the Bibliotheca Nazionale cent rale of Florence; this was published in 1864 and pertains to astronomy, geodesy, and geog- raphy.