Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/134

110 CHAPTER XVI. APPLICATION OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AT THE SPANISH COURT. 1492. Early Discoveries of the Portuguese. — Of the Spaniards. — Columbus. — His Application at the Castilian Court. — Rejected. — Negotia- tions resumed. — Favorable Disposition of the Queen. — Arrange- ment with Columbus. — He sails on his first Voyage. — Indifference to the Enterprise. — Acknowledgments due to Isabella. CHAPTER While Ferdinand and Isabella were at Santa '. — Fe, the capitulation was signed, that opened the way to an extent of empire, compared with which their recent conquests, and indeed all their present dominions, were insignificant. The extraordinary intellectual activity of the Europeans in the fifteenth century, after the torpor of ages, carried them for- ward to high advancement in almost every depart- ment of science, but especially nautical, whose surprising results have acquired for the age, the glory of being designated as peculiarly that of mari- time discovery. This was eminently favored by the political condition of modern Europe. Under the Roman empire, the traffic with the east naturally centred in Rome, the commercial capital of the west. After the dismemberment of the empire, it