Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/136

112 112 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. I' ART scale, maj be referred to the fifteenth century.^ — ' — The Portuguese were the first to enter on the emerpr4 of brilliant path of nautical discovery, which they pur- the Portu- J-. "^ ' "^ ^ 8"'^s'- sued under the infant Don Henry with such activ- ity, that, before the middle of the fifteenth century, they had penetrated as far as Cape de Verd, doubling many a fearful headland, which had shut in the timid navigator of former days ; until at length, in 1486, they descried the lofty promontory which terminates Africa on the south, and which, hailed by King John the Second, under whom it was dis- covered, as the harbinger of the long sought passage to the east, received the cheering appellation of the Cape of Good Hope. Eaiiv Span- Thc Spaniards, in the mean while, did not Ian- ish liisnov- J- guish in the career of maritime enterprise. Certain adventurers from the northern provinces of Biscay and Guipuscoa, in 1393, had made themselves 2 A council of mathematicians in tains this by several similar refer- the court of John II., of Portugal, ences to other authors of the same first devised the application of the century. Capmany finds no notice ancient astrolabe to navigation, thus of its use by the Castilian navigators affording to the mariner the essen- earlier than 1403. It was not until tial advantages appertaining to the considerably later in the fifteenth modern quadrant. The discovery of century, that the Portuguese voy- tbe polarity of the needle, which agers, trusting to its guidance, ven- vulgar tradition assigned to the tured to quit the Mediterranean Amalfite Flavio Gioja, and which and African coasts, and extend Robertson has sanctioned without their navigation to Madeira and the scruple, is clearly proved to have Azores. See Navarrete, Coleccion occurred more than a century ear- de los Viages y Descubrimientos lier. Tiraboschi, who investigates que hicieron por Mar los Espano- the matter with his usual erudition, les, (Madrid, 1825-29,) tom.i. Int passing by the doubtful reference sec. 33. — Tiraboschi, Lelteratura of Guiotdc Provins, whoseagc and Itahana, torn. iv. pp. 173, 174. — personal identity even are contest- Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona ed, traces the familiar use of the torn. iii. part. 1, cap. 4. — Koch magnetic needle as far back as the Tableau des Revolutions de I'Eu first half of the thirteenth century, rope, (Paris, 1814,) tom. i. pp by a pertinent passage from Cardi- 358-360. nal A'itri, who died 1244 ; and sus- ish discov- eries.