Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/193

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PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR^[1]

The various commemorations of the discovery of the New World during the last two years have quickened the historical instincts of every student, and as the momentous nature of that event in the history of the world becomes more vividly apparent, the essentially historical problem to learn how it all came about becomes more and more fascinating. Columbus became convinced that his project was practicable by the combined force of two lines of influence, the speculative views of Aristotle, Seneca,^[2] and Toscanelli, and the results of the Portuguese explorations of the coast of Africa, which at every step winnowed the geographical tradition of its terrifying chaff. According to his son Ferdinand, it was his reflections upon the Portuguese voyages that prompted his careful study of the cosmographers and collection of evidence from every quarter.^[3] If they went so far south would it not be possible to go west and strike land?

It is possible that Columbus might have ventured without the incitement of the Portuguese explorations, but without

↑ Read at the meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Chicago in July, 1893, in connection with the World's Historical Congress.
↑ I have tried to show elsewhere, pp. 221 ff., that the interpretation of Seneca, Nat. Quoest., Pref. 9-11, which Columbus adopted from the Imago Mundi of Pierre d'Ailly, who derived it from Roger Bacon, and which has been universally accepted by modern writers, is a mistake. Apart from the tradition of this mediaeval interpretation there is no good reason to suppose that Seneca had any reference to a transatlantic voyage.
↑ "Standosi Egli (i. e., l'Ammiraglio) in Portogallo, comincio a congietturar. che, siccome quei Portoghesi caminavano tanto lontano al mezo di, medesimamente si potrebbe caminare alla volta dell' Occidente, e che di ragione si potrebbe trovar terra in quel camino." Hisiorie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, in Venetia, MDLXXI, folio 12. The edition of the Historie, published in London, 1867, as Vita di Cristoforo Colombo, descritta da Ferdinando, Suo Figlio, etc., Nuova edizione, diligentementa Riveduta e corretta, is entirely untrustworthy. The text is changed capriciously and sometimes important clauses are left out.

[1] Read at the meeting of the American Historical Association, held in Chicago in July, 1893, in connection with the World's Historical Congress.

[2] I have tried to show elsewhere, pp. 221 ff., that the interpretation of Seneca, Nat. Quoest., Pref. 9-11, which Columbus adopted from the Imago Mundi of Pierre d'Ailly, who derived it from Roger Bacon, and which has been universally accepted by modern writers, is a mistake. Apart from the tradition of this mediaeval interpretation there is no good reason to suppose that Seneca had any reference to a transatlantic voyage.

[3] "Standosi Egli (i. e., l'Ammiraglio) in Portogallo, comincio a congietturar. che, siccome quei Portoghesi caminavano tanto lontano al mezo di, medesimamente si potrebbe caminare alla volta dell' Occidente, e che di ragione si potrebbe trovar terra in quel camino." Hisiorie del S. D. Fernando Colombo, in Venetia, MDLXXI, folio 12. The edition of the Historie, published in London, 1867, as Vita di Cristoforo Colombo, descritta da Ferdinando, Suo Figlio, etc., Nuova edizione, diligentementa Riveduta e corretta, is entirely untrustworthy. The text is changed capriciously and sometimes important clauses are left out.

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