Chapter summary:
Paulo Toscanelli was famous for two 1474 letters to Christopher Columbus and Canon Martins Fernan Martinez de Roriz, King Alfonso of Portugal’s confessor at the Court in Lisbon, in which he advised them about reaching the Indies, suggesting a map for the journey. In these letters Toscanelli tells them that the earth is a sphere and that China can be reached by sailing west from Spain. Toscanelli writes that Eugenius IV received an ambassador from China and that he, Toscanelli, obtained this information from him and from “men of great learning” who came to Florence in the time of Eugenius IV. Yet in 1474, when Toscanelli wrote these letters, Europeans had not reached southern Africa and it was another eighteen years before Columbus set sail for the Americas. So how did Toscanelli know China could be reached, not only eastwards around Africa, but westwards?
Toscanelli’s claims about a map or globe seem extraordinary. He claims that a chart shows that the distance, sailing westward, from Lisbon to Kinsai in China is only one third of the earth’s circumference and that from Antillia (islands of the seven cities) to the very famous island Cipangu (Japan) is a distance of two thousand five hundred miles. He implies in his letter to Columbus that the information is on a round sphere and that the lands of spices can be reached by sailing westwards. Toscanelli’s claim that it is only two thousand five hundred miles from Japan to Antillia, in the Caribbean, seems absurd. So does his claim that the map shows the distance from Lisbon westwards to China is one third of the earth’s circumference; in fact it is nearer two thirds. If Toscanelli’s account is true, it must have been a very distinctive map.
In his book on Magellan, F H H Guillemard exhibited globes that Johannes Schoener published in 1515 and 1520. The author wished to demonstrate that before Magellan set sail, European globes had been published showing the straits leading from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which we now call the Strait of Magellan. The globes also showed the Pacific and China. The authenticity of Schoener’s globes of 1515, 1520 and 1523 has never been challenged. Schoener’s 1515 globe corresponded exactly with the description of the globe in the letters Toscanelli sent to the King of Portugal and to Columbus. It is as if Toscanelli had Schoener’s copy in front of him when writing the letters. Schoener’s 1515 and 1520 globes accord completely with Toscanelli’s descriptions sent to the King of Portugal and to Christopher Columbus. Toscanelli and Schoener must both have been copying from the same globe, a globe which had existed before 1475.
Further reading:
The life of Ferdinand Magellan, by Guilllemard:
http://www.mdstud.chalmers.se/~md2nicke/MISSUPPFATTNINGAR/magellan.txt
The domestic enemy:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2848074
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14786a.htm
Schoener’s 1520 globe:
http://www.henry-davis.com/MAPS/Ren/Ren1/330C.html
