TOSCANELLI
787
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.
