Select Documents illustrating the Four Voyages of Columbus by E.G.R. Taylor

Author:E.G.R. Taylor [Taylor, E.G.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Modern, 17th Century
ISBN: 9781351549301
Google: IyUxDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2017-07-05T01:29:42+00:00

1 For this letter, cp. supra, Introduction, p. lxxxv.

2 Although too much stress has, perhaps, been laid upon this passage (e.g. by André, La Vindique Aventure de Christophe Colomb, p. 268), there is abundant evidence that Columbus did regard himself as being an instrument in the hands of Providence and as being under the special protection of the Almighty (cp. supra, vol. I, Introduction, p. lii).

3 Cp. supra, Introduction, p. xiii.

4 Cp. the notes, perhaps written by Columbus himself, to the Historia Serum Ubique Gestarum of Pius II (Roc. Col. I. ii. 291 et seq.). Streicher (op. cit.) holds that these notes are not in the autograph of Columbus, but there is little doubt that Columbus had in any case read the work of Pope Pius.

5 Columbus was here certainly thinking primarily of Pierre d’Ailly and Marco Polo, whose writings he had studied and annotated. It is uncertain whether he had actually read the Imago Mundi before his first voyage (cp. supra, vol. I, Introduction, p. lxviii). From Bernáldez (cp. supra, vol. I, p. cxlvii), it would seem that Columbus had also read John Mandeville.

1 The allusion is, of course, to the initial rejection of the propositions of Columbus by the committee appointed to investigate them (cp. supra, Introduction, p. xvi). The two friars were probably Juan Pérez, guardian of the friary of La Rábida, and Antonio de Marchena, a member of the same community, who have been wrongly regarded as one and the same person. But the friars may be Juan Perez and Diego de Deza. The latter, a native of Toro, was a Dominican and a master in theology. He was tutor to Prince Juan and was afterwards successively bishop of Salamanca, Jaen, and Palencia, archbishop of Seville, and archbishop of Toledo. He was also confessor to Ferdinand and succeeded Torquemada as grand inquisitor. His position in the Church made his support of Columbus peculiarly valuable. Deza died in 1523.

2 Matt. xxiv. 35.

3 Columbus was probably alluding to Isaiah lv. 5 and lx. 9. Acosta (Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias, i. 42) finds a prophecy of the discovery of the New World in Isaiah xviii. 1. Las Casas (i. 127), commenting on this letter of Columbus, remarks that since Isaiah was a prophet, he no doubt foretold the discovery of the Indies, but adds that it would be presumptuous to specify any particular passage in which the prophecy is to be found.

4 Lacuna in the original: obviously some such phrase as ’my own might’ should be inserted. (Cp. Zechariah, iv. 6.)

5 Cp. supra, p. 2.

6 Cp. infra, p. 30.

7 Las Casas (i. 127) says that the islands in the Jardín de la Reina numbered seven hundred, but they can hardly be called ’islands of importance’.

8 Cp. supra, vol. I, pp. 6–12.

9 For the imposition of tribute on the native population of Española, see Las Casas, i. 105, and Peter Martyr, i. 4. There is some ground for thinking that the tribute was never generally exacted, and

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