Instead,
its author had gathered together all that was known or seriously argued
concerning this world. On this curious old volume Christopher pinned his
entire faith. It became his bedside companion; and his copy of it, full
of notes in his own handwriting and in that of his brother Bartholomew
as well, may be seen to-day in the Columbian Library in Sevilla.
For centuries it has been asserted by men who have written about
Columbus that the most important event during his Lisbon days was his
correspondence with a learned astronomer named Paolo Toscanelli.
Columbus, they argue, having formed the plan of sailing west to discover
a route to the Indies (which Columbus never thought of doing at that
early day), wrote to ask Toscanelli's advice, and the wise Florentine
approved most heartily. It appears from the astronomer's letter that he
never dreamed, any more than did Columbus, that a whole continent lay
far off in the unexplored western ocean. He supposed the world to be
much smaller than it really is, with the ocean occupying only a seventh
of it; and that if one sailed three or four thousand miles west, he
would surely come to the islands of Cipango (pronounced in Italian Tchi-
pango), or Japan, lying off the mainland of Cathay or China. Toscanelli,
like Columbus, had read all about the Far East in Marco Polo's book, and
was convinced that if the Venetian had reached it by going east
overland, some one else might reach it by going west oversea.
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