The first important figure in the history of this expansion is that of Prince Henry, surnamed the Navigator (1394–1460), fifth son of King John I. His objects were to extend Portuguese commercial interests mainly in West Africa, and also, it would appear, to discover new lands, if they were to be discovered, to the west of those Atlantic islands which formed the limit of knowledge to the west from very early times. Even the knowledge of the islands themselves was indefinite enough; so that when, in or about 1415, Henry began52 sending his seamen7 to the Canaries and later to the Madeira and the Azores, he was inspiring, if not actual discovery, at any rate the acquisition of largely new information. Between 1415 and 1431 colonization8 and trade had already begun to be established in some of the islands; and, though the Portuguese navigators did not forestall9 Columbus, it is likely that they conceived the possibility of a westward10 route to the Far East. Prince Henry’s residence from 1438 to 1460 was Sagres, which consequently became a centre for geographical research, for he gathered about him expert cartographers and instructors11 for his navigators, whom he supplied with the best obtainable instruments, maps, and information: he used not only European but also Arab sources. With regard to the West African coast, he experienced some years of comparative failure; but from 1444 explorations here were rapidly extended, and a few of the leading navigators and explorers who worked under Prince Henry’s direction and after his death may be mentioned. In 1443 John Fernandez travelled inland in the district of Rio de Oro, and collected valuable information about the resources, physical conditions, and people of the south-west part of the Sahara. He made further journeys in 1446–47. Diogo Gomez, in 1448, made his way up the Gambia river. Alvise Cadamosto, a Venetian in Prince Henry’s service, was working in 1455 south of the Senegal; and in 1456 he visited, and probably actually discovered, the Cape12 Verde Islands. His accounts of his voyages were full and valuable, and he also dealt with the explorations of Pedro de Cintra, in 1461 or 1462, to Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast. Gomez made a voyage to the Cape Verde Islands in 1462; but he is most notable as chronicler of the life-work of Prince Henry.
53 King John II built on the prince’s foundations. In 1482 he sent out Diogo C?o, who discovered the Congo and ascended13 it for a short distance, and subsequently saw the coast of Angola as far as 13° 26′ S. at Cape Santa Maria. On a second voyage (1485–1486) he penetrated14 still further south, to Cape Cross. He erected15 pillars at various points on the coast—a practice followed by some of his successors; and some of these monuments have been found and preserved. In a voyage in 1486 or 1487–88 Bartolomeu Diaz extended the knowledge of the west coast nearly five degrees beyond C?o’s furthest, reaching 26° 38′ S. He was then driven south by high winds and storms, turned east, and found no land; he therefore steered16 north again, and struck the coast of what is now the Cape Province at Mossel Bay. Continuing eastward17, he reached the Great Fish River, and was able to realize that the coast was now trending north-easterly, and that the southernmost point of the continent had been turned; but his crew were surfeited18 with their dangers, and insisted on returning. The important cape which he had discovered he is generally stated to have named Cabo Tormentoso, the Cape of Storms; and the story goes that King John, recognizing the importance of the discovery to the future object of a sea-route to the East, changed the name to the Cape of Good Hope. But there is good reason to believe that the happier name was given by Diaz himself. It had been one of the wishes of Prince Henry, and was one of the objects of the voyage of Diaz, to establish communication with a Christian19 king of whose powers rumours20 reached the west coast of Africa from the interior, and who was known under the name of Prester John. In 1487 Pedro or Pero de Covilh?o and Alphonso Payva were sent,54 partly with the same object, by way of the Mediterranean21. They visited Egypt, and after many wanderings came to Aden, whence Covilh?o proceeded to Calicut and Goa in India, and, returning thence, travelled south along the East African coast as far as Sofala. He then journeyed in the coast lands of Arabia, and visited Mecca and Medina, and finally, entering Africa, proceeded to the court of Prester John in Abyssinia, where he was well treated, but from which he was never allowed to return home. Payva, meanwhile, had travelled into Ethiopia, and had died there.
The journey to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope was completed in due course in the last decade of the century; but earlier in that same decade the New World had been discovered by Columbus, and the era opened by these two tremendous incidents may be more fittingly considered in the following chapter; while for the moment some consideration may be given to the state of cartography and theory at the time when Columbus was planning his voyage.
The works of Ptolemy can have been known to few in the original Greek at this time, and for many centuries before. When, therefore, the translation of his Geography into Latin, originally undertaken by Emanuel Chrysoloras, a Byzantine scholar who settled in Italy, was completed in 1410 by his pupil Jacobus Angelus, these two students lit a beacon22 in the course of geographical study. The translation, which is usually identified with the name of Angelus alone, was issued under the title of Cosmography instead of Geography. It would appear that Angelus, of whose life apart from this work little is known, not only dealt with the text, but also did the maps into Latin. In a short time there was no lack of copies of the work, and it was soon55 found necessary to add to the maps at certain points where they failed to represent knowledge which was by this time in possession of the translators. Already about 1424 Claudius Clavus Swartha had constructed in Italy a map which showed the north-westward extension of knowledge as far as Greenland; the curious orderly curves by which the coastlines are represented frankly23 acknowledge the draughtsman’s lack of detail. About 1470 Nicolaus Germanus, often known erroneously as Donis, produced a manuscript edition of Ptolemy, with maps magnificently illuminated24 and on improved projections26. He also added new maps, and it has been said of the collection that, as far as concerns methods of drawing, it is the prototype of all subsequent atlases27 (Nordenskj?ld). An edition, probably of 1472, if not later, though it is dated earlier, reveals the use of a conical projection25 with meridians28 and parallels drawn29 across the maps; and, as points of some interest in comparison with modern maps, it may be added that the seas are green, the mountains blue, and other parts of the land red and yellow. The Florentine edition in verse, of about 1480, by Francesco Berlinghieri, contained an important series of new printed maps, including Italy, France, Spain, and Palestine.
Although the extension of knowledge to the north-west, as has been mentioned, attracted considerable attention on the part of the editors of Ptolemy, the recent Portuguese discoveries in West Africa did not, apparently30, do the same. In an edition, for instance, of 1486, made at Ulm, a geographical description of the north-west lands, including Greenland, was furnished, and there were quoted the latitude31 and longitude32 of 183 places in northern Europe and Greenland; but56 there was no evidence that the conception of the southern limit of the habitable world by Ptolemy was understood to be now proved wholly erroneous by the Portuguese discoveries.
On the other hand, the appreciation33 of Portuguese labours appeared earlier, as was natural, in Portolano maps. That of Andrea Bianco (1448) drew probably on a Portuguese original, showing the West African coast as far as Cape Verde. On the world map of Fra Mauro, already referred to, the Portuguese discoveries are mentioned in an inscription34 of considerable length.
In connection with prevailing35 ideas as to what lands lay in the Atlantic beyond the certain knowledge of men, it may be observed that the conception of a continent or island of Atlantis was very old, and there were other mythical36 lands which were also given places in distant parts of the ocean. Portolano maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries show the island of Brazil lying to the west of Ireland, an island named Mam to the south of Brazil, and, still further away in the ocean, and to the south again, a large island in the form of a parallelogram, which bore the name of Antillia, and appears as early as 1426.
The sphericity of the earth, as has been seen, was revived as a theory by Bacon and Albertus; and to these inquirers may now be added the name of Cardinal37 d’Ailly (d. 1422), whose work, entitled Imago Mundi, may be mentioned because it is known to have been in the possession of Columbus. His copy still exists.
A name closely identified with Columbus’s preconceived ideas as to the voyage to the Indies by way of the western ocean, and his efforts to obtain recognition for them, is that of Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli (1397–1482), a Florentine mathematician38, astronomer39, and57 cosmographer, whose advice was asked by King Alphonso V. of Portugal as to the probability of this western route. He sent the king a statement and a chart in support of Columbus’s ideas. The chart is lost; but the author describes it as showing the Indies opposite and to the west of Ireland and Africa, together with the islands which were known to lie off the coast of the Asiatic mainland, and certain known landing places. A globe made in 1492 by Martin Behaim, of Nuremberg, is usually cited as giving the best existing representation of the views as to the extent of the Atlantic, and the route across it, at the moment when Columbus began his first voyage. Behaim had lived in Portugal, and had a high scientific reputation at court. He had probably visited the more northerly parts of the west coast of Africa and also the Azores, though he claimed to have a much more extensive first-hand knowledge, as having accompanied Diogo C?o. It is doubtful if he did so; but if he did, he made but little use of his opportunity. His representation of the west coast of Africa is not accurate; and for the rest, although he had the chance, and apparently an unusually favourable40 one, of carrying the results of Portuguese research into Europe, he made poor use of it. He was obsessed41 by Ptolemaic ideas; he showed in a modified form the old south-eastward extension of Africa, with Madagascar and Zanzibar as two great islands lying off it, Zanzibar being south of Madagascar. He also modified, but still retained, the Ptolemaic idea of the non-peninsular form of India and the exaggerated size of Ceylon. He gave a gross representation of the Malay Peninsula, and in general ignored Marco Polo’s results, and those of other Asiatic travellers. His58 representation of Scandinavia was indifferent, and even that of the Mediterranean was below the level of the Portolano maps. As regards the width of the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and Asia, he appears to have followed Toscanelli; and he showed the mythical island of Antillia and also that of St. Brandon (the existence of which on maps was an outcome of the fabled42 wanderings of a holy man of Ireland in the sixth century) in mid-ocean between the Euro-African and the Asiatic coasts.
Such was the view of the ocean barrier which lay between Columbus and the attainment43 of his ideal. It serves as a reminder44, which, in view of the results he obtained, is sometimes necessary, that that ideal was the discovery, not of new lands, but of a new route to lands already known.
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1
geographical
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| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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monarchy
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| n.君主，最高统治者；君主政体，君主国 | |
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mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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amicable
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| adj.和平的，友好的；友善的 | |
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seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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colonization
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| 殖民地的开拓，殖民，殖民地化； 移殖 | |
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forestall
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| vt.抢在…之前采取行动；预先阻止 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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instructors
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| 指导者，教师( instructor的名词复数 ) | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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15
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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steered
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| v.驾驶( steer的过去式和过去分词 )；操纵；控制；引导 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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surfeited
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| v.吃得过多( surfeit的过去式和过去分词 )；由于过量而厌腻 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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rumours
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| n.传闻( rumour的名词复数 )；风闻；谣言；谣传 | |
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Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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beacon
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| n.烽火，（警告用的）闪火灯，灯塔 | |
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frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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illuminated
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| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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projection
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| n.发射，计划，突出部分 | |
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projections
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| 预测( projection的名词复数 )； 投影； 投掷； 突起物 | |
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atlases
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| 地图集( atlas的名词复数 ) | |
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meridians
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| n.子午圈( meridian的名词复数 )；子午线；顶点；（权力，成就等的）全盛时期 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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longitude
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| n.经线，经度 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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inscription
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| n.（尤指石块上的）刻印文字，铭文，碑文 | |
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prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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mythical
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| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
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cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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mathematician
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| n.数学家 | |
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astronomer
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| n.天文学家 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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obsessed
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| adj.心神不宁的,鬼迷心窍的,沉迷的 | |
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fabled
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| adj.寓言中的，虚构的 | |
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43
attainment
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| n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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