(See Natalis De Wailly, Notes To Joinville,
P. 576.) But That Would Not Much Affect The Question Either One
Way Or The Other.
[2] High as Marco's name deserves to be set, his place is not beside the
writer of such burning words as these addressed to Ferdinand and
Isabella:
"From the most tender age I went to sea, and to this day I
have continued to do so. Whosoever devotes himself to this craft must
desire to know the secrets of Nature here below. For 40 years now have
I thus been engaged, and wherever man has sailed hitherto on the face
of the sea, thither have I sailed also. I have been in constant
relation with men of learning, whether ecclesiastic or secular, Latins
and Greeks, Jews and Moors, and men of many a sect besides. To
accomplish this my longing (to know the Secrets of the World) I found
the Lord favourable to my purposes; it is He who hath given me the
needful disposition and understanding. He bestowed upon me abundantly
the knowledge of seamanship: and of Astronomy He gave me enough to
work withal, and so with Geometry and Arithmetic.... In the days of my
youth I studied works of all kinds, history, chronicles, philosophy,
and other arts, and to apprehend these the Lord opened my
understanding. Under His manifest guidance I navigated hence to the
Indies; for it was the Lord who gave me the will to accomplish that
task, and it was in the ardour of that will that I came before your
Highnesses. All those who heard of my project scouted and derided it;
all the acquirements I have mentioned stood me in no stead; and if in
your Highnesses, and in you alone, Faith and Constancy endured, to
Whom are due the Lights that have enlightened you as well as me, but
to the Holy Spirit?" (Quoted in Humboldt's Examen Critique, I. 17,
18.)
[3] Libri, however, speaks too strongly when he says: "The finest of all
the results due to the influence of Marco Polo is that of having
stirred Columbus to the discovery of the New World. Columbus, jealous
of Polo's laurels, spent his life in preparing means to get to that
Zipangu of which the Venetian traveller had told such great things;
his desire was to reach China by sailing westward, and in his way he
fell in with America." (H. des Sciences Mathem. etc. II. 150.)
The fact seems to be that Columbus knew of Polo's revelations only at
second hand, from the letters of the Florentine Paolo Toscanelli and
the like; and I cannot find that he ever refers to Polo by name.
[How deep was the interest taken by Colombus in Marco Polo's travels
is shown by the numerous marginal notes of the Admiral in the printed
copy of the latin version of Pipino kept at the Bib. Colombina at
Seville. See Appendix H. p. 558. - H. C.] Though to the day of his
death he was full of imaginations about Zipangu and the land of the
Great Kaan as being in immediate proximity to his discoveries, these
were but accidents of his great theory.
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