st have been a venerable man. He lived, however,
until the year 1482, and as the younger man was in Florence during the
first forty years of his life, and the last thirty of Toscanelli's, it
is more than probable that their intercourse was long and friendly.

It is known, at least, that they were acquainted at the time the
learned doctor wrote Columbus, in 1474, and it does not require a
stretch of the imagination to fancy them together, and wondering what
effect that letter would have upon a man who entertained views similar
to their own. Columbus, it is thought, had then been pondering several
years over the possible discovery of land, presumably the eastern
coast of India, by sailing westward. "It was in the year 1474," writes
a modern historian, "that he had some correspondence with the Italian
savant, Toscanelli, regarding this discovery of land. A belief in such
a discovery was a natural corollary to the object which Prince Henry
of Portugal had in view by circumnavigating Africa, in order to find a
way to the countries of which Marco Polo had given golden accounts. It
was, in brief, to substitute for the tedious indirection of the
African route a direct western passage--a belief in the practicability
of which was drawn from a confidence in the sphericity of the
earth."[4]

Later in life Columbus seems to have forgotten his indebtedness to
Toscanelli, and "grew to imagine that he had been independent of the
influences of his time," ascribing his great discovery to the
inspiration of one chosen to accomplish the prophecy of Isaiah. But
the venerable Florentine had pondered the problem many years before
Columbus thought of it. "Some Italian writers even go to the extent of
asserting that the idea of a western passage to India originated with
Toscanelli, before it entered the mind of Columbus; and it is highly
probable that this was the case."

There is this in favor of Toscanelli: He was a learned man, while
Columbus was comparatively ignorant. He was then advanced in years,
and had given the greater portion of his life to the consideration of
just such questions, having had his attention called to them by
reading the travels of Marco Polo and comparing the information
therein contained with that derived from Eastern merchants who had
traded for many years in the Orient. He was not a sailor, nor a
corsair--though Columbus had been both, and had followed the sea for
years--but he was an astronomer, and he knew mor