More info here: https://exhibits.stanford.edu/ruderman/catalog/mz230kn1495
This makes sense given the popular knowledge at the time. The reason Columbus set sail wasnāt because he was a genius that knew the Earth was round when everyone else didnāt. We knew the Earth was round since antiquity. I canāt remember who1, but some ancient Greek had calculated the circumference of the Earth using the angle of a shadow, distance to a equinox solstice, and simple trigonometry. They guy was less than 5% off with his rudimentary calculation, which is impressive considering that he paid some dude to measure the distance between two towns by walking it. Anyways, the Western Europeans thought that Japan was farther east, somewhere around where the words āTerra floridaā are on this map if I recall correctly from memory. When the NiƱa, Pinta, and Santa Marimba (party boat! jk, it was Santa Maria named after the āvirginā) landed on the most beautiful land that human eyes had ever seen, they knew they hadnāt landed on Zipangri/Cipangu/Japan. Instead, they thought they had landed on some island off of India, which is why they called the locals āIndiosā (Indians). Anyways part 2, they thought that Japan was much further east than it was. I imagine that since they hadnāt found it for this map yet, they though it must be right out of sight of the western coast of North Vespucci (America).
What Iām curious about is that 7448 inflating archipelago. Anyone have an idea on what thatās about?
1: The dude was Eratosthenes. Thanks, @user134450@feddit.org!
Itās not āinflatingā, itās āinsularumā (they also used to use the tilde as a shorthand for m and n), using the old long s
Iām not an avid reader, but Iām a huge fan of a book called Over the Edge of the World by Lawrence Bergreen. That detailed Magellanās voyage around the world. A few takeaways:
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Spices really were the thing everyone in Europe wanted. If a sailor managed to smuggle a backpack full of cloves, it would be enough to buy a modest house. Only one of 5 ships made it back, but it was filled with top quality cloves and that was enough that the trip was STILL a financial gain.
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Nobody really knew where the spices came from. India was a nebulous semi-mythical place, and some believed there were a few "India"s
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Magellan, while Portuguese by birth, basically moved to Spain when Portugal wouldnāt pay for him to try to find the spice Islands
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The treaty of Tordesillas roughly divided the new world between Spain and Portugal. The land east of whatever meridian was Portugalās, and west was Spainās. But there were still issues, like longitude not really being measurable at the time and no clear idea who had claim 180Ā° past that meridian. But it would have been to Spainās benefit to find the spice islands past that meridian
Bonus fact: the first human to sail around the world was Magellanās slave, Enrique (last name escapes me). He was brought from Indonesia(?) to Europe, then set sail on this round-the world journey, eventually going near his native homeland. Magellan had it in his will that Enrique be freed upon his death, but when he was killed on that voyage (basically by his own who) nobody was aware of that.
