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.
Accordingly he encouraged the aspiring young explorer. He told Columbus,
furthermore, that he had talked with an ambassador from the Far East who
came to the court of Pope Eugenius IV. "I was often in the Ambassador's
company," he wrote, "and he told me of the immense rivers in his
country, and of two hundred cities with marble bridges upon the banks of
a single river." Of Cipango he wrote, "This island contains such an
abundance of precious stones and metals that the temples and royal
palaces are covered with plates of gold!"

The Toscanelli letter is dated 1474, and begins: "To Christopher
Columbus, Paul the Physician, health: I see thy noble and great desire
to go there where grow the spices." But the strange thing is that
Columbus never made use of it in pleading before kings, nor did he even
mention Toscanelli and the route to India. Neither in all his writings
can the name of Toscanelli be found; and it was not till after
Columbus's death (and Toscanelli's), when others began to write history,
that the document was made public. Most Columbian scholars therefore
doubt its genuineness, and think it was not written by Toscanelli in
1474, but by some one in Lisbon long after Columbus had actually made
his discovery.

In any case, the pilot's story was a far more likely factor in sending
Christopher west. Nor is it to his discredit that he was willing to risk
his life on a dying sailor's wild, improbable tale, rather than on an
astronomer's carefully worked out theory. Whether our navigator had