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The Navigating Manual of Columbus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2010

E. G. R. Taylor
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Extract

There is rich material for studying navigation technique in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in the volume A Marinharia dos Descobrimentos by the late Fontoura da Costa, which deals in great detail with the evidence for early sailing methods; the facsimile reprints of rare documents bearing on early Portuguese navigation lately published by Joaquim Bensaude for the Portuguese Government also contain much information on this period. The object of this article is two-fold: to establish that in an Addendum to one of these documents, the Reportorio dos Tempos of Valentim Fernandez (1st edition 1518), we have extracts from an archaic type of navigating manual; and hence to argue that, judging from his own words, Columbus (whose skill in navigation is a matter of controversy) had studied rules and instructions for navigation just such as the Addendum contains, but that owing to his lack of elementary mathematical training he had only imperfectly understood them.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Navigation , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , January 1952 , pp. 42 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Navigation 1952

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References

REFERENCES

1Fontoura da Costa, A. (1933). A Marinharia dos Descobrimentos, Imprensa da Armada, Lisbon.Google Scholar
2Reportorio dos Tempos, reproduced as Vol. 7 of Histoire de la Science Nautique Portugaise (1917) by J. Bensaude, Société Sadag, Genève.Google Scholar
3Regimento do Estrolabio e do Quadrante (1509, The Munich Manual), Vol. 1 of Histoire de la Science Nautique Portugaise (1914). Tractado da Spera do Mundo: Regimento da Declinaçam do Sol (1518, The Evora Manual), Vol. 2 of Histoire de la Science Nautique Portugaise (1917).Google Scholar
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6De Lollis, (1892). Raccolta Columbiana, Part I, Vol. I.Google Scholar
7The Four Voyages of Columbus (1930), Vol. I, Hakluyt Soc. edition, series II, Vol. LXV, pp. 15 and 29.Google Scholar
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