Note 89-2 — JOURNAL OF THE FIRST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS

This information Columbus is ordinarily supposed to have derived from Toscanelli’s letter which may be found in Fiske, Discovery of America, I. 356 ff. and II. App. The original source of the information, however, is Marco Polo, and Columbus summarized the passage on the margin in his copy of Marco Polo, Lib. I., ch. IV., as follows: “Magnus Kam misit legatos ad pontificem:” Raccolta Colombiana, Part I, Tomo 2, p. 446. That he read and annotated these passages before 1492 seems most probable. See Bourne, Spain in America, pp. 10-15, and Vignaud, Toscanelli and Columbus, p. 284.