1434

by Gavin Menzies

  The Venetian Claim

  Here is a translation of the Venetian Senate decree of October 11, 1441 (prior to Gutenberg):

  Whereas, the art and mystery of making cards and printed figures, which is in use at Venice has fallen to decay, and this is in consequence of the great quantity of printed playing cards and coloured figures, which are made outside Venice, to which evil it is necessary to apply some remedy in order that the said artists who are a great many in family, may find encouragement rather than foreigners: let it be ordained and established according to the petition that the said Masters have sought, that from this time on, no work of the said art that is printed or painted on cloth or paper—that is to say, altar pieces, or images, or playing cards or any other thing that may be made by the said art, either by painting or by printing—shall be allowed to be brought or imported…and [if so a fine of] thirty livres and twelve soldi, of which fine one third shall go to the State, one third to Giustizieri Vecci, to whom this affair is commited and one third to the accuser.8

  The references above suggest that Venetians had, prior to 1441, been applying the art of printing and colored stenciling for many purposes. After 1441 Venice rapidly became Europe’s center of printing. By 1469, the German printer Johann von Speyer had printed an edition of 100 copies of Cicero’s Epistolae ad Familiares. By 1478, there were twenty-two printing firms operating in Venice, which had printed 72 editions. By 1518, more than 600 editions had been produced. By the turn of the century, this had expanded to 150 presses and 4,000 editions. At this time, books were being published in Latin, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Serbo-Croatian, and Armenian. Venice’s low tax rates for foreign firms and the opportunities for profit offered by this great trading city contributed to Venice’s rise as printing capital of Europe.9

  It stands to reason that Zheng He’s ambassadors would have made considerable efforts to impart knowledge of printing to Venice. Without printing, the Xuan De astronomical calendar would have had to be copied by hand. The stupid barbarians would inevitably have made mistakes, and those mistakes would have multiplied as copy succeeded copy. Not only would they mess up the calculations of latitude and longitude, but their copies of Chinese maps of the world would grow progressively more inaccurate. To avoid such confusion, it made sense to give the barbarians the knowledge of moveable type printing, along with the astronomical tables and maps. The Chinese could then be confident that Europeans could reach the Middle Kingdom to pay tribute—no further excuses!

  The gift of moveable type proved to be of inestimable value apart from its use in cartography and ocean navigation. Printing helped Europeans control the spread of plague by disseminating instructions for combating it. Venice printed edicts in 1456 and 1457, Genoa in 1467, Milan in 1468. Others followed in Siena, Parma, Udine, and Cremona.10 Plague legislation for the poor came next. Prostitutes were outlawed in Perugia and Siena in 1485, and plague hospitals were set up. Printing was critical to public health.

  The Renaissance was not only a revolution in art. It altered European man’s idea of his place in the universe, in astronomy, logic, geometry, architecture, engineering, mechanics, anatomy, philosophy, politics, warfare, and music. The printing of books did not produce new ideas. But the introduction of moveable type enabled revolutionary ideas to be spread the length and breadth of Europe.

  Printing revolutionized the development of music, too. Musicians could now play together reading from the same score—precisely what the composer had written. The complex music pioneered by the Englishman Dunstable was made possible by the score he wrote for multiple voices. Copying such a score by hand would have been a nightmare. Johann Sebastian Bach completed Dunstable’s revolution.

  Printing also advanced the voyages of discovery. Knowledge, including Chinese knowledge, could now be made available to numerous explorers. Subsequent explorers’ discoveries and exploits could in turn be publicized far and wide. And the romance of exploration fired the imaginations of the people. The Amadis of Gaul, relating the imagined adventures of the conquistadores of the New World, gripped public imagination with its tales of flaxen-haired, white-skinned virgins, rubies the size of pigeon’s eggs, and men sheathed from head to toe in gold.

  Thanks to printing, shipwrights could build to a standard, proven design. Before printing, each ship had been constructed as a copy—a one-off experimental vessel dependent in part on the skill of the copier, a scribe. The firearms and cannons that armed the vessels could now also be made from printed designs that had been tried and tested—a ship master no longer needed to worry whether the barrels of his cannon were sufficiently thick and of suitable iron to avoid an explosion that would kill his own crew. Gun makers could now sell their designs. Ships’ captains could sail with printed ephemeris tables enabling them to determine latitude and longitude and their progress to the New World using up-to-date, standardized charts.

  The skills of medieval Arab and Chinese doctors could now be disseminated worldwide. For example, by the eleventh century, Chinese doctors understood how to inoculate patients against smallpox. The first Chinese book on forensic medicine, including plague control, was published in 1247.

  The extraordinary magnitude and generosity of Chinese gifts to the West made sense from the Chinese emperor’s viewpoint. If China was to remain a colossus on the world stage, the barbarians must be bribed and educated to continually render tribute. This voyage, however, proved to be the last. After that, China withdrew into self-imposed isolation. Europe, left to exploit China’s lavish gifts, soon became mistress of the world.

  21

  CHINA’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE RENAISSANCE

  Maps of the World

  After 1434, European world maps changed. There was a shift away from the circular maps centered on Jerusalem, emphasizing religious subjects, to depictions of the world as it really is.

  Toscanelli sent Columbus a map of the Americas; Regiomontanus advertised a world map for sale.1 Magellan possessed a world map. Andrea Bianco showed Florida on his Atlantic chart of 1436 (Newberry Library, Chicago); on his 1448 map, he described Brazil. Then, in 1507, Waldseemüller published his amazing world map accurately rendering North and South America.

  All of these maps had something in common: they accurately depicted parts of the New World before Europeans ever reached those parts. The Waldseemüller showed the Pacific before Magellan set sail, Andrea Bianco showed Florida and Antilia fifty-six years before Columbus; the Cantino planisphere of 1502 depicted the Florida coast before Ponce de León “discovered” the place.

  There is something else these maps had in common. All are copies in whole or in part of Zheng He’s 1418 map. It was a logical and deliberate policy of Zheng He’s mission to distribute Chinese maps of the world. For if the barbarians did not have accurate maps, how could they reach the Middle Kingdom to pay tribute?

  At the Nanjing conference on Zheng He held in December 2002, Professor Liu Manchum described his research into judicial records of the early Ming dynasty, notably those of Fujian Province.2 He came across an account of a Brazilian delegation that had reached Fujian in 1507, after a five-year voyage. The delegation bore expensive tribute, notably emeralds, and had their plenipotentiary powers engraved on a golden plate. They had found their way to China by means of a map.

  Professor Liu Manchum realized that, at the time the Brazilian delegation left Brazil for China in 1502, Europeans had not reached both Brazil and China by sea.3 Consequently, the map that guided them from Brazil to China could not have been European. He then searched Zheng He’s records and found accounts of his fleets reaching the Americas. He concluded that Zheng He’s fleets had reached Brazil before 1434, after which Chinese overseas voyages were prohibited by the emperor. Professor Manchum intended to write a book claiming that Zheng He, not Columbus, discovered the Americas. He then learned of my book 1421 and decided to postpone his own.

  Brazil also appears on a Javanese map published before Europeans reached Java. In an April, 1512–letter
to King Manuel of Portugal, Alfonso de Albuquerque, the first European to reach Malacca, refers to a world map he has acquired from a Javanese pilot and kept aboard his flagship, the Fiore de la Mar. (The Fiore de la Mar sank before reaching Portugal.):

  I am also sending you an authentic portion of a great map belonging to a Javanese pilot, which shows the Cape of Good Hope, Portugal and the territory of Brasil, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf and the Spice Islands. It also shows where the Chinese and the Gores sail, with the Rhumbs and the routes taken by their ships and the interiors of the various kingdoms and which kingdoms border on which. It strikes me as the finest piece of work I ever saw and I am sure Your Highness would be delighted to see it. The names were written in Javanese script and I found a Javanese who could read and write the script. I send your Highness this fragment that Francisco Rodrigues copied from the original, in which Your Highness will see where the Chinese and the Gores really come from and the route your ships should follow to reach the spice islands, where the gold mines are located and the islands of Java and Banda, where nutmeg and mace come from and the territory of the King of Siam. You will see the extent of Chinese navigation and where they return to and the point beyond which they will not sail. The main part of the map is lost in the Fiori de la Mar. I worked out the meaning of this map with the pilot Pero de Alfoim so that they would be able to explain it to Your Highness. You may take this portion of it as very authentic and accurate because it shows the routes they take in both directions. It does not show the archipelago called Celate which lies between Java and Malacca.

  Your Highness’s creature and servant, Alfonso de Albuquerque, Caesar of the East.4

  Albuquerque does not find it necessary to point out that when Europeans first reached the East, the Javanese (and the Chinese) already knew the locations of Portugal and Brazil on a world chart. His letter reveals details of the interiors of kingdoms, implying authentic knowledge. Manuel Stock, to whom I am indebted for this information, has also found a reference to Brazil on a map dated 1447.5 The Duchess of Medina Sidonia’s Library at Sanlucar de Barrameda has maps of Brazil before Dias or Cabral.

  In addition to their knowledge of Brazil and a route to the Spice Islands—before European explorers set off for such places—both the Venetians and the Portuguese knew of Australia by 1516 at the latest. Giovanni di Fontana, the Venetian doctor, in 1450 already knew of Australia, the Indian Ocean, and America.6

  The National Library of Australia holds a letter, dated 1516, written by a Venetian, Andrea Corsali, who had traveled aboard a Portuguese ship. The letter, written from Cochin, is addressed to the doge of Venice. Corsali describes his voyage around the Cape of Good Hope as far as New Guinea and Timor. He illustrates the Southern Cross with sufficient accuracy to prove he must have seen it. The letter asserts that the Portuguese knew of large lands to the south called India Australis (Southern), later referred to as Java la Grande.

  Professor Jaime Cortesão, in “The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America,” describes the first Portuguese voyage to Brazil and includes a report to King John of Portugal. The King is advised to “please command that they bring you the world map of Pedro Vaz Bisagudo. And Your Highness will be able to see on it the position of this land. Notwithstanding this map does not declare whether this land [Brazil] is inhabited or not. It is an old world-map, but the Mina is registered there.”7

  So here we have a declaration that Brazil was on a world map before the first European expedition there. This squares with Brazil’s appearance on Andrea Bianco’s map of 1448 and is further proof that the Southern and Western Hemispheres were documented on maps long before European voyages of exploration started.

  If, as I claim, Zheng He’s 1434 visit provided maps of the world to the barbarians in order to enable them to pay tribute, then the Venetians and the Portuguese would have had knowledge of the New World by 1434.8 And if the Venetians knew of the New World by 1434, we would expect them to have set sail for it shortly thereafter.

  The voyage that is generally accepted as the first to Canada was the ill-fated expedition of Miguel Côrte-Real in 1502. Côrte-Real reached the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. When he arrived there, however, his sailors found a gilded sword hilt and silver trinkets of Venetian manufacture at a native village in Labrador.9

  Croatian Voyages West

  In 1434, the Venetian Empire was at its peak. Venice controlled the Croatian coast. Dalmatian sailors crewed Venetian ships, and Venetian pilots were trained at Perast (see chapters 7 and 13). According to Croatian archives, which Louis Adamic describes in a 1972 publication of Svetu Magazine,10 several Croatian merchant vessels foundered off the Carolina coast in 1449. They were said to be sailing to China via America.

  Adamic’s search of Croatian archives commenced following conversations with senior citizens who told him of ancestral traditions that Croatians had sailed across the Atlantic in ancient times. The brief account mentioned that three of the five vessels in the expedition were left stranded near Chesapeake Bay; the other two ships sailed back to Dubrovnik. Unfortunately, war with Turkey prevented a relief expedition. Charles Prazak believes the survivors joined the Powhatan tribe and gave their name to Croatan Island.

  The crew of a Croatian caravel, Atlante, sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and found land in 1484 (Sinovic, 1991). According to historian Charles Prazak, archives reported in Zajecnicar (Dec. 2, 1979) tell of several Croatian vessels carrying refugees from Turkish invasions who reached the Carolinas near Roanoke Island in 1470. Prazak (1993) and Sinovic (1991) believe these survivors merged with native Algokian tribes and made significant contributions to their culture and language. They have identified the name of one native tribe the Croatoans and an Isle in Cape Hatteras, Croatoan Isle, as derivatives of the Croatian language….

  In 1880, historian Hamilton McMillan noted that “Croatoan Indians have traditions which are tied to the individuals, the owners of the destroyed ships from the past.”

  This story is repeated in the East when Dalmatian ships accompanied the Chinese back to the East and “discovered” a number of Pacific islands to which they gave Dalmatian names—names that were changed to Spanish and Portuguese ones after the First World War.

  As noted in my book 1421, Columbus, Magellan, Albuquerque and Cabral all acknowledged that they had possessed charts of the Caribbean islands, South America, the Pacific, and Brazil, respectively. Toscanelli had sent Columbus a chart following his meeting with the Chinese delegation. Columbus’s records, which were acquired by the family of the duchess of Medina-Sidonia, provide ample evidence that Columbus had voyaged to the Americas before 1492.11 Dr. Marino Ruggiero’s book, cites evidence that the pope financed a Columbus voyage to the Americas before 1485.12

  All of the above confirms that the Venetians and the Portuguese understood world geography after 1434 and before European voyages of exploration started. Surely they received this information from the Chinese.

  Zheng He’s delegation also provided astronomical knowledge to Alberti, Regiomontanus, and Toscanelli, which Regiomontanus incorporated into his ephemeris tables and Alberti used for multiple purposes. Regiomontanus’s tables were issued to Portuguese navigators in 1474 and later to Columbus and Vespucci, who used them to calculate longitude. These tables also enabled sailors to calculate latitude at the meridian passage of the sun by using declination tables. This method was successfully applied by Dias, who accurately determined the latitude of the Cape of Good Hope at 35°20' S.13

  So not only did Zheng He’s delegation show the way to the New World but they provided Europeans with the knowledge to enable them to calculate their latitude and longitude to reach the New World and return home safely.

  The transfer of knowledge went further than maps. Nicholas of Cusa was the first European to blow apart Aristotelean and Ptolomaic theories of the universe. He revolutionized knowledge by postulating that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the solar system, that the earth and planets traveled in an elliptical orbit
around it. To reach this conclusion, I submit that both Nicholas of Cusa and Toscanelli used the Chinese astronomical calendar that Zheng He’s delegation presented to Pope Eugenius IV.

  Regiomontanus’s ephemeris tables, with the positions of sun, moon, the five planets, and the stars, contained no information that was not already in the Chinese astronomical calendar, the Shoushi. In the forty years after the Chinese visit of 1434, knowledge of the universe was changed as fundamentally as knowledge of the earth.

  As Professor Zinner explains, Copernicus could have learned about and been influenced by Regiomontanus. Copernicus studied at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (1491–1494) and then in Italy, mostly in Bologna (1496–1503).14 At that time, Cracow was the European university where the teachings of Regiomontanus had gained the surest foothold.15 Copernicus’s interest in sine tables may have been inspired by Regiomontanus’s Tabulae diretorium, which was printed in 1490 and later found in Cracow.

  Zinner describes the connection:

  Copernicus also came under the influence of Regiomontanus in Bologna. Here he obtained Regiomontanus Ephemerides and the Epitome and was presumeably motivated by them to test the Ptolemaic system by observations. And so the same thing happened with Copernicus in 1497 as had happened 40 years earlier with Regiomontanus. By observations, they determined errors and felt compelled to get to the root of these errors.

  The similarity goes even further. Both men were busy with extensive sine tables necessary for precise calculations with observational instruments, and—most importantly—both created their own new trigonometry, as the prevailing mathematics was insufficient for their needs.16

  The use of sine tables and spherical trigonometry to meet the need for precise calculations with observational instruments had all been developed by Guo Shoujing two centuries earlier. Yet Guo Shoujing is not mentioned in European biographies of famous mathematicians.17