Isabella of Castile

by Giles Tremlett

  Those who imagined a clear sea from Europe to Asia could give no good reason why that should be the case, though it was equally hard to argue that it was not. The unknown was just that, unknown. Where some saw an open ocean, others saw a distant, undiscovered continent – the legendary Antipodes – which would block the way. Still more imagined that islands known variously as Antillia, Brasil, St Brendan or Isle of the Seven Cities lay along the way. Foremost among the believers in an open route was a Florentine cosmographer called Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, whom Columbus sought out as he mulled over the idea of sailing west. The Florentine replied enthusiastically, believing him to have the backing of Portugal, where Columbus had lived and married Felipa Perestrello – the daughter of one of the explorers who discovered, and became lord of, the island of Porto Santo, near Madeira. Toscanelli sent him a map he had drawn showing ‘the short distance from here to the Indies, where the spicelands start, which is a shorter path than that via Guinea [Africa]’. Toscanelli enthused not just about the journey but also about the riches that could be found there. He placed Cathay, the China of Marco Polo, only 5,200 nautical miles away.6 ‘This country is worth seeking,’ he wrote, claiming to have met Chinese visitors to Rome many years earlier. ‘Not only because great wealth may be obtained from it, gold and silver, all sorts of gems, and spices, which never reach us; but also on account of its learned men, philosophers, and expert astrologers, and by what skill and art so powerful and magnificent a province is governed, as well as how their wars are conducted.’ Cipango, modern-day Japan, was thought to be much closer, at 3,000 nautical miles. ‘You should know that the temples and royal palaces are covered in pure gold,’ he said. ‘And it can be safely reached.’ But Columbus managed to shorten even this distance by using his own observations at sea and the calculations of the tenth-century Arab cosmographer al-Farghani, or ‘Alfraganus’, to shrink the size of the globe even further. The distance to Japan, he thought, was just 2,400 nautical miles, or a quarter of the true figure.7

  He had previously, in 1484, sought the backing of Portugal, a country which already had an impressive record of navigation and discovery in west Africa and the Atlantic, having claimed the Azores and Madeira. Portuguese sailors were on their way to discovering the eastward route towards Asia around the southern horn ofAfrica, with Diogo Cão already sailing south past the mouth of the River Congo to the coast of modern-day Angola. In 1488 King João invited Columbus back to Lisbon. In his letter the Portuguese king used some of the grand new titles – such as Lord of Guinea (as the newly discovered regions of west Africa were called) and King ‘on both sides of the sea of Africa’ – that served as reminders of his own country’s recent successes and of its rivalry with Isabella’s Castile. Columbus was there in December 1488 when Bartolomeu Dias returned from rounding Africa’s southern tip at the Cape of Good Hope for the first time – though he had failed to reach India and its lucrative spice markets.8 Columbus’s admiring, intelligent and cultured younger brother Bartolomé – himself a skilled map-maker – appears to have accompanied Dias on the trip.

  A committee of Portuguese wise men, including the eminent Jewish cosmographer Joseph Vizinho, decided that Columbus’s fixation with Cipango and its alleged proximity was, at best, unrealistic.Columbus had then despatched his brother to England to seek the backing of King Henry VII – who allegedly showed some interest after Bartolomé painted him a map modelled on Toscanelli’s – and to try his luck in France.9 Meanwhile, after years of lobbying among those closest to Isabella and Ferdinand, news reached him late in 1491 that he was being given one last opportunity to persuade them. Isabella and her husband were preparing for the inevitable fall of Granada. It was a good time to strike again. The euphoria of the moment, and the proof that great, historic tasks could be brought to a successful end, might make them more open to Columbus’s ambitious, if fantastical-sounding, project.

  The key that unlocked Isabella’s door this time was a former confessor, the Franciscan friar Juan Pérez, who was now at the friary at La Rábida, on the south-west corner of Castile. Built on a rocky outcrop overlooking the spot where the rivers Odiel and Tinto join just before spilling their waters into the Atlantic on Spain’s southern coast, this was a religious community famed among mariners. It looked out over the apparently endless ocean that Columbus wished to sail, its cloisters lined with horseshoe mudéjar arches and its friars keen chart-makers and collectors of both maps and sailors’ stories. Inside its thick walls, the friars knew all the tales about what might lie beyond the horizon. The friary of Observant Franciscans had long been one of Columbus’s refuges, and it was Pérez who recommended the Genoese sailor and adventurer to Isabella once more. He and another senior friar, the astrologer Antonio de Marchena, had been among Columbus’s few constant supporters and the Italian had even lived with them when his money ran out.10 This time the queen wrote back speedily, encouraging Friar Pérez to hire a mule and travel to Santa Fe to see her. She asked him to tell Columbus ‘to expect a positive reply’.11 Soon afterwards a similar invitation was extended to Columbus himself, including a generous sum of money so that he could dress appropriately for court.

  Columbus was a seducer, as tenacious in his pursuit of people as of new places. Over the years he would study Isabella and her court, thinking up different ways to impress her.12 The Italian mariner adopted a mixture of gallantry, boldness and religious conviction, knowing that she was open to the flirtatious, if carefully circumscribed, games of courtly love and chivalry. A later letter to Isabella is full of sensual praise for the woman who holds ‘the keys’ to his desire and to whom he boasts of ‘the scent’ and ‘taste’ of his goodwill while also flattering her as the recipient of a God-given ‘spirit of understanding’ (of him).13 Columbus’s proposals, too, contained plenty of the stuff of the legends that Isabella found so exciting – of brave men going off on remarkable adventures, fearless and absolute in their belief that God was behind them. There was nothing false about this, since Columbus’s own personal ambitions were framed in exactly the same social and chivalric codes. This son of a Genoese weaver turned innkeeper sought, above all, glory and rank. In the socially strict framework of Castilian society it was not easy to scale the upper heights, which were reserved for the nobility or – under Isabella – the earnest priests and lettered men emerging from her universities. But there were several examples of explorers who had catapulted themselves into the highest echelons of society by virtue of their finds. Columbus’s own father-in-law, Bartolomeu Perestrello, had performed exactly that trick by ‘discovering’ Porto Santo for Portugal and becoming its governor.14 The Norman explorer Jean de Béthencourt had declared himself King of the Canary Islands. The discovery and conquest of new lands – especially islands – was also a colourful part of chivalric romances like the popular Catalan novel Tirant lo Blanc, which sat on Isabella’s bookshelf. This included a character who was King of the Canary Islands, and in Cervantes’s later Don Quixote the knight-errant hero promises his sidekick Sancho Panza that he, too, will become lord of an island.

  Columbus was an avid reader, but he was not a university man. The chronicler Bernáldez called him ‘a man of great ingenuity but little education’.15 His knowledge was extensive but hotch-potch, gleaned from experience and his vast but uncritical reading of the science, myth, rumour and legend contained in the works of philosophers, historians, astrologers, travellers and geographers from ancient Greece, medieval Europe and the Arab world. These books, once he had made his mind up, were selectively raided for proof that he was right. He and Isabella were, in this respect, a perfect match. They were equally enamoured of bold action, divine justification and, in moments of weakness, romantic folly. It is hard, indeed, not to see something of Don Quixote in him – a knight errant bent on glory or death, with Isabella as his Dulcinea. And if that was not enough, he added a touch of messianic Spanish glory to the adventure. ‘All the profits from this enterprise of mine should be spent on the conquest of Jerusalem,’1
6 he added. This would be, he meant, just an extension of Isabella and Ferdinand’s crusading successes.

  By the time he met Isabella again at Santa Fe, Columbus’s campaign to find Castilian backing was already seven years old. He had worked on the prosperous Genoese and Florentine trading and banking communities of Andalusia, drawn close to the friars in La Rábida and become friendly with Grandees like Medina Sidonia and the Duke of Medinaceli. None of these people were able to give him official patronage, but they did form a valuable chorus of supporters who helped change the mood at court. Columbus seduced not just the men who surrounded Isabella and Ferdinand, but also the women. He appears to have sung the praises of the miel rosada, a medicinal syrup made from honey and rose water, produced by Prince Juan’s governess Juana de la Torre17 – who would make it for him to take on his journeys – and may also have targeted the influential Beatriz de Bobadilla, one of Isabella’s closest ladies-in-waiting and wife of her long-time ally Andrés Cabrera. A later poet would claim that ‘Bobadilla had been the main reason’ for Columbus winning Isabella’s backing (though he could have been referring to one of her relatives).18

  Columbus had as fine a sense of self-publicity and propaganda as Isabella. The story of exactly how he gained permission – and financing – to sail was written by the man himself, as was much else about him. It is coloured by the grandstanding and self-justification that he so frequently indulged in, but the core of it is true. Columbus recalled his triumphant visit to the royal court in a typically vivid and dramatic manner. He had been seated, once more, before a committee of experts. Perhaps this was a moment when he chose to explain, as he noted in the margin of one of his books, how he himself had already come across strange peoples from the western ocean who had been carried by strong currents on to the shores of Europe. ‘Men from Cathay came east. We have seen many interesting things and, above all, in Galway, in Ireland, a man and a woman who had been blown by storms in their boats in the most amazing way.’ He almost certainly introduced the arguments of writers and scientists like Toscanelli, Pierre d’Aylli, Pope Pius II – who claimed that all oceans were navigable and so most lands were accessible – and al-Farghani.19 Again, however, the experts chose not to believe his claims that the Ocean Sea was relatively small or that Asia lay within sailing distance on the other side of it. Not even the alternative of finding the mythical Antilles islands or the Antipodes could persuade them.20 ‘There was, once more, much debate, with information from philosophers, astrologers and cosmographers … and all agreed that this was madness and vanity, and at each step they laughed at and scorned the idea,’ his editor Bartolomé de Las Casas, who often paraphrased Columbus’s own words, reported in his History of the Indies.21 ‘The state of disbelief and disdain about what Columbus offered was such that it all collapsed, with the sovereigns ordering him to leave promptly.’ Las Casas blamed Talavera – who was, once more, the man tasked with counselling Isabella against backing the journey – and others who, allegedly, were incapable of understanding the project. But the committee was also put off by the arrogance of the Genoese adventurer. After all, this foreigner was demanding an extraordinary set of Castilian titles. He wanted the title of admiral, just like the admiral of Castile – a powerful and lucrative hereditary position that belonged to Ferdinand’s maternal family, the Enríquez – as well as those of virrey, or viceroy, and governor in perpetuity, with his children to succeed him.22 As had happened earlier in Portugal, Columbus’s quest for grandeur overrode his thirst for adventure and, at first, stymied his chances of achieving either. Isabella had listened to her advisers and concurred that the idea was too eccentric, the risks too great and the demands too high.

  Columbus packed his bags once more. He had already been peddling his dreams around Europe for almost a decade and, as he rode off, the indefatigable mariner immediately began thinking of where to find the right backer. His brother Bartolomé was already trying to do exactly that in England and France.23 But as Columbus began to reconsider his plans, Isabella also had a dramatic change of heart. In Santa Fe, she ordered that a messenger be sent to catch up with Columbus. The Italian had left an hour or so earlier, but was in no hurry. He had been on the road for just two hours when he heard the sound of a horse’s hoofs behind him and the messenger told him to stop.24 The queen, he was informed, had changed her mind.

  A momentous decision had been made, though no one realised then quite how important it was. There is no record of why Isabella changed her mind. Responsibility has variously been attributed to her ladies-in-waiting, Columbus’s many friends in her entourage and Ferdinand and his advisers. The project certainly fitted the spirit of the time. It also came in the context of the growing rivalry between Spain and Portugal for territorial expansion, trade and colonies. Spain, or rather Castile, was losing that battle. The world’s oldest surviving terrestrial globe, made the following year in Nuremberg by Martin Behaim, shows Portugal’s chequered flag sprouting from numerous spots along the eastern Atlantic while only one flag, perched atop the Canary Islands, bears the lions and castles of Castile. The papacy had given Portugal’s claims its seal of approval, erecting a further barrier to Castile which Isabella formally recognised in the peace treaty signed at Alcáçovas in 1479 that put an end to Juana la Beltraneja’s claim to the throne.25

  Above all, though, Columbus’s plan was cheap. The Genoese sailor needed just three ships and ninety sailors.26 A small investment from the royal coffers offered up a potentially unlimited amount of gold, trade in spices and other goods or – following the Canary Islands model – slaves, plantations of sugar and other crops. That was especially tempting after the war in Granada had both emptied the royal exchequer and left it without an important source of tribute paid by the Moorish kingdom. In the end it may have been Luis Santángel – a Valencia converso who was one of Ferdinand’s senior financial officers – who finally persuaded Isabella to call Columbus back. The chances of success were low, but any losseswere manageable. The overall budget was a mere 2 million maravedís – described by one historian as ‘perhaps the annual income of a middling provincial aristocrat’27 – of which the crown would directly raise just over half. The rest would be paid in kind by the port of Palos, which owed fine-money that it could pay off by providing vessels for the trip, and by Columbus himself and others via a banking syndicate that relied partly on a Florentine merchant and financier in Seville, Giannotto Berardi.28 Isabella and Ferdinand had 1.14 million maravedís forwarded by Santángel against funds to be raised via the sales of indulgences permitted by a Crusade Bull in Extremadura.29 This was an abusive use of money meant for crusading against infidels, but it also fitted Columbus’s belief that this was a divinely inspired venture designed to augment both the glory and reach of Christendom. Isabella, too, felt obliged to continue her crusade to enlarge Christendom after the fall of Granada and this was a cheap way to attempt that. ‘There was no certainty about what Columbus said,’ recalled one royal official. ‘In the end, it was done at very little cost.’30

  The task of finalising the details was now handed over to Talavera, Prince Juan’s tutor friar Diego de Deza (another future inquisitor general) and Ferdinand’s chamberlain Juan Cabrero. Columbus showed the same tenacity when negotiating the terms and conditions of his trip as he had when pursuing royal backing. Others may have ridiculed his demand to be admiral, viceroy and governor general – but that is what the ‘Capitulaciones de Santa Fe’, the document signed by Isabella and her husband on 17 April 1492, awarded him. The ‘Capitulaciones’ signal that the monarchs knew this was an extraordinary expedition. But the terms were also vague, giving Columbus grandiose titles without detailing exactly what they meant. In the end it was Talavera who now recommended signing the final document. ‘You should order this be done, even if it means spending something, because of the huge profit and honour that would come from the discovery of the said Indies,’ he said.31

  These were extraordinary things for Isabella, who drew as much power a
s she could towards the monarchy, to give away. Historians cannot agree on whether she and Ferdinand simply thought that this was a merced – a royal privilege or gift of crown income that could be given, but also taken away – or a binding contract. Perhaps they did not pay much attention. They were, after all, giving away rights to lands that most people thought did not exist and which, should Columbus discover the east coast of Asia, might already be under the sovereignty of some powerful monarch like the Great Khan. It was just as likely that Columbus would disappear over the horizon and fail to return or come back empty-handed. Isabella may be forgiven for not arguing too hard with a man to whom she was giving relatively little money and who was prepared to take such obviously extreme risks in her name (for this was Castile’s enterprise, not Aragon’s). Indeed, the text of the ‘Capitulaciones’ looks suspiciously as if it had been drawn up by Columbus himself and only lightly edited by royal officials. Ferdinand later explained quite explicitly why it was that Columbus obtained such generous terms and why they seemed so unthinkable later on. ‘These days it is very easy to discover [new lands],’ he wrote, twenty years afterwards. ‘[People] don’t think about how, at that time, there was no real hope that anything at all would be discovered.’32

  The available models of territorial expansion and naval exploration for Isabella were those that she herself had already overseen in the Canary Islands, along with Portugal’s extensive experience along the coast of Africa and deeper into the Atlantic. The Canary Islands, wrested away from the indigenous peoples who had sometimes fought solely with sticks and stones, were an example of true colonies – faraway lands incorporated into the crown of Castile and occupied by its own people. The islands were used for cultivating sugar cane and its ports were safe points from which to trade or explore the rest of the Atlantic Ocean. Madeira and the Azores served a similar role for Portugal, while its trading posts along the African coast from Ceuta to Cape Verde and the Gold Coast were major sources of slaves and gold. Aragon had a different, and longer, tradition of empire in the Mediterranean – where its twelfth- and thirteenth-century lands had stretched to Sicily, Naples and even Athens – which provided Columbus with examples of the titles of viceroy or governor that he coveted.33