Wanderings With An Idea - 4

Wanderings With An Idea - 4

This new disappointment, bitter though it was, did not find Columbus in such friendless

and unhappy circumstances as those in which he left Portugal. He had important friends

now, who were willing and anxious to help him, and among them was one to whom he

turned, in his profound depression, for religious and friendly consolation. This was Diego

de DEA, prior of the Dominican convent of San Estevan at Salamanca, who was also

professor of theology in the university there and tutor to the young Prince Juan. Of all

those who came in contact with Columbus at this time this man seems to have understood

him best, and to have realised where his difficulty lay. Like many others who are

consumed with a burning idea Columbus was very probably at this time in danger of

becoming possessed with it like a monomaniac; and his new friends saw that if he were to

make any impression upon the conservative learning of the time to which a decision in

such matters was always referred he must have some opportunity for friendly discussion

with learned men who were not inimical to him, and who were not in the position of

judges examining a man arraigned before them and pleading for benefits.

When the Court went to Salamanca at the end of 1486, DEA arranged that Columbus

should go there too, and he lodged him in a country farm called Valcuebo, which

belonged to his convent and was equi-distant from it and the city. Here the good

Dominican fathers came and visited him, bringing with them professors from the

university, who discussed patiently with Columbus his theories and ambitions, and,

himself all conscious, communicated new knowledge to him, and quietly put him right on

many a scientific point. There were professors of cosmography and astronomy in the

university, familiar with the works of Alfraganus and Regiomontanus. It is likely that it

was at this time that Columbus became possessed of d'Ailly's 'Imago Mundi', which little

volume contained a popular resume of the scientific views of Strabo, Pliny, Ptolemy, and

others, and was from this time forth Columbus's constant companion.

Here at Valcuebo and later, when winter came, in the great hall of the Dominican convent

at Salamanca, known as the "De Profundis" hall, where the monks received guests and

held discussions, the Idea of Columbus was ventilated and examined. He heard what

friendly sceptics had to say about it; he saw the kind of argument that he would have to

oppose to the existing scientific and philosophical knowledge on cosmography. There is

no doubt that he learnt a good deal at this time; and more important even than this, he got

his project known and talked about; and he made powerful friends, who were afterwards

to be of great use to him. The Marquesa de Moya, wife of his friend Cabrera, took a great

liking to him; and as she was one of the oldest and closest friends of the Queen, it is

likely that she spoke many a good word for Columbus in Isabella's ear.

By the time the Court moved to Cordova early in 1487, Columbus was once more

hopeful of getting a favourable hearing. He followed the Court to Cordova, where he

received a gracious message from the Queen to the effect that she had not forgotten him,

and that as soon as her military preoccupations permitted it, she would go once more, and

more fully, into his proposals. In the meantime he was attached to the Court, and received

a quarterly payment of 3000 maravedis. It seemed as though the unfavourable decision of

Talavera's committee had been forgotten.

In the meantime he was to have a change of scene. Isabella followed Ferdinand to the

siege of Malaga, where the Court was established; and as there were intervals in which

other than military business might be transacted, Columbus was ordered to follow them

in case his affairs should come up for consideration. They did not; but the man himself

had an experience that may have helped to keep his thoughts from brooding too much on

his unfulfilled ambition. Years afterwards, when far away on lonely seas, amid the

squalor of a little ship and the staggering buffets of a gale, there would surely sometimes

leap into his memory a brightly coloured picture of this scene in the fertile valley of

Malaga: the silken pavilions of the Court, the great encampment of nobility with its arms

and banners extending in a semicircle to the seashore, all glistening and moving in the

bright sunshine. There was added excitement at this time at an attempt to assassinate

Ferdinand and Isabella, a fanatic Moor having crept up to one of the pavilions and aimed

a blow at two people whom he mistook for the King and Queen. They turned out to be

Don Alvaro de Portugal, who was dangerously wounded, and Columbus's friend, the

Marquesa de Moya, who was unhurt; but it was felt that the King and Queen had had a

narrow escape. The siege was raised on the 18th of August, and the sovereigns went to

spend the winter at Zaragoza; and Columbus, once more condemned to wait, went back

to Cordova.