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A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

economist.com

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Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#171

Post by hasmanean »

JudgePenitent wrote: post #136
buescher wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Educated people already knew the circumference of the globe. Columbus’ miscalculation was… hopeful. There’s a sort of conspiracy theory that it was deliberate - how else was he going to get funding?

Columbus made a voyage to Bristol in the UK and certainly came across merchants who had travelled in the northern reaches, Iceland in particular. It is suggested that he did indeed travel to Iceland although the source we have for it is quite a few degrees removed from Columbus claiming it. The Vikings/Norsemen had already spread awareness of Vinland to monks in Iceland, as the sagas regarding Vinland were written do…

Humans are not very good at seeing patterns when they have preconceptions.

Norse mythology talked about a land full of woodland elves who had very long life spans, that could only be reached after a journey of many months through the land of the frost giants and across a rainbow shaped bridge. Odin and Loki are said to have made this trip.

The real life explanation is probably that 2 Norseman crossed Siberia and crossed the Bering Strait to visit B.C.

The way we imagine it? An interdimensional gate leads to a spiritual realm in the sky called Asgard filled with gods (whatever the hell that means) who are immortal.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#172

Post by hirako2000 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #169
hirako2000 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting how deeply wrong we were at that time, while we precedently knew all the dimensions and distance of most parts of the globe with pretty high accuracy.

We "did." [0] What we did not know was an accurate way to determine longitude, specifically on a ship, until 1761. [1] [2] Consequently, any voyage before 1761 knew its latitude exactly, but dead-reckoned its longitude. 33 days of speed-estimated dead reckoning in 1492, plus having no idea of the speed or orientation of the underlying current you're in, leaves a lot of room for error. [0] For values of "did" that inc…

So we knew the right answer but we didn't accept it as correct so most people followed suit.

It's fascinating. We are on the same track today. We know the truth but most of us jump on the same entirely wrong band wagons.

One could argue that ignoring the truth is worse than pure ignorance.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#173

Post by koheripbal »

akamaka wrote: post #84

The article should have given more context and mentioned that it wasn’t unusual for lands across the Atlantic to appear on pre-Colombian maps. Here are two examples: https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Antillia https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Brasil_(mythical_island)

These seem more likely to represent the Canary Islands.

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#174

Post by koheripbal »

dboreham wrote: post #103
jmchuster wrote: post #19

> But it could help explain why Columbus, a Genoese, was prepared to set off across what most contemporaries considered a landless void. I had always thought that Columbus made the trip because he miscalculated the distance around the globe, while everyone else was saying they'd starve before reaching Asia. He was just lucky enough there happened to be land halfway there, and then mistakenly assumed he made it, since…

Probably fake history. Modern thinking is that Columbus had a pretty good idea where he was going because others had already been there.

That is not modern thinking

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#175

Post by ethbr0 »

hirako2000 wrote: post #172
ethbr0 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We "did." [0] What we did not know was an accurate way to determine longitude, specifically on a ship, until 1761. [1] [2] Consequently, any voyage before 1761 knew its latitude exactly, but dead-reckoned its longitude. 33 days of speed-estimated dead reckoning in 1492, plus having no idea of the speed or orientation of the underlying current you're in, leaves a lot of room for error. [0] For values of "did" that inc…

So we knew the right answer but we didn't accept it as correct so most people followed suit. It's fascinating. We are on the same track today. We know the truth but most of us jump on the same entirely wrong band wagons. One could argue that ignoring the truth is worse than pure ignorance.

I guess my perspective (from watching struggles with public health & vaccine development information during early COVID-19) is that modern intellects aren't well exercised with respect to uncertainty.

Our predecessors lived in a culture suffused with unreliable information. There weren't even "alternate" facts, because there were few accepted ones to have alternatives to.

On the one hand, we know more than they did (stronger & longer mandatory education + post-primary + informal access). On the other hand, we've forgotten how to responsibly handle uncertainty.

Or, as I sum it all up: science should be a verb (aka process), not a noun (result).

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#177

Post by heavenlyblue »

scythe wrote: post #105
EamonnMR wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but you think they'd save fuel and locally source the twigs

Possibly not if the goal is to impress a potential mate.

Have you just invented this or is that actually some well-known fact that birds impress potential mates this way?

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#178

Post by ZanyProgrammer »

JudgePenitent wrote: post #137
CryptoPunk wrote: post #39

Intriguely, Columbus claimed that in 1477, after visiting Bristol, England (which is confirmed), he visited Iceland, where the stories of Markland would have predominated.

If I'm not mistaken, the source for Columbus visiting Iceland was by his son Ferdinand (who said his dad left notes laying around and his son figured out he was talking about Iceland) in his biography of his father, written in Spanish, the original of which is lost; Italian copies were made, which was then translated into English as well. I don't know if "Columbus claimed" is the right way to phrase this. Ruddock [1]…

Isnt Ruddock the same person who claimed that Cabot and a friar established the only pre Reformation church north of Spanish territory?

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#179

Post by heavenlyblue »

tremon wrote: post #161
weswpg wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is the area referred to as "the west Indies" unless he thought it was India

"The Indies" referred to the known archipelago in the Indian Ocean (now Indonesia and the Philippines). The Caribbean is also an archipelago, so if Columbus believed himself to be in the Indian Ocean, it's not that odd for him to assume he'd reached the western end of the same archipelago. India is not a collection of islands, it's unlikely that Columbus mistook an archipelago for a known vast land mass.

You mean Eastern end of the archipelago?

Re: A monk in 14th-century Italy wrote about the Americas

#180

Post by phil_folrida »

throw0101a wrote: post #34
jmchuster wrote: post #19

> But it could help explain why Columbus, a Genoese, was prepared to set off across what most contemporaries considered a landless void. I had always thought that Columbus made the trip because he miscalculated the distance around the globe, while everyone else was saying they'd starve before reaching Asia. He was just lucky enough there happened to be land halfway there, and then mistakenly assumed he made it, since…

> I had always thought that Columbus made the trip because he miscalculated the distance around the globe, while everyone else was saying they'd starve before reaching Asia. In the late 1400s people thought the Asian continent was larger than it is in reality. So when Columbus et co saw islands they thought they had hit Japan†… roughly where all the best maps of the day said it would be. See Toscanelli's 1474 map, wh…

It is highly speculative to say Japan, even today we reference Native American as Indians.

He was thinking they reached India.

Same mistake today people do with Miles and Kilometer, when you are raised in one or another it is difficult to switch.

Erastothene was speaking in stadium, Columbus in Nautic miles.

The Spanish crown was motivated by greed.

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