Rivers of Gold
Page 76
38. See Palencia [1:19], 15.
39. See John Edwards, “The ‘Massacre’ of Jewish Christians in Córdoba, 1473–74,” in Mark Levene and Penny Roberts, The Massacre in History, New York 1999.
40. Luis Suárez, “La Salida de los Judíos,” in Isabel la Católica y la Política, ed. Julio Valdeón Baruque, Valladolid 2001, 86. Elsewhere he explains the principal charges formulated against the conversos. Netanyahu thinks that the aim of the Inquisition was to “destroy the marrano community. The advocates of the Inquisition, of course, knew this and the conversos knew it well.” The conversos were those who converted willingly; marranos those whose conversion was forced.
41. See Suárez’s Isabel I [1:20], 299.
42. Netanyahu, Toward the Inquisition, New York 1997, 198–99.
43. Although 2,000 is quoted by many, these figures are debated. For example, Alfredo Alvar Ezquerra, Isabel la Católica, Madrid 2002, 98, suggests that for the reign of the two monarchs, the number was 9,000—out of a total of 10,000 conversos.
44. A tax farmer was a man who collected taxes on behalf of a higher authority.
45. J. Vicens Vives, Historia crítica de la vida y reinado de Fernando II de Aragón, Saragossa 1962, 654. Isabel had previously had Salomon Byton as her doctor.
46. Sixteen in Aragon, thirty-one in Castile, one in Navarre.
47. Edwards [2:25], 197.
48. Altogether there were about two hundred monasteries in Spain, of which fifty were Cistercian, six Praemonasterian, and most of the rest Benedictine, some dependent on the foundation at Cluny. There were about two hundred Franciscan conventos, a few Dominican, and thirty-four Jeronymite.
49. See Louis Cardaillac, L’Espagne des Rois Catholiques, Le Prince Don Juan, symbole de l’apogée d’un règne 1474–1500, Paris 2000, 113–223.
50. Helen Nader, The Mendoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance, New Brunswick, NJ 1979, 109.
51. Manuel Fernández Álvarez, Corpus documental de Carlos V, Salamanca 1973, 5 vols., 1, 167fn, 62.
52. Suárez Fernández [1:20], 28.
53. Pulgar [1:24], 313–14.
54. See Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada, “Les finances royales de Castille a la vieille des temps modernes,” Annales, May–June 1970.
55. Martyr [1:2], 3.
56. The best portrait would seem to be that in the Museo Naval, Madrid. See also the impression in Alejo Fernández’s La Virgen de los Mareantes in the Alcázar, in Seville, which may reflect Fernández’s recollection of Columbus from the time he was living in Córdoba. My description derives from several sources: for example, Las Casas [2:50], 1, 29. Oviedo [2:43], 1, 8, who saw him in 1493, says that Columbus was “de buena estatura e aspecto, más alto que mediano y de recios miembros; los ojos vivos e las otras partes del rostro de buena proporción; el cabello muy bermejo, y la cara algo encendida e pecoso; bien hablado, cauto, e de gran ingenio, e gentil latino … gracioso cuando quería, iracundo cuando se enojaba.” There is a fine portrait by Sebastián del Piombo in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, but is it of Columbus?
Chapter 4
1. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 163: “tal empresa como aquella no era sino para reyes.”
2. Anon in Poesie, ed. L. Cocito, 1970, 566, cit. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, Before Columbus, London 1987, 106.
3. Guicciardini [3:6], 9.
4. Pastor [1:7], 5, 241.
5. Joanot Martorell and Martí Joan de Galba, Tirant lo Blanc, tr. David H. Rosenthal, London 1984, 198.
6. Fernández-Armesto [4:2], 119.
7. For the Genoese in Chios, see Philip Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese, 1346–1566, 3 vols., Cambridge 1958.
8. Jacques Heers, Gènes au XVème siècle, Paris 1961, 68–71.
9. Sir Peter Russell, Prince Henry the Navigator, New Haven 2000, 249, illuminates this side of Genoese commerce.
10. Argenti [4:7], 333, warns us against thinking that those called Centurione, Grimaldi, Pinelli, etc., were all descendants of persons bearing these surnames. They were sometimes merely associates united in an “albergo” under such a name.
11. Suárez [1:20], 121.
12. The cardinal appears on the tympanum—more banker than bishop, says Peggy Liss [2:42], 260.
13. Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, Las Quinquagenas de la Nobleza de España, Royal Academy of History, 1, Madrid 1880.
14. Qu. Consuelo Varela, Cristóbal Colón, retrato de un hombre, Madrid 1992, 124. See Etoy de Benito Ruano, “La participación en la guerra de Granada” (I Congreso de Historia de Andalucia, 2, Córdoba 1978).
15. See, for example, Celso García de la Riega, ¿Colón español?, Madrid 1914; Henri Vignaud was the inventor of the Jewish legend, taken up by Madariaga.
16. Cristóbal Colón, Textos y documentos completos, ed. Juan Gil and Consuelo Varela, Madrid 1992, 423.
17. The best biography in Spanish is that of Consuelo Varela [4:14]; in English by Felipe Fernández-Armesto (Columbus, Oxford 1992), and in French by J. Heers, the historian of Genoa (Christophe Colomb, Paris 1981). Juan Gil’s essay “Historiografía Española sobre el descubrimiento y descubrimientos” in Revista de Indias (hereafter R de I), 49, 187, Sept.–Dec. 1989, is a fine introduction to the writing about Columbus.
18. Colón [4:16], 356, “siendo yo nacido en Génova.”
19. Colón [4:16], 356.
20. Las Casas [2:50]. Las Casas saw and probably listened to Columbus in 1493 on his return from the first voyage. Whether he saw him again in, for example, 1497–98 or in 1500–2 is quite uncertain.
21. “De muy pequeña edad,” Colón [4:16], 444.
22. Colón [4:16], 89–91; also Las Casas [2:50], 1, 31.
23. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 31.
24. Bernáldez [3:2], 1, 357: “hombre de alto ingenio sin saber muchas letras.”
25. Columbus described going to Ireland in a letter to the King and Queen in 1495; see Colón [4:16], 285.
26. See Peter Russell’s admirable Prince Henry the Navigator [4:9]. Perhaps it was really Cape Juby.
27. This was Willem Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, Eng. tr. London 1705.
28. Strabo (64 B.C.–A.D. 21) was a geographer of Greek descent, though he had Asiatic blood. He was a Stoic, who believed that there was one landmass. His work was a storehouse of knowledge, much of it interesting, some of it true.
29. Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, Oxford 1971, 61–62.
30. Las Casas says so [2:50], 1, 144.
31. A “lateen” (latin) sail was a triangular one, suspended by a long yard at an angle of about 45 degrees to the mast.
32. Morison [4:29], 8.
33. See El libro de Marco Polo, ed. Juan Gil, Madrid 1992.
34. “No hay que creer que el océano cubra la mitad de la tierra”: see Pierre d’Ailly, Ymago Mundi, ed. Antonio Ramírez de Verger, Madrid 1992, 150. For d’Ailly, see J. Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, Chicago 1996, 124.
35. See Stephen Greenblatt, Marvelous Possessions, Chicago 1991, 26ff.
36. Russell [4:9], 99.
37. Henry Harrisse, The Discovery of North America, London 1892, 378, 381. The letter was reprinted in Spanish by Las Casas [2:50], 1, 63.
38. Martín Fernández de Navarrete, Colección de viajes y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los españoles, 4 vols., Madrid 1954, 1, 299, 300. See Heers [4:17] for the date, 88. Others think the letter was only sent in 1492. In fact, it is 12,000 miles to China from the Canary Islands.
39. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 300: Toscanelli was especially interested in comets and held open court in Florence to intelligent young men in his day, who included Leonardo da Vinci and, probably, Amerigo Vespucci.
40. Fernando Colón, Historia del Almirante, ed. Luis Arranz, Madrid 2000, 66.
41. Fernando Colón [4:40], 62.
42. Discussion of the mistake can be seen in Morison’s The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, 1491–1616, New York 1974, 30–31.
43. See Edmundo O’Gorman, La Idea del descubrimiento de América, Mexico City 1951, and, in particular, Juan Manzano y Manzano, Colón y su secreto: el predescubrimiento, Madrid 1976, 1989. Oviedo [2:43] rejected the idea, 1, 16.
44. See Manzano [4:43], 21.
45. For Bishop Ortiz, see Las Casas [2:50], 1, 151. Fernando Colón [4:40], 64–67, called Ortiz “Calzadilla.”
46. João de Barros qu. Heers [4:17], 101.
47. Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism, Cambridge 1986, 79, thought that slaves were brought from the Canaries and Majorca as early as 1342.
48. The Spanish Canary Islands were then governed by Diego García de Herrera and his wife in Peraza; his grandfather had added La Gomera to the Spanish Canarian collection. They were succeeded by their son, Fernando Herrera, and his wife, Beatriz de Bobadilla.
49. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, The Canary Islands After the Conquest, Oxford 1982; Vicenta Cortés Alonso, “La conquista de Canarias a través de las ventas de esclavos,” Anuario de estudios Americanos (hereafter AEA), 1, 1955, 498.
50. Fernández-Armesto summarizes the evidence [4:49], 10.
51. See Fernández-Armesto [4:2].
52. Manzano says that Marchena was supportive of Columbus because he had been told about the secret of the “unknown pilot.” See [4:43], 22. For Velasco, see Las Casas [2:50], 1, 68.
53. A friend wrote so to me: “ya que una neblina caprichosa todo la tapa y muchas veces se confunden con unas nubes bajas que parecen formar montañas, colinas y valles.”
54. Evidence of García Hernández, doctor of Palos, in Navarrete [4:38], 2, 330–31.
55. They were attached to the household of Álvaro de Portugal, one of the children of the executed Duke of Braganza who had fled to Spain recently.
56. This dating derives from Rumeu [2:2], 419.
57. Oviedo [2:43], 1, 22, gives the credit to Mendoza and Quintanilla that Columbus saw the monarchs.
58. The great pile of the Archbishop’s Palace in Alcalá can still be seen, covering with its park territory an area large enough for any modern bishop to hide from the world.
59. Alfonso de Palencia [1:19], 205.
60. Bernáldez [3:2], 1, 359: “los mostró el mapa-mundi, de manera que puso en deseo de saber de aquellas tierras.”
61. “E les fizo relación de su imaginación,” Bernáldez [3:2], 1, 358.
62. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 149.
63. They had the right to load the third part of all cargoes on all ships that left Castilian ports. They also received a third part of the profits of the royal ships on their journeys, as well as the third part of the quinto real of all enterprises. See Privilegio of Aug. 17, 1416, cited in Navarrete [4:38], 1, 262–93, where the full rights, etc., of the old admirals are explained. These papers were in the Columbus archives in the possession of the dukes of Vergara. The rights of Fadrique in 1512 are explained in a document of 1512, in ibid., 293–95:
1. Each ship that left Seville would have to pay to the admiral 20 maravedís per ton, though with a maximum of 3,000 ms.;
2. Each ton of merchandise taken from Seville would pay a tax to the admiral of 8 ms. per ton;
3. The admiral should be paid 5 reales de plata per every 100 tons of ballast;
4. Every bottle of wine or oil taken from Seville should pay 5 blancas to the admiral;
5. Every ship of 100 tons would pay 1,450 reales for anchorage;
6. Each quintal of ropes, etc., and hemp would pay 25 ms;
7–19. Wheat, iron, biscuit, grain, sardines, wool, oysters, clams, etc., should all pay various taxes to the Admiral.
64. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 156.
65. Archivo General de Simancas (hereafter AGS), Patronato real, 28–31, quoted in Azcona [1:21], 491.
66. Manzano [4:43], 24.
67. A full list of the members does not seem to survive. Among them there was Rodrigo Maldonado de Talavera, a professor of law at Salamanca, who had negotiated with Portugal and came to know it well, and was a member of the Consejo Real.
68. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 157–58.
69. Manzano [4:43], xvii, 104, suggested that Columbus told Deza his secret deriving from the “unknown pilot.”
70. Bernáldez [3:2]. Juana was the sister of Pedro Velázquez who at the time of her appointment in 1479 had been secretary of the queen, and of Antonio de Torre, who went to the Americas with Columbus on his second voyage. Later, she married Juan Dávila.
71. Navarrete [4:38], 2, 348. Las Casas thought that Talavera was the chief negative influence, Peter Martyr the contrary. Consuelo Varela sides with Martyr in this debate. See Las Casas [2:50], 1, 167.
72. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 145, 155.
73. Rumeu [2:2], 426.
74. Colón [4:16], 92; Antonio Sánchez González, Medinaceli y Colón, Madrid 1995, 172.
75. See Las Casas [2:50], 1, 153, for Bartolomeo: “de menos simplicidad—que Cristóbal … no mucho menos docto en cosmografía.”
76. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 161.
77. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 302: “algunas cosas cumplideras a nuestro servicio.”
78. Letter of 1505.
79. Sánchez González [4:74], 133. The last de la Cerda, Isabel, married Bernardo de Foix, first Count of Medinaceli, the bastard of Béarne, son of Gaston Phoebus, who had come down into Spain in one of the “white companies” to assist the Trastámara. The Estado de Medinaceli had been created by King Enrique II in 1368 with the title of count, being raised to a dukedom in 1479.
80. As qu. Prescott [1:22], 182.
81. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 164.
82. See John Edwards, War and Peace in Fifteenth-Century Spain, in Studies in Medieval History Presented to R. H. C. Davis, Henry Mayr-Harting and R. I. Moore, eds, London 1985, 65f.
83. Ibid., 60.
84. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 162–63.
85. “Tal empresa como aquella no era sino para reyes,” Las Casas [2:50], 1, 163. These letters are lost. Sánchez González, the archivist of the Medinaceli Foundation, suggests that they were stolen.
86. They were consuegros, for his daughter, Leonor, married Rodrigo, the Marquis of Cenete, the Cardinal’s son.
87. AGS, Estado, leg. 1–2, in Navarrete [4:38], 1, 310.
88. “Protesté a vuestras altezas que toda la ganancia d’esta mi empresa se gastase en la conquista de Hierusalem, y vuestras altezas se rieron, y dixeron que les plazía y que sin esto tenían aquella gana.…” (Diary of first voyage, December 26, 1492, in Colón [4:16].)
Chapter 5
1. Harvey [1:1], 310.
2. Nubdha-Kitah nubdhat al-asr fi Akhabar mulūk Baní Nasr, ed. and tr. Carlos Quirós and Alfredo Bustani, “Fragmentos de la época sobre noticias de los reyes nazaritas,” BAE, 1905–29, qu. Harvey [1:1], 310–11.
3. The part of the Gran Capitán can be followed in the excellent new biography by Ruiz-Domènec [3:20], 200ff.
4. A capitulación was normally a document that would reserve rights to the Crown in the territories concerned but that also guaranteed rewards to the leader of the expedition.
5. “Aquella santa conquista que el nuestro muy esforçado rey hizo del reino de Granada.…” Prologue to Amadís de Gaula by Garcí Rodríguez de Montalvo, ed. Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce, Madrid 1991, 128.
6. Bernáldez [3:2], 1, 302.
7. Alonso de Santa Cruz, Crónica de los Reyes Católicos, ed. Juan de Mata Carriazo, 2 vols., Seville 1951, 1, 47.
8. Observe it at the “point” of the coat of arms in the Isabella Breviary, p. 6. It was not a Muslim sign.
9. Rumeu [2:2], 190.
10. Martyr [1:2], 172.
11. Borgia had on his coat of arms a fighting bull.
12. Pastor [1:7], 4, 334.
13. Harvey [1:1], 326.
14. The first marquis was the legitimatized son of Cardinal Mendoza.
15. “con determinada voluntad de pasarse a Francia.…” Las Casas [2:50], 1, 167. Manuel Serrano y Sanz, Los amigos y protectores Aragoneses de Cristóbal Colón, M
adrid 1918, reissued Barcelona 1991, dates this Jan. 1492. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 167.
16. Letter from Ayala to the Catholic Kings, July 25, 1498, in Bergenroth, Calendar of Letters … Relating to the Negotiations Between England and Spain, London 1862, 1, 176, qu. Harrisse [4:37], 2.
17. Fernando Colón [4:40], 93.
18. Sánchez González [4:74], 229.
19. Las Casas [2:50], 1, 168–70: “haber intentado saber las grandezas y secretos del universo.”
20. “las reglas o límites de su oficio.” But he had “ánimo notificarle lo que en mi corazón siento.” Las Casas [2:50] 1, 168.
21. Varela [4:14], 7.
22. Fernando Colón [4:40], 93.
23. Serrano y Sanz [5:15], 136–38.
24. Serrano y Sanz [5:15], 117. Harrisse in his life of Columbus argued that the idea of Santangel’s intervention was a fantasy. Varela says Santangel’s Florentine partner, Juanotto Berardi, was involved in loans.
25. It still stands, a reminder that a bridge can lead two ways.
26. Navarrete [4:38] 1, 303.
27. Fernando Colón [4:40], 94. See Ricardo Zorraquín Becú, “El gobierno superior de las Indias,” in Congreso de Historia del Descubrimiento, Actas, 4 vols., Madrid 1992, 3, 165ff., for an analysis of the curious wording of the grants to Columbus.
28. “las dichas mares oceanas.”
29. “aquellas islas e tierra firmes.”
30. “ha descubierto.”
31. Text in Las Casas [2:50], 1, 172–73.
32. Sánchez González [4:74], 230.
33. Bernáldez [3:2], 1, 280.
34. An indulgence was a remission of a punishment for sin.
35. Frederick Pohl, Amerigo Vespucci, London 1966, 31, quotes an interesting letter of 1489 from Lorenzo Pier Francesco de’ Medici to Vespucci about Berardi.
36. Dr. Rodericous, Sebastián de Olano, and Francisco de Madrid, of whom the last named was chancellor to the Crown, a converso, his mother being Jewish. See Gil [3:37], 3; Navarrete [4:38], 1, 305.
37. Navarrete [4:38], 1, 307.
38. Qu. Varela, Retrato [4:14], 104: “Sobre el maravilloso descubrimiento del nuevo mundo.”