| The idea of reaching India by the Atlantic, abandoned by the | Portuguese, is taken up by Columbus. The African mainland, it was then believed, did not reach south of the Equator. But, as the continent continued to expand before the explorers in its endless length, these ideas faded away, and hopes were entertained of seeking Asia across the Atlantic. For, that the Atlantic washed the eastern shores of Asia, was a belief which gained strength in mediæval Europe. This idea, guessed at by some of the ancients, was first definitely revived by Roger Bacon, the Franciscan schoolman of Oxford, in the thirteenth century. From him it was adopted by Peter d’Ailly, the chancellor of the University of Paris, in his treatise _de Imagine Mundi_, written early in the fifteenth century. It seemed to receive confirmation from the tradition of islands lying out far in the Atlantic, and from drift-wood carried to European shores on the Gulf Stream, and was definitely asserted by Paolo Toscanelli, a Florentine astronomer, in a letter to a monk of Lisbon, dated June 25, 1474. By that time, however, the Portuguese had made a notable advance down the western shores of Africa, and finally the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope by Bartholomew Diaz in 1486, caused them to concentrate their efforts on the eastern route. | Columbus approaches various courts, and finally gains the | support of Spain. The idea thus abandoned by the Portuguese was now to be taken up by Christopher Columbus. To appreciate the exact position of this remarkable citizen of Genoa in the history of discovery, we must remember that he had no idea of discovering a new continent. To find a shorter way to the Indies was his sole aim. His views in this respect were not beyond his age. His knowledge was based on the authorities above mentioned; and he is marked out from his contemporaries only by his determination to sail due west until he should reach the continent of Asia. With this intention, and furnished with the treatise of D’Ailly, a copy of Toscanelli’s letter, and a chart given him by the author, he first applied to the court of Lisbon, where he had already settled with his brother Bartholomew. But John II. of Portugal, intent on the circumnavigation of Africa, declined his offer, and, if we may believe some accounts,[28] his attempts to obtain assistance from Venice and Genoa were equally unsuccessful. He now, in 1484, turned to England, and to Spain.