Renaissance Studies Vol. 6 No.

3-4

Columbus’ Otro mundo: the genesis of a

geographical concept
ILARIALUZZANACARACX

If the discovery of America is carefully considered, it appears to be not so

much an went as a process. Columbus’ idea did not come about by
chance nor did he pluck it from thin air. In fact, it would not be possible
to understand his reasons for setting off in search of a western mute to the
Indies without going back a long way in time and following the develop-
ment of trade in medieval Italy and nautical skills in the Mediterranean
and the Atlantic, as well as explorations under the auspices of Henry the
Navigator and the discovery of the Atlantic archipelagos.
Columbus’ brilliant intuition became a reality at the end of the fif-
teenth century. But two centuries before the Genoese had attempted to
sail deep into the Atlantic, clearly demonstrating how powerfd had
become Europe’s desire to widen its geographical horizon beyond the
boundaries imposed by the scientific traditions of antiquity and the early
Middle Ages. In its historical context, Columbus’ venture into the high
seas can be seen as part of a long process which started long before him
and continued long after. His position of prominence was due to his par-
ticular circumstances, namely his birth in Genoa, a city built on ancient
and solid mercantile and seagoing traditions, his experience in Portugal
just at the time when, under the guidance of John 11, the country was
committed to the discovery of a sea route to the Indies, and then his
meeting with the Franciscans of the Wbida who were certainly a decisive
influence on the scientific aspects of his final plans for the sea journey.’
It wen took a great deal of time to realize the presence of a great
continent separate from Asia and placed between the most easterly and
westerly points of the Old World. Juan Gil points out in his extremely in-
teresting study2that ‘no existe un radical descubrimiento de la idea de
Am6rica . . . sin0 un progresivo entendimiento y racionalizaa6n de 10s
datos disponibles’. However, this ‘progresivo entendimiento’ does not oc-
cur gradually, but through a series of sudden developments and various
if occasionally bizarre attempts to systematize the recently acquired
knowledge. Several geographical models were formulated before one

This article has been translated by Allan Husband.

’ S. E. M o h n . A d d of the Ocean Sea: A b y e of Chrittophcr Columbus (Boston,M a . ,
1942); P. E. Taviani. Chrittophaz Columbus: The Grand DcJign (London. 1985); for a summary
and oveMcw, M I. Lunana Caraci, ‘Samza, cultura ed espcrimza nella genesi dcl progetto di Col-
ombo’, Mare Libmum, 1 (1990). 14261.
J. Gil, Mitos y u t o p b del descubrimimto. I. C o h y su tim+ (Madrid. 1989). 183.

0 1992 The SoaetyfmRenaissance Studies, Oxford University Press

 Columbus’Otro mundo 337
could be found that could incorporate and rationalize the unexpected
and unpredictable facts accumulated by a succession of voyages of ex-
ploration.
Initially European geography was overcome by events and attempted to
reconcile the new with the old, especially with Ptolemy, the great Alexan-
drian geographer whose work translated from Greek into Latin at the
beginning of the fifteenth century had increased its influence since the in-
vention of printing. Ptolemaic geography turned out to be more of an
obstacle than an instrument to the correct understanding of the new
reality. Only when Western culture had freed itself from its influence,
was it capable of perceiving America as it actually was.
Explorers and navigators had to deal with the problem long before
scholars and armchair cartographers, especially those who, like Colum-
bus and Amerigo Vespucci, crossed the Atlantic with a precise destina-
tion in mind and the intention of verifymg its geographical position and
the identity of the Americas.
In the past there has been considerable debate over the part played by
the first explorers in the formation of the concept of the New World and
America, particularly in the case of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo
Vespucci who were the first to attempt to identify the lands they
discovered. In this, too, the two Italian seafarers have been seen as adver-
saries, a position which ignores the friendship and spirit of co-operation
that existed between them.
According to some scholars, Columbus not only achieved the distinc-
tion of being the first to set foot in the New World and then, on his third
voyage, on the Amtrican continent,‘ but was also the first to understand
that it was not part of Asia and was in fact a ‘tierra firme grandisima’
which was unknown to the ancients. This theory is based mainly on a let-
ter to the Spanish throne sent in August or September of 1498’ in which
Columbus briefly reports, as was his custom after every voyage, on the
results of his exploration of the north-eastem coast of Venezuela (1-15
August 1498). Scholars have been particularly interested in the passage in
which Columbus says that the ‘tierra de aca‘ is an ‘otro mundo’,l which
they have taken to show an awareness that a fourth continent had been
discovered.
Others scholars, referring to the Mundus 1u)m.s attributed to Amerigo
Vespucci, have argued that Columbus can only claim the merit of being

’ The bibliographyon this subject is considerable. Only the works that arc most closely COMCCCC~
with the thane of this articlewill be referred to here. For a fuller bibliography, see Bibbgrafi col-
ombioncr, 1793-1990 ( b o a , 1990), and in particular the follow entries: Colombo: 3O Vioggio and
V#ZSpUCCi.
-
’ Apart from what was perhaps his most important achiwement that of commcnang the
transatlantic route in the middle latitudes which were to become the busia sea-lane in the
world.
’ In order to save space, it will hereafter be referred to as the Report.
‘ Cf. ColrSn, Tcxtosy documentos complctos. ‘Prologoy notas de C. Vuela’ (Madrid. 1984). 207.
338 Ilaria Luuanu Caraci
the first to arrive, and that the ‘cultural’ discovery of America has to be
ascribed to the Florentine explorer on the basis of the following passage
fiom the beginning of Mundus n o w :
Superioribus diebus satis ample tibi’ scripsi de reditu me0 ab novis illis
regionibus, quas et classe et impensis et mandato istius serenissimi Por-
tugalie regis perquisivisnus et invenimus, qucrsque Novum Mundum
appelare licet, quando apud m o r e s nostros nulla de ipsi fuerit
habita cognitio et audientibus omnibus sit novisnina res.’
Some scholars who believe the Mundus novus to be apocryphal still at-
tribute the breakthrough to Vespucci on the basis of the third of the let-
ters to Lorenzo di Pierfkancesco de’ Medici that survived in manucript
(which was written from Lisbon in June of 1502).’ In his account of the
voyage, Amerigo expressed himself in the following terms: ‘e tanto
navicammo per il vent0 fra libeccio e mezodi, che in 64 dl arivammo a
una terra nuom, la quale trovammo e w r t m ufCrma’.’O These scholars”
argue that there is no room for doubt given that in the first of the letters
written from Seville in May of 1500, Vespucci made it clear that by ‘terra
ferma’ he meant a continental land-mass, and therefore he was, as far as
we know, the very first to identify the ‘terra nuova’ in America as ‘terra
ferma’.
These varying positions are now outdated not only because of the un-
doubtedly greater knowledge at our disposal, but also because of a dif-
ferent methodological approach.
While we would maintain that both Columbus’ ‘otro mundo’ and
Vespucci’s ‘nuovo mondo’ played a part in the ‘cultural’ discovery of
America, this does not mean that these terms express identical concepts.
The similarity is only apparent. Columbus’ ‘otro mundo’ cannot be
assimilated into the ‘mondo nuovo’ referred to in Vespucas letters,
whether authentic or not, nor into other apparently analogous expres-
sions (such as Pietro Martire d’hghiera’s ‘ n o m orbis’ or wen William of
Rubruck’s ‘aliud seculum’).’*

’ Mundur now was addressed to Lorrnu, di E~&MCCSCO de’ Media whosc trust Amerigo
Vespuca enpyed and for whom he carried out duties in Flormce and later in SeviUe. Thm letters
from Vespucci to Loraw whose authcntiaty cannot be doubted have .Is0 survived in m a n d p t ;
cf. G. Caraa, ‘Leletme di Amcrigo Vespucd, Nua, Riv I 37 (1955). 479438.
’ This passage has ken taken from Roccolta di documenti e shrdipub blicoti dalh R. Commir-
sionc Colornbiono (Rome, 1893). pt 111. vol. 11. p. 123.
’ Also called the BPrtoloori Letter because it was published in F. B a n o l d . Richerche irtmco-
+he circa h scopato didnmigo Ves@ucn’(Flormrr,1789); it can now be found in A. Vespucci,
Lettare di ukggh. ed. L. Fonniuno (Florence, 1984). 21 4.
I* ‘and wc s+kd with a wind Veering bet- the south and the much-wcst,such that in 64 days
m arrived in a new land which we found to be terra-firma’.
I t A. Magnaghi, A d o Ves$ucti(Rome. 1926); G. Caraa, ‘Amaigo Vespucci al reamte con-
gnso di storia scopate di L i r b o ~ ’Memorik
, g~~grcrphichsdcll’lstituto d i Scienze GeograJche
e Cartopfiche &&a Facolt&di Mcrgirtero di Roma, 7 (1961). 167.
’* Cil. Mirosy utopiac, 195.
 Columbus’Otro mundo 339
The fact is that the identity of the new continent is acknowledged after
an arduous and profound cultural transformation that first and foremost
involved the explorers themselves. It could be said that each one put for-
ward his own original solution to the geographical and cosmographical
problems that arose from their personal experience. At the same time
geographical terminology was undergoing change, although its meaning
had already become more flexible before the discovery of the New World.
It was adopted by seamen, explorers, historians and chroniclers who
adapted it to the requirements of the time. The living language quickly
distorted these tenm through excessive use. long before nineteenth-
century historians started to employ them without concerning themselves
too much with the definition of the corresponding concepts.
It can be understood why so much confusion has been created around
the terms initially used to signify the New World if it is considered how
documents from the era of the great discoveries have very often been in-
terpreted literally,IJ without taking into account that geographical and
nautical terminologies are particularly determined by the historical and
cultural context in which they are used.
It would be useful to clear up any ambiguities which may have been
created amongst scholars by the similarity between the concept of ‘otro
mundo’ in the Report and other terms used,particularly ‘mundus n o w ’
and ‘orbe novo’, before analysing how Columbus amved at the concept
itself. ‘Mundus n o w ’ became famous through the publication of the
short tract of the same name which was ascribed to Amerigo Vespucci, “
and finally prevailed in common use (in Italian it became ‘mondo nuovo’
and then also ‘nuovo mondo’, as in the title of Gerolamo Benzoni’s
famous Historia).

Nearly seventy years have passed since Albert0 Magnaghi presented his
revolutionary interpretation of Amerigo Vespucci, the man and his
works.” Even if the book does today appear to be obsolete, there can be
no doubt that it marked the beginning of an extremely fruitfulseries of
studies and a critical revision of established views. While it is true that the
so-called ‘Vespucci Question’ has still to be resolved and Magnaghi’s
arguments are no longer sufficient to clarify its many obscure points. his
research is an obligatory starting-point for any attempt at a historical
reconstruction of the Florentine’s voyages.
As is well known,Magnaghi arrived at two important conclusions: that
we can only be sure that Amerigo Vespucci canied out two of the four

Or at least the literal sense has been preferred. especiallywhen such documents lent themselves
I’

to different interpretations.
I‘ The first dated edition was publiied in Augsburg in 1504. but the wry rare Florentine edition

of 1505 or 1504 is Considered to be the very first.

” A Magnaghi. A m 4 0 Vktpucci.
340 Ilana Lwxana Caraci
voyages traditionally attributed to him,l6 and that Mundus nowus and the
so-called Letter to Sodenhi, which were responsible for Vespucci’s am-
bivalent and stereotypical image, should be considered apocryphal. The
first conclusion is now unanimously accepted by scholars,1*but the se-
cond is much more questionable, especially after the publication of a con-
siderable part of the corpus of Vespucci’s documents in an invaluable
critical edition.” However, from a historical point of view, the letters that
survived in print have to be considered somewhat suspect.
Of these letters, the letter to Soderini is undoubtedly the one that
presents the greatest problems, but this brief article does not permit their
detailed discussion. On the other hand, it now appears certain that Mun-
dus n o w is a reworking of the letter to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’
Medici of 1502 which exists only in manuscript fonn. This is the letter in
which Amerigo Vespucci clearly defies the relationship following the
discovery of America between the three geographical categories used in
classical times and maintained throughout the Middle Ages: continens
(or rather its Italian synonym terra fenna, which at the beginning of the
Atlantic explorations was mainly used in accounts of journeys in connec-
tion with its antonym isole), inhabitable land (on the basis of Ptolemy’s
climatic theory) and the antipodes. Breaking decisively with traditional
medieval cosmography, Vespucci clearly defines the terra nuom that he
has visited as terra f m , and therefore as a continent. However, he also
states that this terra f e r n is completely inhabited and is to be found in
the antipodes.2oVespucci’s letter therefore confirms that the equinoctial
regions are inhabitable, and for the first time asserts the existence of
lands that have emerged in the antipodean hemisphere and that these
lands are part of a continent. This represents a revolutionary, lucidly ra-
tional and extraordinarily modem solution to the geographical problems
posed by the discovery of the Americas.
Whether Mundus nowus can be traced more or less directly back to
Vespucci or whether, as appears more likely, it has to be considered a
fake, it quite probably was a theoretical development over a period of
time and based on Vespucci’s experience. Indeed the term, as it appears

’‘ The first, which according to tradition was the second. took place in 1499-1504. in the com-
pany of Alonso & Ojcda and Juan & La -; the second, traditionally the third, in 1501-2, and
was in the smrice of the PORU~UCSC crown.
I’ The letter was dated Lisbon,4 September 1504. It was f irst printed in Italian in an undated edi-
tion which PLD lacked the printer’s name and city. H o m w r , the letter became more widely known
through the Latin version under the title ‘Qyator h e r i a Vesputii Navigationes‘ in Camrognrphiao
Introductw published in Saint-DiCin 1507 and constituted the second part (the first part was another
edition of F’tolany’r Gaographziz).
However, some do argue that Vupucci carried out a third voyage in 1503-4 (traditiondly the
fourth voyage). There are also varying positions on the routes of the other two. !kc anti,
BibbgraJia ColombioM. under the entry for Vespucci.
I’ A Vespucci, Lettrta divioggio. Apart from the three letters in manuscript. this edition includes
the ‘Letter to Werid and the ~o-cdled‘Ridolfi f r w a t ’ .
vespuca. Lctterc a5 vioggio, 21 9.
 Columbus’Otro mundo 341
in the introduction to even the earliest editions, refers to a human and
physical reality which is both wider and more indeterminate than a conti-
nent: a complete ‘world’ opposed to the old one in all its parts:the flora,
the fauna, the physical appearance of its inhabitants and above all in
their customs. This is also a ‘world made up of seas and lands that have
emerged, of a continent and islands, without any suggestion of temtorial
continuity with Eurasia.
In Mundus nowus, it is stated that ‘in hiis autem tot tantisque procellis
maris et celi placuit Altissimo nobis coram monstrare continentem, et
novas regiones ignotumque mundump.”
G . Caraci commented thirty years ago that ‘it is clear that continens
here is as usual the opposite of tirrula, while mundus is a set of natural
and human elements that graphically contrast with the mundus notus or
vetus and thus. in my opinion, a whole tradition’.”
Early fifteenth-century culture immediately perceived the novelty of
this position. Mundus n o w had an extraordinary success: at least a
dozen editions in the early years of the century, and more than fifty
before 1550. The fact that it was written in Latin facilitated this success,
and within a few years there was a great number of translations into Ger-
man and Italian, and then from Italian back into Latin, and into French
and English.

Vespucci’s idea of terra nuom/terra f e r m a and that of mundus n o w

which derived from it and was attributed to him are both different from
the apparently similar terms used at the time or in the preceding period,
and this is particularly true of the concept of otro mundo, which simply
signified a human, physical and geographical reality different to the one
known to European culture.
However, mundus now also differed from n o w orb6 which Pietro
Martire spoke of in his well-known letter of November 1493 to Cardinal
Ascanio Visconti, ” and which was incorrectly perceived as a precursor to
Vespucci’s theories. In order to understand its meaning, one must analyse
the term in the context of the Opus epistolanrm as a whole.
If we take into consideration the chronology of the letters, the O N not
only throws light on Pietro Martire’s perception of America, but also acts
as a mirror to the semantic evolution of geographical terminology in the
early years after the ~ ~ s c o vIt~would
I ~ .thedore
~~ be worthwhile discuss-
ing this point in a little more detail.

” Vespucci, Lettere in Raccolta, 125.

la Carad. Ammigo Vespucci al reccntc congrr~o.169.
” E. Lunardi, E. Magioncalda and R. Mauacane ( 4.‘La
). scopcrta &I NWM Mondo ncgli
Mitti di Pier0 Martire d‘hghiera’. Nuov Racc Colombha, 6 (Rome, 1988), 46.
*‘ It is also possible to trace this evolution in the Decades. but it is more difficult to show becaw
of the lack of reference to the relevant t a m s . The dates in which the Decades were edited mean that
a comparison can be ma& only for the first thm chaptenr of the first edition (they were written bet-
 342 Ilana L u a n a Caraci
The first letter in which Pietro Martire refers to Columbus’expedition
is of 14 May 1493, almost exactly two months after the triumphant return
of the N z Z to the port of Palos at the end of his first voyage. He wrote to
Giovanni Bommeo that ‘a certain Columbus’, ‘vir l i p ’ , had returned
‘ab antipodibus o~ciduis’.~~
It is clear that in the initial euphoria, Pietro Martire behaves in a
typically humanist manner: he attempts to assimilate this new geo-
graphical reality which is still rather vague (even for Columbus at that
time) into the geographical category that seemed most suitable, which
was the only land classical culture had placed, albeit with many uncer-
tainties and contradictions,26in the hemisphere that Ptolemy had not
taken into consideration. It is also worth emphasizing that these ‘western
antipodes’ were wen for Pietro Martire a somewhat vague term. They
cannot therefore be interpreted in the literal sense of land that emerged
directly opposite the ancient inhabited lands.
This can be demonstrated by the fact that soon afterwards in his letter
to the Count of Tendilla and the archbishop of Granada of 13 September
1493, Pietro Martire wrote that Columbus had petitioned the king and
queen ‘de percurrendo per occiduous antipode^',^' which is a very dif-
ferent concept. The same concept was again confirmed in a later letter to
the bishops of Braga and Pamplona on 31 October 1494, in which he says
that he wishes to discuss the things found ‘ab occidente hemispherii an-
tipodum’.2*
In any case, up to the beginning of 149529this ‘antipodeanhemisphere’
- is the term that Pietro Martire most frequently uses to describe the
Spanish possessions in America. However, after the ships of Antonio de
Torres returned to Spain bringing news of Columbus’ exploration of
Cuba and Jamaica in the previous year (AprilSeptember 1494), he seems
to have accepted the latter’s theory that Cuba was part of a continent.
and even though he has a few reservations and doubts, he speaks of
‘nuper alter0 ab ocadente hemisphere repert~’,~O ‘diversa a l t e r b
hemispherii littora’,” and wen ‘continente dell’India gangetica’.” Like
Columbus, he identifies Hispaniola with O ~ h i r It. ~is~only much later.

ween 1493 and 1498). Moreover. in few paasages in which there is a reference to the size and position
of the newly discowed lands. Pictro M& scans to come much closer to Columbus’sgeographical
ideas than he does in Opus Epi(tokmm.
Lunardi ct al.. La scoperta, 34.
’‘ The Middle Ages had 8 t h the importance of t h e for well-known religious reasons; d.
W. G. L. Randles, De k t m e plate au globe t-tre (une mutation ipiSthologique raflae,
1480-1520) (Park, 1980). 14-17.
Lunardi at al., La scoperta, 36.
Ibid.54.
‘Letter to the Archbishop of Granada’. ibid. 66.
Ibid. 54.
” Ibid. 68.
Ibid. 72.
’) Ibid. 70.
 Columbus’ Otro mundo 343
from 15183‘ onwards, that Pietro Martire adopts a different terminology
and calls America ‘India’ or the ‘Indies’, as was general usage at that
time.
The expression ‘ n o w orbis‘ appears to be something of an exception in
this context, and was in fact used for the first time in a letter of November
1493, but then was not used again for a considerable time. It reappeared
after several years and only in five letters, of which four were written in
1515 and one in 1519,35when it clearly relates to &be now which forms
the title of the Decades.
However, the important point to make is that even when it first ap-
peared, Pietro Martire’s ‘novus orbis’ is not the product of theoretical
reflections that imply an awareness of the continental nature of the New
World. It is really an adaptation of the expression ‘otro mundo’ which
had been in use for some time and which the great discoveries at the end
of the fifteenth century had in a sense made fashionable. It should be
remembered, in fact, that Da Mosto had talked of an ‘altro mondo’ half
a century before, with reference to a completely different geographical
area, but substantially with the same meaning as Pietro Martire ascribed
to it, which was simply ‘otherness’ - in relation to all aspects of the ‘Old
World‘:
Essendo io Alvise Da Mosto stat0 prima che de la nostra nobil citade di
Venexia sia demosso a navigar el mare Occeano di fori del Streto de
Zibeter verso le pane di mezodi -mai piii ne‘ per memoria ne per scrip-
ture navigato -. . . che veramente e il viver e i costumi e i luoghinostn‘
in comparatione de le cosse per me vedute e tirtese altro mondo se
poderia chiamar. 36
Apart from Da Mosto and Pietro Martire, one could list many other
travellers, chroniclers, historians and cosmographers in the Iberian
peninsula, Italy and elsewhere, who used this term with the same mean-
ing. Even Valentim Fernandes in a celebrated passage stated that Pedro
Alvara Cabral ‘descobriu aquem do Ganges, num mar desconhecido,sob
a linha equinocial, um outro mundo pela Divina Rovidencia ignorando
da todas as outras autoridades’.37

The ‘otro mundo’ that Columbus refers to in his Report is something

completely different. It is not yet the ‘New World’ of Vespuca or those
” The letters to Pedro Fajardo and Luia Hurtado de Mcndoza of 21 July, ibzd. 124. and 17
September of the same year. ibzd. 128.
I’ Ibid. 112, 114, 118, 120 and 132.
I‘ ‘I. A l v k Da Moao. having left our noble City of Venice. sailed the Ocean out through the
straits of Gibraltar and towards the south which neither manory nor written accounts ever mall be-
h g sailed.. . that truly OUT wuy of bye, customs and placsr in comfmiwn d h the tlrings I saw and
understood could be Coucd another wrlU: A. da W o , Ls nau&zzimi atlantiche del venuimw
. . ., ed. T.Gasparini Leporpce, in I1 N w w Rumurio (Rome, 1966). 5.
I’ Gil. M ~ OySutoP;Pr, 132-3.
344 Ilana Lwzana Caraci
who copied him,but nor is it Pietro Martire’s ‘ n o w orbis’. The develop-
ment of Columbus’ concept is closely linked to the development of his
geographical theories, a factor which historians have only recently started
to take into account.
In The History of the Laye and Actions of the Admiral Christopher Col-
umbus which is generally attributed to Columbus’ son Fernando, but
which is really the product of a complex reworking and mixing of texts,”
and in BartolomC de las Casas’ Historiu de Zus Indiar, Columbus’ reasons
for his expedition are divided into three categories. First there are the so-
called ‘natural reasons’ or considerations of a purely geographical nature,
which included the conviction that the Earth is spherical and that Eurasia
stretched over a vast longitudinal distance. Secondly, several classical and
medieval scholars had asserted that the sea between the two extremes of
the inhabited land was extremely small, and his correspondence with the
Florentine physicist Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli was supposedly relevant to
this. Thirdly, he had heard sailors from the Azores and Madeira talk of
strange objects that turned up on the beaches and unknown islands that
they had happened upon in the course of their travels further out into the
ocean off the Atlantic archipelagos.
For a long time, historians have interpreted the conceptual develop-
ment of the discovery of America basing themselves entirely on these
reasons, because they were convinced that The History of the Laye and
Actions really was the work of Columbus’ favourite son Fernando, and
they never suspected that they were not true or that there could have been
others. In other words, they thought that Columbus had formulated his
plan on the basis of a straightforward and brilliant intuition, after having
read the works of classical and medieval cosmographers, by adopting for
his calculations the measurements of the Earth’s circumference, the land
masses and the seas developed by the Greek geographer Marinus of Tyre,
by reflecting on the letter of Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli and listening to
the extravagant tales of a few seamen.
In the last few decades, scholarship has shown that the influence of the
correspondence with Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli was at the very least con-
siderably less than traditionally thought, and there is good reason to
believe that Columbus only became aware of Ma~inusof Ty-re and his
ideas after his first voyage.39 The theoretical bases to the voyage of
discovery must have been different from those generally used in attempts
to reconstruct the intellectual process. The early biographers, and in
particular the author of The History of the Lge and Actions and

” 1. Luuana Caraa, Colombo VCIO c fako: la coshudons dcllc Histoire fmrandinc (Genoa.
1989).
la nautica. le latitudini e l’evolu-
” See Conti, E b b g w f i , especially under the entry ‘Colombo:
zione dcUe sue conoscerue e del suo pendm, gcografico’. See also the works ofJ. G i and C. Varcla.
and 1. Luzzana Caraa ‘La culcura di Colombo’,Atti &Z ZY C m w p Zntmrarionoc. di Studi Col-
om+ (Gmoa, 1987). 11. 5 0 9 9 8 .
 Columbus' Otro mundo 345
BartolomC de las Casas, are unreliable sources in this respect too.
They do not take into account the logical development that Columbus'
ideas underwent as a result of the discoveries themselves. They simply ap-
plied the cosmographic concepts that he had laboriously devised in his
maturity to his early life, unintentionally bringing their date forward and
letting it be believed that they constituted the theoretical premise to his
expedition.
It has now been shown that his initial plan was formulated on the high
seas,40 a fortunate inspiration which linked the maritime expansionist
needs of the Iberian monarchies to the traditional Mediterranean and
Genoese desire to take revenge on the Arabs in the Middle East. It is im-
portant to remember that the search for a western route to the Indies was
not an end in itself and was not for purely mercantile purposes. For Col-
umbus and all those who supported, encouraged and financed him, it
was a noble undertaking which through the riches of the East would have
made it possible to reconquer Jerusalem and finally defeat I ~ l a m . ~ '
Columbus' plan was to sail along a line of latitude using the Trade
Winds and to return using the Westerlies. He may have required some
theoretical justification to present to the learned members of the c o m z 3 h
examirrcrdma, but one can reasonably suppose that it was very limited
both in texms of quality and quantity. The discovery revealed the size of
the land-mass and unexpected geographical realities which induced Col-
umbus to reconsider his initial theoretical premises and to increase his
understanding of geography. This led him eventually to formulate an
original geographical paradigm, which is essential for understanding
what he meant by the term 'otro mundo' in his Report and his other
wTitings of the same period.
In 1892 Cesare de Lolliis reproduced facsimile copies of the pastille with a
transcription respecting the original wording and punctuation in the
third volume of the first part of the Raccolta Colombians, because he
had understood their importance to the study of Columbus' geographical
concepts. Both he and those who shortly afterwards started to study them
systematically believed that they could use them to reveal the theoretical
premises of the voyage of discovery. Later studies, which centred on the
twin problem of their date and authenticity, eventually revealed that he
or someone directed by him had placed the annotations in the margins of
the books he regularly consulted in the periods following the second and
'' Taviani, Christopher Columbus; I. Luuvla Caraa. 'La cultura nautica di Colombo,La atona
dei g e n o d . Atti &l convegno di studi sw' ccti dirigcnti nclls ictitudoni d c l h R w b b l i c a di
Gaaow, 10 (1990). 7140.
" The letters of the Libro Copiodm (A. R ~ m e u de h a s . Libro Copiadw & Csi(t6bd C O ~ :
corresponden& tirCdita con los R s y a Catolicos sobre los ukja a Am&ica, Madrid. 1989, vol. 11:
Manusmito &I Libro Cop"d0r & CriSt6bal Coldn) show how the idea Of m n q u d n g J d e m
was at the forefront right from the earliest stages of Columbus'plan and that his utopian dream had
recaved the full support of the Spanish thrones.
346 Ilana Luuana Caraci
third voyages in which he took up -or returned to -the assiduous study of
some of the fundamental medieval texts on geography in the hope of fin-
ding confirmation of his ideas. The annotations turned out to be ex-
tremely useful, and have given us several very detailed insights into the
evolution of his geographical theories.
In 1989 the Spanish government published the Libto CoPtQdot,** a col-
lection of nine of Columbus’letters, some of which were published for the
first time, and these have given further evidence of this evolution.
It is in the Libro Copiadot that we find the earliest example of Colum-
bus’ use of the term ‘otro mundo’. The previously unpublished letter to
the Spanish throne of 25 February 1495 briefly refers to the exploration of
Cuba and Jamaica,43and tells of Columbus’ meeting with a Cacique in
Portland Bay towards the middle of August 1494. It is a well-known inci-
dent referred to by all the sources on the second voyage, because the
Spanish were impressed by the fact that during the encounter the cacique
expressed the desire to accompany them when they returned to Spain.
Columbus quoted the cacique as saying that Columbus’ courage both
fascinated and inspired his admiration because he had come ‘del otro
mundo a estas par re^'.^^
It is clear that the term is being used as meaning ‘different’or nearly
‘opposite’, as was common amongst Columbus’ contemporaries, to in-
dicate any place outside the ancient and known inhabited lands, the dif-
ference being, however, that Columbus inverts the situation by at-
tributing it to an Indian, almost as though he wanted to underscore the
relative nature of ‘otro’. But the difference is still restricted to the an-
thropological and ethnological realities, and does not concern geography,
or if it does, only indirectly. There is still no link between this ‘otro mun-
do’ and Columbus’ geographical and cosmographic theories, which must
have still been very vague.
We know that Columbus was convinced that Cuba was part of a conti-
nent. This conviction, however, does not imply that he knew, or thought
he knew, which part of Asia it belonged to. Quite the contrary. His letter
of 26 February 1495 shows that on return from his exploratory expedi-
tion, he was still extremely uncertain over the whole matter.
It is probably for this reason that in the same letter he informed the
king and queen of the conflicting beliefs he had held in the course of the
journey. He explained that on leaving H aiti on 24 April 1494, he had in-
tended to go the city of Quinsay, but a little later on arrival at the
southern coast of Cuba, he had decided to give credence to the Indians’
assertion that Cuba was an island, and to go ‘por la parte del austro, al fin
della, al poniente y dende navegaria al setentrion y al austro, fasta hallar

‘I see previour note.

” Rumeu de h a s , Libto Copiodor. 11,485421.
‘‘ Ibid. XI. 516.
 Columbw'Otro mundo 347
el C a t a y ~ ' In
. ~ the
~ end, however, we know that he took a very different
decision, and explored Jamaica.
At the time of Columbus' second voyage, it can therefore be concluded
that he tended to the belief that Cuba was a Far-Eastern peninsula, but
he had not developed a scientific certainty, nor had he any tangible proof
of the position of the lands he was exploring.

Up to the end of the second voyage, Columbus attempted to reconcile the

results of his experience with the geographical and cosmographical
theories of his time, even though he was obliged to make a few minor
modifications. He made the break in his third voyage, and formulated a
new theory.
As has already been stated, he was convinced that he had found the
eastern coasts of Asia on his preceding voyage; on this third voyage he
intended to take a lower latitude in order to sail round them more easily.
It is probable that he wished to get to any part of monsoonal Asia.46In
the years 1496-7, there were good political and economic and reasons
why the purpose of another Spanish oceanic exploration should be to
reach the Indian Ocean from the east.
Although the Portuguese may have appeared to have lost to their
Spanish adversaries following Columbus' discovery, they had not ceased
their attempts to reach the Indies by sailing around Africa and had
already passed the Cape of Good Hope. In the nine years that separated
Bartolomeu Dias' voyage from Vasco da Gama's, they set about the
careful and methodical preparation of what was to be the conclusive ex-
pedition. The Spanish throne was certainly aware of these preparations,
and was probably very concerned about them, because although Colum-
bus claimed to have reached the Asian mainland, there was not the
slightest proof that the lands he had discovered were close to the spice-
producing countries. It was also clear that whoever was first to reach the
great commercial emporia of the Indian Ocean would control the spice
trade, and therefore a large section of commercial traffic with the whole
of Europe.
There were also pressing personal reasons why Columbus was in a hurry
to find the passage to the Indies. In June 1496 his return to Spain was not
greeted with the same acclamation as in 1493. Indeed, not only were
there the disappointment of those who had followed him enthusiastically
to the new colonies in the hope of quick riches and had had to struggle
just to survive, and the criticisms of his administration of the lands he
conquered, but there were also the first signs of disagreement over his
geographical theories." Various theories had developed in order to
I' I W . 11,4934.
*' Luuanr Caraci, Colombo m o c fako. 3624.
" There is some argument over the period in which these criticisms originated; cf. D. Ramor.
Menumid de Zamora sobre lac In& (Valladolid, 1982). and Gil. Mitos y utopias. 72-7.
348 Ilana L w a n a Caraci
ensure Spain's right to possess the new lands, such as the one expressed by
Cisneros and later by Oviedo according to which the islands discovered by
Columbus had no connection with the Indies, but were in fact the
mythical Hesperides," which took their name from Hesperus,the legen-
dary King of Spain who had conquered them in ancient times. So in reality
the King and Queen of Spain would be the legitimate sovereigns even
before Columbus' arrival.
It is clear that such a claim on behalf of the King of Spain detracted
from Columbus' achievement, since this became simply a belated recon-
quest. This lack of success accompanied by uncertainty and criticism was
bound to affect deeply a proud and oversensitive man like Columbus.
It was probably under the burden of these anxieties that, before and
after this voyage, Columbus read, studied and carefully annotated his
books49in order to defend both his conduct as an explorer and his
geographical theories. As a consequence of these studies solidly based on
the scientific beliefs of his time, he was able to construct a geographical
and cosrnographical model capable of reconciling and justifying his
discoveries.
It has to be remembered that the discovery of the Paria territories and
to an even greater extent the mouth of the Orinoco with the enormous
quantity of water that drained into the Gulf of Paria had confronted him
with a totally unexpected situation which was much more difficult to ex-
plain in terms of his original beliefs than anything he had encountered on
his previous voyages. He linked this new reality to the variation in the
magnetic declination from east to west which he had noted on his Atlan-
tic journeys and had studied more accurately on his third voyage, and to
the information he had gleaned from books. O n this basis, Columbus was
able to put forward his theory on the shape of the Earth in the Report.
According to this theory, the hemispheres knom since antiquity and
the one he had been the first to sail were not the same, and the second was
in the central area 'higher and closer to the heavens' in a shape similar to
a woman's breast. The Terrestrial Paradise was in the centre of this
superior hemisphere which God had kept hidden from humanity for so
long, and which now, by the will of God, he had discovered. The boun-
dary between the two hemispheres was marked by a notional line which
passes through Cape St Vincent in Portugal to the west and Cattigara in
the east (Ptolemy considered it to be the most easterly city of the in-
habitable world) and was linked, in a manner that is not altogether clear,
with the agonic line (i.e. the line of no magnetic deviation) which Colum-
bus had crossed several times in the course of his voyages and which

" Luzzana Caraci, Colombo m o c falro, 18938.

'* In particular Enea Sivio Piccolomini'sHistoria rerum and Pierre d'Ailly's Imago mundi; cf.
L-a Cuaa. La d u r a di Colombo.
A. Magnaghi, 'Inmraze e contrastidelle fonti tradidonali d e 0ymr;UiOni attribute a C. Col-
ombo intorno ai fenomcni della dcclinazione magnctica', B S Ceogr Itd. 70 (1933). 595-641.
 Columbus’Otro mundo 349
corresponded to a noticeable improvement in the atmospheric and
climatic conditions.
One of the few variants of the Report which appears in the tibro
CoPiQdoP gives us a key to understanding this theory. In this version,
Columbus states that the Terrestrial Paradise is at ‘the end of the Orient’
and goes on to write:
el qual oriente llaman el fin de la tierra: yendo al oriente es una mon-
taiia altisima, que sale fuera deste ayre torbolento, adonde no llegaron
las aguas del dilubio . . . y de all€ sale una fuente y cae el agua en la
mar: y allf haze un gran lago, del qual proceden 10s quatros d o s
sobredichos, que bien queste lag0 sea en oriente, y las fuentes destos
nfos sean divisas en este mundo, por ende que proceden y vienen allf
deste, por catar antes debajo de tierra, y espiran allf donde se been
estas sus fuentes, la qual agua que sale del Paraiso Terrenal para este
lag0 trahe un tronido y rrogir mui grande, de manera quer la gente
que naze en aquella comarca son sordos.”
Columbus had seen with his own eyes the great lake that he was speaking
of when he entered the Gulf of Paria, and heard the ‘sound of thunder’
created by the abnormal wave which tossed his ships around like nut-
shells near the Serpent’s Mouth. Everything fell into place: the ‘very plea-
sant and temperate climate’ of the Western hemisphere, the great land-
mass that the ancients could not even have imagined, the Terrestrial
Paradise that saints of the Middle Ages had attempted in vain to find,
and the lake of exceptional proportions from which by underground
channels flowed the four biblical rivers: the Fison (Ganges), the Geon
(Nile), the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Columbus’ geographical theory was therefore based on the division of the

Earth into two hemispheres which differed in shape and structure. The
first contained the ancient inhabited lands, and the second the eastern
margin of Asia which he still believed he had reached in Cuba, along with
Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and the ‘Islands of the Cannibals’ (the Lesser
Antilles), and a land-mass or land-masses at the centre of which the
Garden of Eden was to be found. This was not situated on top of a moun-
tain as the medieval legends would have it, but at the centre of the pro-
tuberance of the Earth’s surface which Columbus defined as the ‘highest
point and closest to the heavens’, conferring on the Western hemisphere
its particular form and its salubrious and temperate properties.
The existence of one or more land-masses in the southern part of this
hemisphere overturned the traditional relationship between land-mass
and seas (Columbus had in fact already challenged this by the plan for his

” R u m e ~de h a s . Libm Copicrdor, 11,543-64.

’I Ibid. 559.
350 Ilana Lwzana Caraci
very voyage which presupposed that the Earth was smaller and the land-
masses larger than in reality). For this reason he refers in his account of
the third voyage to Esdra’s interpretation: ‘de las siete partes del mundo
las seis son descubiertas e la una es cubierta de agua’.’’ which he could
not quite logically agree with, also having the authority of Pierre dAilly
who was certainly his guide in the theoretical development of the results
of his discoveries.
This Western hemisphere scattered with lands unknown to the an-
cients is the ‘otro mundo’ which he spoke of in the Report5‘ and other
writings of the same period, and differs greatly from the sense his contem-
poraries attributed to it (and, for different reasons, from the ‘New World
as has been explained).
Columbus’ ‘otro mundo’ contained a ‘tierra firme grandisima’ (or
several land-masses),5 5 as well as the part of Asia which he believed he was
the first to reach. His ‘otro mundo’ therefore coincided substantially with
the unknown Western hemisphere of Ptolemic geography, ” together with
the lands of the Terrestrial Paradise. Thus Columbus could write in his
Report that ‘esta [tierra] de acii es otro mundo’ and specify at the same
time that it was the world that ‘en que se trabjaron Romanos y Alexandre
y Griegos para la aver, con grandes exerci~ios’.’’
It is certainly true that Columbus came very close to Vespucci’s intui-
tion, but he did not have the grounding or perhaps the will to challenge
established views. He was restricted by being self-taught and having an
almost monastic religious conviction. Besides, the admission that he had
not reached Asia would have meant not only a blow to his morale, but the
loss of his privileges and titles as Viceroy of the Indies and the destruction
of his dreams of reconquest and revenge on Islam.
Columbus resolved his doubts in a manner coherent with his f o m
mentis by identifying Paria as the site of the Terrestrial Paradise, ‘adonde

’’ Col6n. Textos, 219.

” In another passage from the same letter (ibid. 220). Columbus reminded his aovercigns, with
reference to the polemics that were raging in Spain at the time as to the identity of the lands he had
discovered and the usefulness of their conquest. that up till then no Spanish prince had wcr possessed
temtoria outside the penhula ‘salvo agora, que Vucstraa Altezas tienen acd otm m d . de adonde
puede ser tan acrqxntada n u a m Santa Fe. y de adonde se podrh =car tantos provcchos‘. Clearly
the term is being wd here in its general and traditional sense (other = not in Spain), and is in no
way connected to the concept of a ‘new continent’.
” ‘y mqu’esta t i e m que agora mandaron descrubir Vuestras Altetas sea grandfsima y uya otrac
m u c h m a1 Aurtro, de que jamis se ovo noticia’: ibid. 218.
“ ‘Ad que d’esta media pane non ovo notifia Ptolomeo ni los ouos que d v i m n del mundo,
por se muy ignoto’: ibid. 216.
” Ibid. 207. T h e reference to the Greeks and Romans means that Columbus could not have bem
thinking of a land separate from Asia, unless you accept the hypothesir expounded by E. de Gandia,
‘Claudio Ptolomco, Col6n y la esploraci6n de la India Americana’. Inuest~acioncs y muryos de lo
Acudemicr NocioMl de lo Hist& dc Bumos Aka. 13 (197L).35-87, about which I see no reason to
change the opinion I e x p d a few yean back cf. I. Lwzana Caraa. ‘L‘opera cartografica di
Enrico Manello e la “prescopcrta” dell’America’. RkLirtu Geogr I t d , 83 (1976), 33544.
 Columbus’ Otro mundo 351
no puede llegar nadie salvo por voluntad divina’.’* This providential
solution which in a way exonerated him from pursuing other more
dangerous hypotheses (which he does refer to in the Report, but merely in
passing) was probably the reason why he showed so little interest in the
results of the explorations carried out by his ex-comradesto the south and
the west of Paria in the years that immediately followed.
They were probably a cause for concern only inasmuch as they
threatened his rights and revenue acquired through the Capitulations of
April 1492. However, he was neither surprisednor concerned from a scien-
titk standpoint. He had foreseen the existence of lands in the southern
portion of the Western hemisphere, and he knew that they were not part
of Asia or the Indies. For this reason he probably underestimated their
importance, and continued to work for the discovery of a route to the In-
dian Ocean. Perhaps because he considered the discoveries to be a divine
revelation, he though that God who had chosen him as his instrument
would not allow others to come closer than him to the Garden of Eden.

Universiti degli di Roma ‘La Sapienza’