The Navigating Manual of Columbus

Abstract

There is rich material for studying navigation technique in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in the volume A Marinharia dos Descobrimentos by the late Fontoura da Costa, which deals in great detail with the evidence for early sailing methods; the facsimile reprints of rare documents bearing on early Portuguese navigation lately published by Joaquim Bensaude for the Portuguese Government also contain much information on this period. The object of this article is two-fold: to establish that in an Addendum to one of these documents, the Reportorio dos Tempos of Valentim Fernandez (1st edition 1518), we have extracts from an archaic type of navigating manual; and hence to argue that, judging from his own words, Columbus (whose skill in navigation is a matter of controversy) had studied rules and instructions for navigation just such as the Addendum contains, but that owing to his lack of elementary mathematical training he had only imperfectly understood them.

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