Back to Table of Contents

XI. BEHAIM AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

HAVING thus dealt at some length with the relations which are supposed to have existed between Behaim, Columbus and Magellan, we might proceed to other matters had not a learned professor of the University of Altdorf, near Nuremberg, put forward claims on behalf of his countryman which cannot be passed over in silence, as they have not lacked supporters even down to the present century. In a fulsome eulogy delivered in 1682 in memory of George Frederick Behaim of Schwarzbach,(1) a senator of Nuremberg and benefactor of the University, Prof. J. C. Wagenseil speaks of our Martin as " the prodigy and glory of his age, an incomparable and divine hero, whose achievements, though hitherto ignored, redounded to the credit not only of the city which had given him birth, but of the whole of Germany." (2)This unprincipled historian ventured to tell his ignorant listeners that their fellow-townsman, having obtained a vessel from Isabella, the daughter of John I. of Portugal, and widow of Philip the Good (1467), discovered the Azores, and planted a Flemish colony upon Fayal, on which ground these islands became known as the "Flemish Islands";(3) that subsequently, roving the Atlantic, he examined (pervestigavit) the islands of America and the strait now called after Magellan, of which explorations he made a map which he presented to the King of Portugal, and that he did all this before Columbus and Magellan, whose fame was proclaimed by every mouth, whilst Martin Behaim, the real discoverer, was ignored. In support of these astounding "revelations" Wagenseil refers to authorities which on closer examination do not in the least justify his assertions. The account of Behaim's voyage along the West Coast of Africa in Schedel's `Liber Chronicorum'(4) is quoted by him as if it formed an integral part of the `Historia de Europa sub Frederico III.' of Aeneas Sylvio, better known as Pope Pius II.,(5) and not as an interpolation by a later editor of that work. In the `Liber Chronicorum' it is stated that after Cão and Behaim had crossed the Equator they found themselves in another world - alterum or alium orbem - hitherto not known to us. Wagenseil rashly jumped to the conclusion that this " alter orbis" could be no other than the "mundus novus," or America, the existence of which was absolutely unknown to the editor of the `Chronicle,' who obviously refers to a hypothetical fourth part of the world, the " alter orbis" of Pomponius Mela,(6) inaccessible to us owing to the heat, and supposed to be the home of fabled Autochthones.

Wagenseil next refers to Riccioli's(7) `Geographia et Hydrographia reformata,' lib. III., c. 22, where it is merely stated that Columbus was indebted for his great discovery " either to his own genius, as he was a man learned in astronomy, cosmography and physics, or to information (indicia) given by Martin Boheme, or, as is said by the Spaniards, by Alphonso Sanchez of Huelva."(8) He also quotes Joannes Matalius(9) as an authority, but that learned Frenchman, in the notes accompanying his American collection of maps,(10) merely refers to Behaim's chart supposed to have been seen by Magellan in the King's treasury. Wagenseil further hints at verbal statements alleged to have been made by Behaim's son when he visited his relatives at Nuremberg, and refers to the family archives, where he saw a portrait and the famous globe, which he assures his readers has delineated upon it many nameless islands "scattered over the broad waters of the ocean," and belonging to America. Apparently, as trumps, he points to two MS. volumes in the Town Library as confirming his assertions. These codices have been care- fully examined by Ghillany, p. 50, and also by myself, and their worthlessness as documentary evidence is obvious at the first glance. The first of these MSS., entitled `Patricii reipublicae Norimbergis,' is a compilation of no authority, evidently got up for the glorification of eighty-three patrician families who ruled the imperial city. All it says about Martin Behaim is that "he was a famous knight, who navigated in India, and discovered new islands." The second MS. is described as `Annales Norimbergensium.' It is a compilation made by order of the Senate by Johann Müllner, town clerk from 1602 to his death in 1634, and contains a history of the town up to the year 1620. It says,(11) "In the time of the Emperor Charles V. (sic!) there lived Martin Behaim, the son of Martin Behaim and of Agnes, the daughter of Wilhelm Schopper. He was a famous and experienced Mathematician and Astronomer, and with the aid of such art, sailing from Spain, he discovered several islands, previously unknown, wherefor he was knighted by the Emperor, who also testified that of all citizens of the Empire he was the traveller who had gone furthest.(12) He settled and married in such islands, and had heirs, and presented the Town Council with the Globum terrestrum which until recently stood in one of the upper reception rooms(13) of the Town Hall."

Wagenseil, who was a man of learning, must have been fully aware of the utter untrustworthiness of his authorities, and we might treat his servile adulatory address with contempt had not his assertions been accepted by authors of some repute, though little judgment, even down to the beginning of this twentieth century.

Nurembergers naturally were the first to follow up the false lead of their townsman Wagenseil. Magnus David Omeis in `De claris quibusdam Norimbergensibus' (Norimb., 1683, p. 23), Johann Wülfer, Professor at the Aegidian Gymnasium, in his `Oratio de majoribus oceani insulis' (Norimb., 1691, pp. 98-102), Joh. Phil. von Wurzelbau (b. 1651 at Nuremberg, d. 1752) in the dedicatory epistle to his `Vranies Noricae basis astronomicogeographico' (Norimb., 1697); Christian Cellarius (b. 1638, d. 1707, Professor of History at Halle) in his `Historia medii aevi' (Jena, 1698, p. 214) and F. C. Hagen in `Memoriae Philosophorum' (Bairuth, 1710, p. 221), these all blindly accept Wagenseil as their guide. Prof. J. F. Stüven, of Giessen, in his `Dissertatio de vero novi orbis inventore' (Francof., 1704, cc. 5, 6), which he is bold enough to call a " dissertatio historica critica," claims on behalf of his " godlike hero" that he discovered the Azores and America as far south as Magellan Strait, that he depicted his discoveries upon a chart which he presented to King Affonso (who died 1481!), and that Colon and Magellan saw this chart. " The glory of having been the first to discover America is due to Martin Behaim, and from this source Columbus derived a better knowledge of the route he had to follow; but be the credit due to Behaim or to Columbus, they both were great navigators (navarchi), of lofty spirit, and that which was happily begun by the one was carried to a happy end by the other." Stüven suggests that the chart which D. Pedro is reported to have brought from Venice in 1428 was in reality the work of Behaim, whom he does not hesitate to identify with Juan Sanchez, of Huelva, the pilot reported to have died in the house of Columbus!

Michael Friedrich Lochner, the learned physician, in his `Commentarium de Ananasa' (Norimb., 1716) follows Wagenseil, and suggests that America ought to have been named "Occidental Bohemia"; E. D. Hauber, the author of a `Versuch einer Historie der Land-Charten' (Ulm, 1724), is content to quote Wagenseil and Stüven. Even J. C. Doppelmayr, to whom we are indebted for the first "facsimile" of Behaim's globe, followed the misleading authorities mentioned above, when writing the biography in his `Historische Nachrichten von den Nürnbergischen Mathematicis und Künstlern' (Nürnb., 1730). Nor is a single new fact put forward or blunder removed by G. A. Will, who, in the `Nürnbergisches Gelehrten Lexikon' (Nürnb., I., 1755), bestows upon his hero the title of "thalastus," and thinks that America and Magellan's Strait ought by rights to have been named "Western Behaimia" and "Behaim Strait"; by J. S. Moerl, in his `Oratio de meritis Norimbergensium in Geographiam,' or J. S. Fürer in an `Oratio de Martino Behaimo,' both of which orations may be found in the `Museum Noricoum' published at Altdorf in 1759.

Prof. Geo. Christian Gebauer was the first to challenge, in his `Geschichte von Portugal' (Leipzig, 1759, I., p. 125), these extravagant claims put forward by ignorance or sycophancy on behalf of Martin Behaim. Prof. Eobald Tozen of Göttingen still more vigorously defended the claims of Columbus, as "the true and first discoverer of the New World, against the unfounded claims put forth on behalf of Vespucci and Martin Behaim."(14) The publication of Murr's `Diplomatische Geschichte' in 1778 ought entirely to have put a stop to all speculations as to a discovery of the New World by Behaim, prior to Columbus.(15) It failed so to do. On April 1, 1786, "ignorant and presumptuous" Otto, as Harrisse(16) calls him, addressed a letter and Memoir to John Franklin, in which Behaim is credited with the discovery and colonisation of Fayal in 1460, and of Western America from Guyana (St. Brandan's island of his globe) southward as far as the strait of Patagonia in 1484. His knighthood, bestowed in 1485, was the reward of these achievements.(17) It was easy to refute these astounding propositions. The Count Giovanni Rinaldo Carli(18) did so in a letter published in 1792 in `Opusculi scelti sulle scienze e sulle arti' (t. XV., pp. 73-97); Christóbal Cladera in `Investigaciones historicas' (Madrid, 1794). Both these authors were of course acquainted with the work of Murr, of which the latter gives a translation. Since then no writer of weight has ventured to claim Behaim as a "forerunner" of Columbus,(19) though A. Ziegler(20) would have us look upon him as the "intellectual" discoverer of the continent. Ghillany (p. 63) thinks it not impossible that he may be the actual discoverer of the strait called Magellan, whilst the Rev. Mytton Maury,(21) after a very superficial study of the authorities, assures us that "taking all the evidence into consideration it would seem that the facts in the case not simply allow, but compel us, to regard Martin Behaim as the original discoverer of the strait." One of the last to support the claims made in that respect on behalf of Behaim is U. Griffoni,(22) but his arguments were speedily refuted by Prof. Carlo Errara of Turin and Prof. Gustavo Uzielli of Florence.(23)

Weighing carefully the available evidence bearing upon the relations between Behaim, Columbus and Magellan, and the discovery of the New World, I feel justified in the following conclusions:

1. Behaim most certainly did not discover, or ever claim to have discovered, the New World, nor did he exercise any influence upon the projects of Columbus, whom he had very few opportunities of knowing, but, to judge from his globe, he shared the erroneous opinions of the famous navigator as to the small breadth of the Atlantic Ocean.

2. Behaim may have joined Fernão Dulmo and João Affonso do Estreito in the scheme for an expedition proposed for 1487, but if this expedition ever started it seems to have yielded no results, as no reference whatever is made to it in the legends covering Behaim's globe.

3. There exists no evidence whatever that Behaim, between the years 1494 and 1507 joined any of the Portuguese expeditions which visited the west coast of South America.

4. If Magellan had a chart showing a strait connecting the Atlantic and the Mar del Sur, it cannot have been the work of Behaim, at whose death the coast was known only to the Rio de Cananea, 750 miles to the north of the estuary of the La Plata, which was first mistaken for such a strait.

Footnotes

Back to Table of Contents

Last modified: Thu Feb 5 22:41:16 CET 2004