JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

 Christopher Columbus was born in 1451, and born sometime over a three-month period that no one seems to be able to button down.  He (known as Christophorus Columbus in Latin, and Cristoforo Colombo in Italian and Cristobal Colon in Spanish)  and in an audacious dash to shortcut European rivals in trade with the East became one of the first Europeans to explore the Americas.  In his first of four voyages to what would be called “the New World”, he landed in the Bahama archipelago, and in time explored the Greater and Lesser Antilles, Central America, and the Caribbean coast of Venezula, claiming all for the Spanish Kingdom. 

The first images of his adventures appeared in Oceanica Classis, printed by Johann Bergmann de Olpe, in Basle, in 1493–the first, below, showing an imaginary view of the Island of Hispanola.  In the image of Insula Hyspania, below, we see Native peoples running from the approaching ship and long boat–they of course did not run far enough. (By the end of the 1620’s, something like 75% of the indigenous population in contact with Europeans (or in contact with people in contact with them) were dead, mostly from epidemics and diseases and lesser illness for which they had no immune systems.)

Four (of the other eight, two of which were repeated)  images from this fantastic work can be seen below: