ABSTRACT
Factual information about the travels and discoveries of Christopher Columbus poured from the presses in 1992. The principal preoccupation of this chapter is not with travel fact and travel fiction but with what might be called the objective reality of travel, that is, as opposed to imaginative tales about it. After the timely intervention and support of Queen Isabella of Castille in 1492, Columbus undertook four voyages to the Indies. Columbus's cartographic knowledge can hardly have been less extensive than his reading. He and his brother Bartholomew were trained as chart makers, and Genoa, their birthplace, was in the forefront of the production of portolan charts. The remaining surviving evidence for Columbus's cartographic knowledge is slender, but it is still instructive. Columbus's need to justify his adventures dictated both his choice and his use of a remarkable collection of books.
