They had accepted the doctrine of the Polish
mathematician, Nicolaus Copernicus, whose studies had con-
vinced him that the earth was one of a number of round planets
which turned around the sun, a discovery which he did not venture
to publish for thirty-six years (it was printed in 1548,
the year of his death) from fear of the Holy Inquisition, a
Papal court which had been established in the thirteenth century
when the heresies of the Albigenses and the Waldenses
in France and in Italy (very mild heresies of devoutly pious
people who did not believe in private property and preferred
to live in Christ-like poverty) had for a moment threatened the
absolute power of the bishops of Rome. But the belief in the
roundness of the earth was common among the nautical experts
and, as I said, they were now debating the respective
advantages of the eastern and the western routes.
Among the advocates of the western route was a Genoese
mariner by the name of Cristoforo Colombo. He was the son
of a wool merchant. He seems to have been a student at the
University of Pavia where he specialised in mathematics and
geometry. Then he took up his father's trade but soon we find
him in Chios in the eastern Mediterranean travelling on business.
Thereafter we hear of voyages to England but whether
he went north in search of wool or as the captain of a ship we
do not know.
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