It is difficult to find someone who is unaware of the great seafarer Christopher Columbus. In response to a related question, they will confidently say that he was the man who discovered America, adding that the name of the continent comes from another great explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who, among other things, understood that the lands discovered by Columbus were a new continent.
There is no doubt that Columbus died still believing in his illusion, namely that he had found the western route to the Indies (Asia), and he was so deeply convinced of this that no force in the world could change his mind. We know from one of his letters that on February 5th, 1505—thirteen years after his first voyage and one year before his death—he met Vespucci and they discussed for a long time. No details of the conversation exist, but it is clear that they spoke about the newly discovered lands and their geographical position. Even then, Columbus was not convinced. Stubborn-minded, one might say. Perhaps. However, this stubbornness of his—this particular structure of his character—was what allowed him to accomplish his voyage.
The famous “egg” anecdote is attributed to Columbus. Without a doubt, this is a mistake—Voltaire showed that it actually belongs to Brunelleschi’s “egg”—but regardless of this, we must observe that Columbus’s personality did not suit practical and simple solutions. Columbus was not an innovator who transcended the ideas of his time. On the contrary, he was someone who selectively mobilized, as we shall see below, the ideas of his era in order to convince first himself and then others of the feasibility of his voyage.
