Bannon is someone who know better, but has joined the anti Larouchepac crowd, probably to suck up more money..... Another reason why we need Glass Steagall Act now or else we are finished... Stop giving the easy money to Wall Street and the City of London. China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty. China is organizing e-Commerce... for the poor people.
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
See Video, Evil Steve Bannon
Steve Bannon has caught the evil disease from his Wall Street banker friends. Harlem NY dudes, we gotta keep fighting, because former good guys can become bad guys. Unfortunately, Steve Bannon has joined with the London Economist crowd, in that now he wants a war on China, and at least a trade war on China.... see www.breitbart.com for more stuff from the Bannon side of things... Time to axe that, and go with Helga and the new Silk Road.
Bannon is someone who know better, but has joined the anti Larouchepac crowd, probably to suck up more money..... Another reason why we need Glass Steagall Act now or else we are finished... Stop giving the easy money to Wall Street and the City of London. China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty. China is organizing e-Commerce... for the poor people.
Bannon is someone who know better, but has joined the anti Larouchepac crowd, probably to suck up more money..... Another reason why we need Glass Steagall Act now or else we are finished... Stop giving the easy money to Wall Street and the City of London. China has lifted more than 700 million people out of poverty. China is organizing e-Commerce... for the poor people.
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Poetry of the Criminal Bob Mueller, Prosecutor
Hey Harlem NY dudes... get in the groove about Robert Mueller, the prosecutor creep who IS the criminal. His targeting Pres. Trump, and the American Revolution.
Executive Intelligence Review News Service will release
If you want to keep the peace.
A dossier titled "Robert Mueller Is an Amoral Legal Assassin"
He don't care that he is original sin.
He Will Do His Job If You Let Him
It would be much better to fire him.
The dossier shows the ongoing coup attempt
While Wall Street steals and you can't pay the rent.
...run by the same people who imprisoned Lyndon LaRouche in the 1980s and who prevented the exposure of the role of the Saudis and their British controllers in the terrorist attack on the United States on 9/11/2001. The intention in all three criminal and traitorous acts was to prevent the United States from breaking from the British Empire, returning to the American System of political economy, and joining forces with Russia and China—our allies in defeating fascism in World War II—to defeat the international terrorist apparatus of today, so as to work together in building the world through the New Silk Road process, now being implemented under Chinese leadership.
EIR and its founder Lyndon LaRouche call on all citizens of the world to circulate this dossier widely, as the necessary means of preventing the further descent into chaos and war.
The American population has demonstrated their disgust with the failed effort to claim Russia stole the election from the gullible Americans, and the equally failed effort to portray Trump as both a Russian puppet and a white supremacist. All that is left is the British Star Chamber run by Robert Swan Mueller III, based on his fraudulent appointment as special prosecutor, and the fraudulent document prepared by British MI6 agent Christopher Steele about Trump's supposed subservience to Russian blackmail.
The FBI is now openly obstructing justice by refusing to turn over to the U.S. Congress the documents relating to their cooperation with British Intelligence agent Steele.
The election in Germany on Sunday saw the collapse of the two parties which have led Germany since World War II, rendering Germany—until now the only relatively stable nation in Europe —in an ungovernable state of chaos. Helga Zepp-LaRouche, whose candidacy for Chancellor was blacked out by the European press (even while being interviewed prominently in the Chinese press!), noted that this was yet another demonstration that the austerity and economic hardships imposed by the bankrupt Anglo-American financial system has turned the citizens of Europe and the U.S. against all forms of the failed post-war leadership. This was evidenced by the Brexit, by the Trump election, by revolts against the EU in southern Europe, and now by the breakdown in Germany.
The alternative is clear before us all, as presented by LaRouche's Emergency Plan to restore the American System in the West, and by the United States fully engaging in the New Silk Road process of global win-win development. It is precisely because President Trump has indicated an intention to do both these things that the British and their hit-men on Wall Street and in the leftover Obama intelligence community are frantically trying to depose him.
The Schiller Institute, founded and chaired by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, will escalate its campaigns in the U.S. in the coming days. A weekly address by Mrs. LaRouche, in English, will spearhead a drive to recruit and educate the angry American population, not to simply resist, but to draw on the creative thinkers who gave us modern civilization—e.g., Plato, Confucius, Cusa, Leibniz, Kepler, Bach, Beethoven, Schiller, Vernadsky, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton—to implement the necessary program for the future of humanity based on the dignity of Man. The LaRouche Political Action Committee (LaRouchePAC) will also launch a class series, open to the world, on the economic and scientific method of Lyndon LaRouche, as the necessary armament in the battles ahead. Helga Zepp-LaRouche's advice: "Go like warrior angels!"
Monday, September 18, 2017
US Missile Defense vs North Korea
Can the US missile defense work against North Korean missiles if they attack Japan, South Korea or Guam? The answer is no... just read Defense website
They know we can't do it... so if we attack North Korea, even if they cannot reach a US city, millions could die in South Korea, Japan, and Guam... And we don't have to attack North Korea. Since we are much bigger, we can negotiate. Trump, please negotiate, do not attack. Plus, if there is a nuclear exchange between the US and North Korea, if we attack them, China and Russia could attack us.... very bad. a full nuclear war.
They know we can't do it... so if we attack North Korea, even if they cannot reach a US city, millions could die in South Korea, Japan, and Guam... And we don't have to attack North Korea. Since we are much bigger, we can negotiate. Trump, please negotiate, do not attack. Plus, if there is a nuclear exchange between the US and North Korea, if we attack them, China and Russia could attack us.... very bad. a full nuclear war.
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Russia gate is BS
We heard it from the hackers themselves, VIPS leaders, Bill Binney and Ray McGovern. Russiagate is total BS... a scam to use Robert Mueller as special prosecutor to bring down President Trump. The tricks of the British Empire endless war party to save their bankrupt empire, and have nuclear war if they can get away with it.
Sunday, September 3, 2017
Manhattan Town Hall: Texas Disaster Must Serve as a Wake-up Call To America
Manhattan Town Hall: Texas Disaster Must Serve as a Wake-up Call To America: LPAC organizer Brian Lantz from Houston, Texas is the special guest during this week's Manhattan Town Hall event.
Tuesday, August 29, 2017
Can Trump Get Over the Hump?
There are positive features in the Trump administration that are important for people all over the world. Can he lead a detente with Russia? Can he get help from China to build US infrastructure again as part of the world Landbridge? We gotta keep pushing. So watch the video now and sign up.
A Tale of Two Worlds: As Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the...
you get the picture.... lots of opportunity, and lots of danger... like of drowning in Houston Texas, a real danger.
A Tale of Two Worlds: As Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the...
you get the picture.... lots of opportunity, and lots of danger... like of drowning in Houston Texas, a real danger.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Columbus statue, and the discovery of America
No, we are not surrendering the Columbus statue in NYC or anywhere. Harlem dudes knowl the story of the Renaissance and the discovery of America.
Columbus and Toscanelli by Ricardo Olvera
One of the most controversial matters relating to the discovery of the Americas relates to the Italian Renaissance. In the scientific seminars held during the Council of Florence, Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli presented his idea of the project. Based upon the scientific information brought by cosmographers, geographers, and experts in the science of navigation gathered there together, the general lines were traced of what would, fifty-three years later, become the "greatest event after Creation," according to one Spanish author-- the discovery of the New World.
The direct connection between the Italian Renaissance and the Spanish exploit is established by the correspondence between Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli and Christopher Columbus. In Toscanelli's letter to Columbus in 1480, and in the ones written by him six years before to Fernao Martins, agent of the Portuguese King Alfonso V, the Florentine scholar urged the Iberian powers-Portugal and Spain-to realize the transatlantic project discussed in Florence, and he laid out for them the map and the scientific information required for its success (SEE Map I). As Fernando Columbus, Christopher's son, reports in his Life of the Admiral, the basis upon which his father founded his project was as follows: A Master Paolo, physician of Master Domenico, a Florentine contemporary to the same Admiral, was the cause in great measure of his undertaking this This article, translated by Rick Sanders, has been excerpted and adapted from "The Discovery of the Americas and the Great Scientific Project of the Renaissance, " which appeared in the Spanish -language magazine Benengeli, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1987). voyage with greater spirit. The fact that the cited Paolo was a friend of Fernao Martins, canon of Lisbon, and that the two were writing letters to each other about the sea voyages made to the country of Guinea during the time of King Alfonso of Portugal, and about what could be done in the westward direction, came to the ears of the Admiral who was most curious about these things. And he hastened to write, by way of one Lorenzo Girardi, a Florentine who was in Lisbon, to the said Master Paolo, about this, and sent to him an armillary sphere, revealing to him his intent. Master Paolo sent him a reply in Latin ....
Later Fernando Columbus transcribes the first letter from Toscanelli to Christopher Columbus: To Christopher Columbus, Paolo, physician, greetIllgs. I see this magnificent and grand desire of yours to see how to get to [the regions] where spices are born, and in reply to your letter I send you a copy of another letter which I wrote some time ago to a friend and familiar of the most serene King of Portugal, before the Castillian war, in reply to another letter which by commision of his Highness was written to me about the said matter; and I send you another such map of sailing, as the one I wrote to him, through which your questions will be satisfied. Toscanelli affixed to the bottom of his letter to Columbus, a copy of the letter which he had sent earlier to Fernao Martins, the canon who operated as an intermediary between the republican networks of Florence, and those republicans who were trying to convince the King of Portugal to put the navigational capacity of that country in the service of this great project. This letter had been directed at awakening the commercial interest of the powerful, painting with vivid colors the fantastic riches of the Far East; and attached to it was the carta de marear or "navigational map," which Columbus never let out of his sight for even a moment, during his first voyage. Did Toscanelli believe that following his navigational plan, the coasts that one would see rise on the horizon would be those of the Orient? Or did he perhaps expect those of a new continent?
One fact makes us suspect the latter: the distance at which Columbus encountered America, and likewise the principal geographic and nautical characteristics of the route, were precisely those of Toscanelli's navigational map. Instead of fantastic palaces covered in gold and the refined civilization of the Orient, Columbus encountered an almost savage continent, in which everything still needed to be done. The prevailing mentality of the courts of Europe at the time, would have made it very difficult to find support for a project involving so much nature and so little art. Either way, Toscanelli and the strategists of the Renaissance succeeded in their plan to mobilize the maritime-commercial powers to an enterprise which the "experts" of the age considered "not income-producing" (just as today, the cost-accountants consider the project of colonizing the Moon and Mars as not "income producing"), and such experts notwithstanding, there was opened up for humanity the most formidable period of development of which we have memory. Are Toscanelli's Letters Genuine? At the Congress of Americanists held in Paris in 1 900, Henry Vignaud, then First Secretary of the American Embassy in France, denied for the first time the authenticity of the famous correspondence between Toscanelli, Martins, and Columbus, in a document which was immediately widely diffused through the press of the day. Over the years since 1 900, the vital and previously wellknown link of Columbus to Toscanelli-and thus, to the Council of Florence-was hidden, and ultimately, forgotten. In essence, Vignaud said that the discovery of the Americas was not the result of any scientific project, but rather of chance. According to Vignaud, Columbus never had any intention of reaching Asia, let alone the New World, but only of reaching one of the islands located west of the Canaries. If by chance Columbus did have any scientific theory, he would not have gotten this from Toscanelli, nor from any of the cosmographers of the Renaissance, but from Ptolemy, Aristotle, and other "authorities" of medieval geography and cosmography. Vignaud based this on his "demonstration" that the 38 letters ofToscanelli to Christopher Columbus, and above all from Toscanelli to Fernao Martins, were apocryphal. In refuting this assertion, the historian Clement Markham argued that [fJew documents of this period are so well certified [as this letter]. Las Casas, an absolutely trustworthy and honest historian, not only furnishes us with a Spanish translation, but informs us that one part of the original, it seems, the navigational map adjoined, was in fact in his possession at the moment of writing. In the Life of the Admiral, by Fernando Columbus, MAP 1. Reconstruction of Toscanelli's map sent to Columbus in 1480. there is included an Italian translation. And one copy of the original version in Latin was found in the Columbus Library in Seville in 1 860, in the frontispiece of a book by Pius II which had belonged to Christopher Columbus, written in the Admiral's own hand. I In a reply to Markham, Vignaud attempted to bolster his claim by arguing that Fernao Martins never existed, and that he was a mere invention, created to explain the inexplicable: the tie between Columbus and Toscanelli-which was impossible according to Vignaud, because Columbus was never in Florence, and Toscanelli never left Italy. , Did Fernao Martins Exist? Ironically, by questioning the existence of Fernao Martins, Vignaud actually helps us to highlight the point of conception of the Renaissance exploration project. For in the work of Cardinal Nicolaus of Cusa entitled Tetralogus de Non Aliud (Tetralogue on the Not-Other), there unfolds a Socratic dialogue between "Nicolaus" and three interlocutors, of whom the main one is Ferdinando Martin Portugaliensi natione, canon of Lisbon, whose full name is Fernao Martins de Roritz (from the town of Roritz in Portugal). The other two are Oanes Andrea Vigerius, or Gian Andrea, from Vigevano in northern Italy; and Petrus Balbus Pisanus, or Pietro Balbi, born in Pisa, a former study companion of Cusa and Toscanelli in Padua. This same Fernao (Martins) of Roritz, relative and private councillor to Alfonso V, would, together with Toscanelli, later sign on Aug. 6, 1464, the last will and testament of Nicolaus of Cusa, as a witness and as his personal doctor; a few days later, he would attend Cusa's funeral. A relative of Fernao Martins also enjoyed the confidence of Cardinal Cusa: Antonio Martins, the bishop of Oporto, born in Chavez, a town near Roritz. It is this Antonio Martins who had accompanied the cardinal's delegation to Constantinople in 1 437, sent by Pope Eugene IV to convince the Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople of the need to be present at the Council. Toscanelli also played the role of interlocutor in one of Nicolaus of Cusa's dialogues, on the squaring of the circle, entitled De Arithmeticis Complementis (On Arith metical Complements). Born in 1397, one of the most outstanding participants in the Council of Florence, Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli died at age 88, in 1 482, a decade before the realization of his great project. He had been Cusa's fellow student in Padua, and Cusa dedicated to him, besides the cited book, another one entitled De Geometricis Transmutationibus (On Geometrical Transformations).
Thus we see, contrary to Vignaud, that Nicolaus of Cusa, Toscanelli, and Martins formed a close intellectual circle, whose scientific work was unified in and grew out of the great Florentine Council. One indication of the educational efforts which the leaders of the Renaissance undertook to win over the "best mariners of the world" to their cause, is the fact that Columbus' most treasured book, which he carried with him in his voyages of discovery, was the Historia rerum ubique gestarum (Universal History of Facts and Deeds) of Pope Pius I I-the humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini-in whose frontispiece Columbus himself had copied in his own hand Toscanelli's map. It had been Piccolomini who penned the great lament at the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453: "This is a second death for Homer, a second death for Plato: now where will we be able to find the works of genius of the Greek poets and philosophers?" Pope Pius II died on Aug. 14, 1464, three days after Cardinal Cusa, and the chances of an immediate Christian crusade to liberate Constantinople and free the Mediterranean from Turkish control, were sharply reduced; this thread would be picked up later, through the Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, brought to a close in 1492 by the same Ferdinand and Isabella who would dispatch Columbus that same year on the greatest military flanking move in history-to bypass the VenetianTurkish stranglehold, and reach the east by the rear, going west across the feared ocean-sea. And thus it was that, after the deaths of Cusa and Pius II, the scientist Toscanelli returned to Florence "to continue his studies, turning his face not to the east, but to the west, thinking about a new route for commerce and for civilization.,,2
NOTES I. Clement R. Markham, Toscanelli and Columbus: A Letter from Clement R. Markham to Henry Vignaud (London: Sands and Company, 1 903). 2. Angel de Altolaguirre y Duvale, Cristobal Colon y Pablo del Pozzo Toscanelli (Madrid: I mprenta de Administracion Militar, 1 903). 39
Columbus and Toscanelli by Ricardo Olvera
One of the most controversial matters relating to the discovery of the Americas relates to the Italian Renaissance. In the scientific seminars held during the Council of Florence, Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli presented his idea of the project. Based upon the scientific information brought by cosmographers, geographers, and experts in the science of navigation gathered there together, the general lines were traced of what would, fifty-three years later, become the "greatest event after Creation," according to one Spanish author-- the discovery of the New World.
The direct connection between the Italian Renaissance and the Spanish exploit is established by the correspondence between Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli and Christopher Columbus. In Toscanelli's letter to Columbus in 1480, and in the ones written by him six years before to Fernao Martins, agent of the Portuguese King Alfonso V, the Florentine scholar urged the Iberian powers-Portugal and Spain-to realize the transatlantic project discussed in Florence, and he laid out for them the map and the scientific information required for its success (SEE Map I). As Fernando Columbus, Christopher's son, reports in his Life of the Admiral, the basis upon which his father founded his project was as follows: A Master Paolo, physician of Master Domenico, a Florentine contemporary to the same Admiral, was the cause in great measure of his undertaking this This article, translated by Rick Sanders, has been excerpted and adapted from "The Discovery of the Americas and the Great Scientific Project of the Renaissance, " which appeared in the Spanish -language magazine Benengeli, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1987). voyage with greater spirit. The fact that the cited Paolo was a friend of Fernao Martins, canon of Lisbon, and that the two were writing letters to each other about the sea voyages made to the country of Guinea during the time of King Alfonso of Portugal, and about what could be done in the westward direction, came to the ears of the Admiral who was most curious about these things. And he hastened to write, by way of one Lorenzo Girardi, a Florentine who was in Lisbon, to the said Master Paolo, about this, and sent to him an armillary sphere, revealing to him his intent. Master Paolo sent him a reply in Latin ....
Later Fernando Columbus transcribes the first letter from Toscanelli to Christopher Columbus: To Christopher Columbus, Paolo, physician, greetIllgs. I see this magnificent and grand desire of yours to see how to get to [the regions] where spices are born, and in reply to your letter I send you a copy of another letter which I wrote some time ago to a friend and familiar of the most serene King of Portugal, before the Castillian war, in reply to another letter which by commision of his Highness was written to me about the said matter; and I send you another such map of sailing, as the one I wrote to him, through which your questions will be satisfied. Toscanelli affixed to the bottom of his letter to Columbus, a copy of the letter which he had sent earlier to Fernao Martins, the canon who operated as an intermediary between the republican networks of Florence, and those republicans who were trying to convince the King of Portugal to put the navigational capacity of that country in the service of this great project. This letter had been directed at awakening the commercial interest of the powerful, painting with vivid colors the fantastic riches of the Far East; and attached to it was the carta de marear or "navigational map," which Columbus never let out of his sight for even a moment, during his first voyage. Did Toscanelli believe that following his navigational plan, the coasts that one would see rise on the horizon would be those of the Orient? Or did he perhaps expect those of a new continent?
One fact makes us suspect the latter: the distance at which Columbus encountered America, and likewise the principal geographic and nautical characteristics of the route, were precisely those of Toscanelli's navigational map. Instead of fantastic palaces covered in gold and the refined civilization of the Orient, Columbus encountered an almost savage continent, in which everything still needed to be done. The prevailing mentality of the courts of Europe at the time, would have made it very difficult to find support for a project involving so much nature and so little art. Either way, Toscanelli and the strategists of the Renaissance succeeded in their plan to mobilize the maritime-commercial powers to an enterprise which the "experts" of the age considered "not income-producing" (just as today, the cost-accountants consider the project of colonizing the Moon and Mars as not "income producing"), and such experts notwithstanding, there was opened up for humanity the most formidable period of development of which we have memory. Are Toscanelli's Letters Genuine? At the Congress of Americanists held in Paris in 1 900, Henry Vignaud, then First Secretary of the American Embassy in France, denied for the first time the authenticity of the famous correspondence between Toscanelli, Martins, and Columbus, in a document which was immediately widely diffused through the press of the day. Over the years since 1 900, the vital and previously wellknown link of Columbus to Toscanelli-and thus, to the Council of Florence-was hidden, and ultimately, forgotten. In essence, Vignaud said that the discovery of the Americas was not the result of any scientific project, but rather of chance. According to Vignaud, Columbus never had any intention of reaching Asia, let alone the New World, but only of reaching one of the islands located west of the Canaries. If by chance Columbus did have any scientific theory, he would not have gotten this from Toscanelli, nor from any of the cosmographers of the Renaissance, but from Ptolemy, Aristotle, and other "authorities" of medieval geography and cosmography. Vignaud based this on his "demonstration" that the 38 letters ofToscanelli to Christopher Columbus, and above all from Toscanelli to Fernao Martins, were apocryphal. In refuting this assertion, the historian Clement Markham argued that [fJew documents of this period are so well certified [as this letter]. Las Casas, an absolutely trustworthy and honest historian, not only furnishes us with a Spanish translation, but informs us that one part of the original, it seems, the navigational map adjoined, was in fact in his possession at the moment of writing. In the Life of the Admiral, by Fernando Columbus, MAP 1. Reconstruction of Toscanelli's map sent to Columbus in 1480. there is included an Italian translation. And one copy of the original version in Latin was found in the Columbus Library in Seville in 1 860, in the frontispiece of a book by Pius II which had belonged to Christopher Columbus, written in the Admiral's own hand. I In a reply to Markham, Vignaud attempted to bolster his claim by arguing that Fernao Martins never existed, and that he was a mere invention, created to explain the inexplicable: the tie between Columbus and Toscanelli-which was impossible according to Vignaud, because Columbus was never in Florence, and Toscanelli never left Italy. , Did Fernao Martins Exist? Ironically, by questioning the existence of Fernao Martins, Vignaud actually helps us to highlight the point of conception of the Renaissance exploration project. For in the work of Cardinal Nicolaus of Cusa entitled Tetralogus de Non Aliud (Tetralogue on the Not-Other), there unfolds a Socratic dialogue between "Nicolaus" and three interlocutors, of whom the main one is Ferdinando Martin Portugaliensi natione, canon of Lisbon, whose full name is Fernao Martins de Roritz (from the town of Roritz in Portugal). The other two are Oanes Andrea Vigerius, or Gian Andrea, from Vigevano in northern Italy; and Petrus Balbus Pisanus, or Pietro Balbi, born in Pisa, a former study companion of Cusa and Toscanelli in Padua. This same Fernao (Martins) of Roritz, relative and private councillor to Alfonso V, would, together with Toscanelli, later sign on Aug. 6, 1464, the last will and testament of Nicolaus of Cusa, as a witness and as his personal doctor; a few days later, he would attend Cusa's funeral. A relative of Fernao Martins also enjoyed the confidence of Cardinal Cusa: Antonio Martins, the bishop of Oporto, born in Chavez, a town near Roritz. It is this Antonio Martins who had accompanied the cardinal's delegation to Constantinople in 1 437, sent by Pope Eugene IV to convince the Emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople of the need to be present at the Council. Toscanelli also played the role of interlocutor in one of Nicolaus of Cusa's dialogues, on the squaring of the circle, entitled De Arithmeticis Complementis (On Arith metical Complements). Born in 1397, one of the most outstanding participants in the Council of Florence, Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli died at age 88, in 1 482, a decade before the realization of his great project. He had been Cusa's fellow student in Padua, and Cusa dedicated to him, besides the cited book, another one entitled De Geometricis Transmutationibus (On Geometrical Transformations).
Thus we see, contrary to Vignaud, that Nicolaus of Cusa, Toscanelli, and Martins formed a close intellectual circle, whose scientific work was unified in and grew out of the great Florentine Council. One indication of the educational efforts which the leaders of the Renaissance undertook to win over the "best mariners of the world" to their cause, is the fact that Columbus' most treasured book, which he carried with him in his voyages of discovery, was the Historia rerum ubique gestarum (Universal History of Facts and Deeds) of Pope Pius I I-the humanist Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini-in whose frontispiece Columbus himself had copied in his own hand Toscanelli's map. It had been Piccolomini who penned the great lament at the fall of Constantinople to the Turks in 1453: "This is a second death for Homer, a second death for Plato: now where will we be able to find the works of genius of the Greek poets and philosophers?" Pope Pius II died on Aug. 14, 1464, three days after Cardinal Cusa, and the chances of an immediate Christian crusade to liberate Constantinople and free the Mediterranean from Turkish control, were sharply reduced; this thread would be picked up later, through the Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, brought to a close in 1492 by the same Ferdinand and Isabella who would dispatch Columbus that same year on the greatest military flanking move in history-to bypass the VenetianTurkish stranglehold, and reach the east by the rear, going west across the feared ocean-sea. And thus it was that, after the deaths of Cusa and Pius II, the scientist Toscanelli returned to Florence "to continue his studies, turning his face not to the east, but to the west, thinking about a new route for commerce and for civilization.,,2
NOTES I. Clement R. Markham, Toscanelli and Columbus: A Letter from Clement R. Markham to Henry Vignaud (London: Sands and Company, 1 903). 2. Angel de Altolaguirre y Duvale, Cristobal Colon y Pablo del Pozzo Toscanelli (Madrid: I mprenta de Administracion Militar, 1 903). 39
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