![]() ![]() Just three days out, the Pinta's rudder floated loose, the result of sabotage by her fearful owner, who it turned out had been cowed into supporting the journey. He was sure he would succeed.Ĭommanding a fleet of three small caravels - the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria - he departed Spain a half hour before sunrise on August 3, 1492. But often his world was nothing more than himself. Yes, the world was round - of that he had no doubt. Those traits belied a deep intensity: Columbus's focus was so great while sailing or praying that he was oblivious to events going on around him. The voyage could end either in death and disgrace or in a most sublime glory.Ĭolumbus was a cheerful, confident man, prone to the occasional boast. Somewhere, Columbus had promised, not so far over the western horizon, lay the wealth to finance Spain's wars of unification and conquest. ![]() Spain's hierarchy-obsessed nobility considered him a nothing, a no-account foreigner. He was a forty-one-year-old Italian vagabond who had seduced the most powerful woman in Europe into paying for his outrageous journey. It was summer when Columbus first sallied forth across the ocean blue - or ocean dark, as Spain's more timid sailors called that vast unknown beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Dugard delves into the rarely portrayed final journey of the famous explorer.Ĭolumbus's problems began, ironically, with his greatest success. ![]() Scott Simon talks with Martin Dugard, author of The Last Voyage of Columbus. ![]()
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