Customer Reviews

The man who led Columbus to America,

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Paul Chapman brings to the table the expertise of a trained, experienced navigator. Combined with insightful analysis of the Medieval story of St Brendan's voyages, he succeeds in demonstraing where those treks went exactly and affords the old manuscript much greater validity as a factual document. He then ties it to Columbus quite well to offer a thesis of great value to understand what that voyager knew and how he knew it. The book in general gives the reader a better and more accurate sense of what came before Columbus. It is well worth reading.

I read a translastion of the Navagatio, having heard about Chapman's thesis. I didn't see half of what he saw. Of course, I also didn't have multiple copies of the "original" version either. His analysis makes quite interesting reading, especially when one has read some of the issues about Columbus - like the fact he knew exactly what route he should take to both get to the Antilles and return. That's not a go west and return east route. He also kept the route from the royal family, so they would find it difficult to depend on anyone but Columbus. I'd rate the likelihood of the theory being correct as about 70%.