Leon Battista Alberti and Leonardo Da Vinci - 15. The Florentine Mathematicians: Toscanelli, Alberti, Nicholas of Cusa, and Regiomontanus - 14. The World Maps of Johannes Schoner, Martin Waldsee Muller, and Admiral Zheng He - 12. Collimblis's and Macellan's World Maps - 11. Toscanelli Meets the Chinese Ambassador - 10. Zheng He's Navigators' Calculation of Latitude and Longitude - 5. The Fleets Are Prepared for the Voyage to the Barbarians - 4. This vast treasure trove of knowledge spread across Europe, igniting the legendary inventiveness of the Renaissance, including the work of such geniuses as da Vinci, Copernicus, Galileo, and more Originally published: London: HarperCollins, 2008 Includes bibliographical references and index Machine generated contents note: I. The delegation presented the influential pope with a wealth of Chinese learning from a diverse range of fields: art, geography (including world maps that were passed on to Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan), astronomy, mathematics, printing, architecture, steel manufacturing, military weaponry, and more. Based on years of research, this marvelous history argues that a Chinese fleet-official ambassadors of the emperor-arrived in Tuscany in 1434, where they were received by Pope Eugenius IV in Florence. Florence and Venice of the early fifteenth century were hubs of world trade, attracting traders from across the globe. From that date onward, Europeans embraced Chinese intellectual ideas, discoveries, and inventions, all of which form the basis of western civilization today.

Pages cm Historian Gavin Menzies makes the startling argument that in the year 1434, China-then the world's most technologically advanced civilization-provided the spark that set the European Renaissance ablaze.

1434 by Gavin Menzies