In 2008 Menzies released a second book entitled 1434: The Year a Magnificent Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance. In it Menzies claims that in 1434 Chinese delegations reached Italy and brought books and globes that, to a great extent, launched the Renaissance. He claims that a letter written in 1474 by Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli and found amongst the private papers of Columbus indicates that an earlier Chinese ambassador had direct correspondence with Pope Eugene IV in Rome. Menzies then claims that materials from the Chinese Book of Agriculture, the Nong Shu (農書), published in 1313 by the Yuan-dynasty scholar-official Wang Zhen (fl. 1290–1333), were copied by European scholars and provided direct inspiration for the illustrations of mechanical devices which are attributed to the Italian Renaissance polymaths Taccola (1382–1453) and Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).
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Famous quotes containing the words sailed, italy, fleet, magnificent and/or year:
“They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-Tree grows,”
—Edward Lear (1812–1888)
“When intimacy followed love in Italy there were no longer any vain pretensions between two lovers.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)
“Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly today,
Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away.”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)
“We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)
“The principle of fashion is ... the principle of the kaleidoscope. A new year can only bring us a new combination of the same elements; and about once in so often we go back and begin again.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)