The Venetian Giovanni Caboto, a merchant expert in the Orient, is in Valencia working on a project to improve the port, while Christopher Columbus returns to announce that he has discovered a shorter route to the Indies (Cathay). Cabot, who has read Marco Polo and spoken with several merchants from India, deduces from the gifts and artifacts Columbus brought back that Columbus had not landed in India but in a new land. Cabot, instead, suggested reaching the Far East by passing through the high latitudes and then descending through Cipango (Japan).
