Harmless Teddy Bear, he sold it to the Spanish King and Queen as a shortcut to India to get funding and wanted funding to go back. There are reports that before his first voyage he learn about the American Continent from a Chinese ambassador in Venice, spoke to an Englishman who followed the Basque fishing fleet to the Grand Banks and dried their catch on the mainland, knew of the Viking New World sagas, etc.
It he knew all that then his actions become even more inexplicable.