Notes

A. First Voyage.—As regards the first voyage of Columbus there has come down to us a number of accounts, resolvable into two distinct narratives, as originally proceeding from the hand of Columbus himself,—his Journal, which is in part descriptive and in part log, according to the modern understanding of this last term; and his Letters announcing the success and results of his search. The fortunes and bibliographical history of both these sources need to be told:

Journal.—Columbus himself refers to this in his letter to Pope Alexander VI. (1503) as being kept in the style of Cæsar’s Commentaries; and Irving speaks of it as being penned “from day to day with guileless simplicity.” In its original form it has not been found; but we know that Las Casas used it in his Historia, and that Ferdinand Columbus must have had it before him while writing what passes for his Life of his father. An abridgment of the Journal in the hand of Las Casas, was discovered by Navarrete, who printed it in the first volume of his Coleccion in 1825; it is given in a French version in the Paris edition of the same (vol. ii.), and in Italian in Torre’s Scritti di Colombo, 1864. Las Casas says of his abstract, that he follows the very words of the Admiral for a while after recording the landfall; and these parts are translated by Mr. Thomas, of the State Department at Washington, in G. A. Fox’s paper on “The Landfall” in the Report of the Coast Survey for 1880. The whole of the Las Casas text, however, was translated into English, at the instigation of George Ticknor, by Samuel Kettell, and published in Boston as A Personal Narrative of the First Voyage in 1827; and it has been given in part, in English, in Becher’s Landfall of Columbus. The original is thought to have served Herrera in his Historia General.

Letters.—We know that on the 12th of February, 1493, about a week before reaching the Azores on his return voyage, and while his ship was laboring in a gale, Columbus prepared an account of his discovery, and incasing the parchment in wax, put it in a barrel, which he threw overboard. That is the last heard of it. He prepared another account, perhaps duplicate, and protecting it in a similar way, placed it on his poop, to be washed off in case his vessel foundered. We know nothing further of this account, unless it be the same, substantially, with the letters which he wrote just before making a harbor at the Azores. One of these letters, at least, is dated off the Canaries; and it is possible that it was written earlier on the voyage, and post-dated, in expectation of his making the Canaries; and when he found himself by stress of weather at the Azores, he neglected to change the place. The original of neither of these letters is known.

One of them was dated Feb. 15, 1493, with a postscript dated March 4 (or 14, copies vary, and the original is of course not to be reached; 4 would seem to be correct), and is written in Spanish, and addressed to the “Escribano de Racion,” Luis de Santangel, who, as Treasurer of Aragon, had advanced money for the voyage. Columbus calls this a second letter; by which he may mean that the one cast overboard was the first, or that another, addressed to Sanchez (later to be mentioned), preceded it. There was at Simancas, in 1818, an early manuscript copy of this letter, which Navarrete printed in his Coleccion, and Kettell translated into English in his book (p. 253) already referred to.

In 1852 the Baron Pietro Custodi left his collection of books to the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at Milan; and among them was found a printed edition of this Santangel letter, never before known, and still remaining unique. It is of small quarto, four leaves, in semi-gothic type, bearing the date of 1493, and was, as Harrisse and Lenox think, printed in Spain,—Major suggests Barcelona, but Gayangos thinks Lisbon. It was first reprinted at Milan in 1863, with a fac-simile, and edited by Cesare Correnti, in a volume, containing other letters of Columbus, entitled, Lettere autografe edite ed inedite di Cristoforo Colombo. From this reprint Harrisse copied it, and gave an English translation in his Notes on Columbus, p. 89, drawing attention to the error of Correnti in making it appear on his titlepage that the letter was addressed to “Saxis,” and testifying that, by collation, he had found but slight variation from the Navarrete text. Mr. R. H. Major also prints the Ambrosian text in his Select Letters of Columbus, with an English version appended, and judges the Cosco version could not have been made from it. Other English translations may be found in Becher’s Landfall of Columbus, p. 291, and in French’s Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida, 2d series, ii. 145.

In 1866 a fac-simile edition (150 copies) of the Ambrosian copy was issued at Milan, edited by Gerolamo d’Adda, under the title of Lettera in lingua Spagnuola diretta da Cristoforo Colombo a Luis de Santangel. Mr. James Lenox, of New York, had already described it, with a fac-simile of the beginning and end, in the Historical Magazine (vol. viii. p. 289, September, 1864, April, 1865); and this paper was issued separately (100 copies) as a supplement to the Lenox edition of Scyllacius. Harrisse indicates that there was once a version of this Santangel letter in the Catalan tongue, preserved in the Colombina Library at Seville.

A few years ago Bergenroth found at Simancas a letter of Columbus, dated at the Canaries, Feb. 15, 1493, with a postscript at Lisbon, March 14, addressed to a friend, giving still another early text, but adding nothing material to our previous knowledge. A full abstract is given in the Calendar of State Papers relating to England and Spain, p. 43.

A third Spanish text of a manuscript of the sixteenth century, said to have been found in the Colegio Mayor de Cuenca, was made known by Varnhagen, the Minister of Brazil to Portugal, who printed it at Valencia in 1858 as Primera epistola del Almirante Don Christóbal Colon, including an account “de una nueva copia de original manuscrito.” The editor assumed the name of Volafan, and printed one hundred copies, of which sixty were destroyed in Brazil. This letter is addressed to Gabriel Sanchez, and dated “sobre la isla de Sa. Maria, 18 de Febrero;” and is without the postscript of the letters of Feb. 15. It is almost a verbatim repetition of the Simancas text. A reprint of the Cosco text makes a part of the volume; and it is the opinion of Varnhagen and Harrisse that the Volafan text is the original from which Cosco translated, as mentioned later.

Perhaps still another Spanish text is preserved and incorporated, as Muñoz believed, by the Cura de los Palacios, Andrés Bernaldez, in his Historia de los reyes católicos (chap. cxviii). This book covers the period 1488-1513; has thirteen chapters on Columbus, who had been the guest of Bernaldez after his return from his second voyage, in 1496, and by whom Columbus is called “mercador de libros de estampa.” The manuscript of Bernaldez’s book long remained unprinted in the Royal Library at Madrid. Irving used a manuscript copy which belonged to Obadiah Rich. Prescott’s copy of the manuscript is in Harvard College Library. Humboldt used it in manuscript. It was at last printed at Granada in 1856, in two volumes, under the editing of Miguel Lafuente y Alcántara. It remains, of course, possible that Bernaldez may have incorporated a printed Spanish text, instead of the original or any early manuscript, though Columbus is known to have placed papers in his hands.

The text longest known to modern students is the poor Latin rendering of Cosco, already referred to. While but one edition of the original Spanish text appeared presumably in Spain (and none of Vespucius and Magellan), this Latin text, or translations of it, appeared in various editions and forms in Italy, France, and Germany, which Harrisse remarks as indicating the greater popular impression which the discovery of America made beyond Spain than within the kingdom; and the monthly delivery of letters from Germany to Portugal and the Atlantic islands, at this time, placed these parts of Europe in prompter connection than we are apt to imagine. News of the discovery was, it would seem, borne to Italy by the two Genoese ambassadors, Marchesi and Grimaldi, who are known to have left Spain a few days after the return of Columbus. The Spanish text of this letter, addressed by Columbus to Gabriel or Raphael Sanchez, or Sanxis, as the name of the Crown treasurer is variously given, would seem to have fallen into the hands of one Aliander de Cosco, who turned it into Latin, completing his work on the 29th of April. Harrisse points out the error of Navarrete and Varnhagen in placing this completion on the 25th, and supposes the version was made in Spain. Tidings of the discovery must have reached Rome before this version could have got there; for the first Papal Bull concerning the event is dated May 3. Whatever the case, the first publication, in print, of the news was made in Rome in this Cosco version, and four editions of it were printed in that city in 1493. There is much disagreement among bibliographers as to the order of issue of the early editions. Their peculiarities, and the preference of several bibliographers as to such order, is indicated in the following enumeration, the student being referred for full titles to the authorities which are cited:—

I. Epistola Christofori Colom [1493]. Small quarto, four leaves (one blank), gothic, 33 lines to a page. Addressed to Sanchis. Cosco is called Leander. Ferdinand and Isabella both named in the title. The printer is thought to be Plannck, from similarity of type to work known to be his.

Major calls this the editio princeps, and gives elaborate reasons for his opinion (Select Letters of Columbus, p. cxvi). J. R. Bartlett, in the Carter-Brown Catalogue, vol. i. no. 5, also puts it first; so does Ternaux. Varnhagen calls it the second edition. It is put the third in order by Brunet (vol. ii. col. 164) and Lenox (Scyllacius, p. xliv), and fourth by Harrisse (Notes on Columbus, p. 121; Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 4).

There are copies in the Lenox, Carter-Brown, and Huth (Catalogue, i. 336) libraries; in the Grenville (Bibl. Gren., p. 158) and King’s Collections in the British Museum; in the Royal Library at Munich; in the Collection of the Duc d’Aumale at Twickenham; and in the Commercial Library at Hamburg. The copy cited by Harrisse was sold in the Court Collection (no. 72) at Paris in 1884.

II. Epistola Christofori Colom, impressit Rome, Eucharius Argenteus [Silber], anno dñi MCCCCXCIII. Small quarto, three printed leaves, gothic type, 40 lines to the page. Addressed to Sanches. Cosco is called Leander. Ferdinand and Isabella both named.

Major, who makes this the second edition, says that its deviations from No. I. are all on the side of ignorance. Varnhagen calls it the editio princeps. Bartlett (Carter-Brown Catalogue, no. 6) puts it second. Lenox (Scyllacius, p. xlv) calls it the fourth edition. It is no. 3 of Harrisse (Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 3; Notes on Columbus, p. 121). Graesse errs in saying the words “Indie supra Gangem” are omitted in the title.

There are copies in the Lenox, Carter-Brown, Huth (Catalogue, i. 336), and Grenville (Bibl. Gren., p. 158) Libraries. It has been recently priced at 5,000 francs. Cf. Murphy Catalogue, 629.

III. Epistola Christofori Colom. Small quarto, four leaves, 34 lines, gothic type. Addressed to Sanxis. Cosco is called Aliander. Ferdinand only named.

This is Major’s third edition. It is the editio princeps of Harrisse, who presumes it to be printed by Stephanus Plannck at Rome (Notes on Columbus, p. 117; Bibl. Amer. Vet., vol. i.); and he enters upon a close examination to establish its priority. It is Lenox’s second edition (Scyllacius, p. xliii). Bartlett places it third.

There are copies in the Barlow (formerly the Aspinwall copy) Library in New York; in the General Collection and Grenville Library of the British Museum; and in the Royal Library at Munich. In 1875 Mr. S. L. M. Barlow printed (50 copies) a fac-simile of his copy, with a Preface, in which he joins in considering this the first edition with Harrisse, who (Notes on Columbus, p. 101) gives a careful reprint of it.

IV. De insulis inventis, etc. Small octavo, ten leaves, 26 and 27 lines, gothic type. The leaf before the title has the Spanish arms on the recto. There are eight woodcuts, one of which is a repetition. Addressed to Sanxis. Cosco is called Aliender. Ferdinand only named. The words “Indie supra Gangem” are omitted in the title.

This is Major’s fourth edition. Lenox makes it the editio princeps (as does Brunet), and gives fac-similes of the woodcuts in his Scyllacius, p. xxxvi. Bossi supposed the cuts to have been a part of the original manuscript, and designed by Columbus. Harrisse calls it the second in order, and thinks Johannes Besicken may have been the printer (Bibl. Amer. Vet., 2), though it is usually ascribed to Plannck, of Rome. It bears the arms of Granada; but there was no press at that time in that city, so far as known, though Brunet seems to imply it was printed there.

The only perfect copy known is one formerly the Libri copy, now in the Lenox Library, which has ten leaves. The Grenville copy (Bibl. Gren., p. 158), and the one which Bossi saw in the Brera at Milan, now lost, had only nine leaves.

Hain (Repertorium, no. 5,491) describes a copy which seems to lack the first and tenth leaves; and it was probably this copy (Royal Library, Munich) which was followed by Pilinski in his Paris fac-simile (20 copies in 1858), which does not reproduce these leaves, though it is stated by some that the defective British Museum copy was his guide. Bartlett seems in error in calling this fac-simile a copy of the Libri-Lenox copy.

V. Epistola de insulis de novo repertis, etc. Small quarto, four leaves, gothic, 39 lines; woodcut on verso of first leaf. Printed by Guy Marchand in Paris, about 1494. Addressed to Sanxis. Cosco is called Aliander. Ferdinand only named.

This is Lenox’s (Scyllacius, p. xlv.), Major’s, and Harrisse’s fifth (Notes on Columbus, p. 122; Bibl. Amer. Vet., p. 5) edition.

The Ternaux copy, now in the Carter-Brown Library, was for some time supposed to be the only copy known; but Harrisse says the text reprinted by Rosny in Paris, in 1865, as from a copy in the National Library at Paris, corresponds to this. This reprint (125 copies) is entitled, Lettre de Christophe Colomb sur la découverte du nouveau monde. Publiée d’après la rarissime version Latine conservée à la Bibliothèque Impériale. Traduite en Français, commentée [etc.] par Lucien de Rosny. Paris: J. Gay, 1865, 44 pages octavo. This edition was published under the auspices of the “Comité d’Archéologie Américaine.”

VI. Epistola de insulis noviter repertis, etc. Small quarto, four leaves, gothic, 39 lines; woodcut on verso of first leaf. Guiot Marchant, of Paris, printer. Addressed to Sanxis. Cosco is called Aliander. Ferdinand only named.

This is Major’s sixth edition; Harrisse (Notes on Columbus, p. 122; Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 6) and Lenox (Scyllacius, p. xlvii) also place it sixth. There are fac-similes of the engraved title in Harrisse, Lenox, and Stevens’s American Bibliographer, p. 66.

There are copies in the Carter-Brown, Bodleian (Douce), and University of Göttingen libraries; one is also shown in the Murphy Catalogue, no. 630.

John Harris, Sen., made a fac-simile edition of five copies, one of which is in the British Museum.

VII. Epistola Cristophori Colom, etc. Small quarto, four leaves, gothic, 38 lines. Addressed to Sanxis. Th. Martens is thought to be the printer.

This edition has only recently been made known. Cf. Brunet, Supplément, col. 276. The only copy known is in the Bibliothèque Royale at Brussels.

The text of all these editions scarcely varies, except in the use of contracted letters. Lenox’s collation was reprinted, without the cuts, in the Historical Magazine, February, 1861. Other bibliographical accounts will be found in Graesse, Trésor; Bibliotheca Grenvilliana, i. 158; Sabin, Dictionary, iv. 274; and by J. H. Hessels in the Bibliophile Belge, vol. vi. The cuts are also in part reproduced in some editions of Irving’s Life of Columbus, and in the Vita, by Bossi.

In 1494 this Cosco-Sanchez text was appended to a drama on the capture of Granada, which was printed at Basle, beginning In laudem Serenissimi Ferdinandi, and ascribed to Carolus Veradus. The “De insulis nuper inventis” is found at the thirtieth leaf (Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 15; Lenox’s Scyllacius, p. xlviii; Major, no. 7; Carter-Brown Catalogue, no. 13). There are copies in the Carter-Brown, Harvard College, and Lenox libraries.

By October, in the year of the first appearance (1493) of the Cosco-Sanchez text, it had been turned into ottava rima by Guiliano Dati, a popular poet, to be sung about the streets, as is supposed; and two editions of this verse are now known. The earliest is in quarto, black letter, two columns, and was printed in Florence, and called Questa e la Hystoria ... extracte duna Epistola Christofano Colombo. It was in four leaves, of coarse type and paper; but the second and third leaves are lacking in the unique copy, now in the British Museum, which was procured in 1858 from the Costabile sale in Paris.

The other edition, dated one day later (Oct. 26, 1493), printed also at Florence, and called La Lettera dell’isole, etc., is in Roman type, quarto, four leaves, two columns, with a woodcut title representing Ferdinand on the European, and Columbus on the New World shore of the ocean. The copy in the British Museum was bought for 1,700 francs at the Libri sale in Paris; and the only other copy known is in the Trivulgio Library at Milan.

In 1497 a German translation, or adaptation, from Cosco’s Latin was printed by Bartlomesz Küsker at Strasburg, with the title Eyn schön kübsch lesen von etlichen inszlen die do in kurtzen zyten funden synd durch dē künig von hispania, und sagt vō groszen wunderlichen dingen die in dē selbē inszlen synd. It is a black-letter quarto of seven leaves, with one blank, the woodcut of the title being repeated on the verso of the seventh leaf. There are copies in the Lenox (Libri copy) and Carter-Brown libraries; in the Grenville and Huth collections; and in the library at Munich.

The text of the Cosco-Sanchez letter, usually quoted by the early writers, is contained in the Bellum Christianorum Principum of Robertus Monarchus, printed at Basle in 1533.

B. Landfall.—It is a matter of controversy what was Guanahani, the first land seen by Columbus. The main, or rather the only, source for the decision of this question is the Journal of Columbus; and it is to be regretted that Las Casas did not leave unabridged the parts preceding the landfall, as he did those immediately following, down to October 29. Not a word outside of this Journal is helpful. The testimony of the early maps is rather misleading than reassuring, so conjectural was their geography.

It will be remembered that land was first seen two hours after midnight; and computations made for Fox show that the moon was near the third quarter, partly behind the observer, and would clearly illuminate the white sand of the shore, two leagues distant. From Columbus’s course there were in his way, as constituting the Bahama group,—taking the enumeration of to-day, and remembering that the sea may have made some changes,—36 islands, 687 cays, and 2,414 rocks. By the log, as included in the Journal, and reducing his distance sailed by dead reckoning—which then depended on observation by the eye alone, and there were also currents to misguide Columbus, running from nine to thirty miles a day, according to the force of the wind—to a course west, 2° 49′ south, Fox has shown that the discoverer had come 3,458 nautical miles. Applying this to the several islands claimed as the landfall, and knowing modern computed distances, we get the following table:—

Islands. Course. Miles. An
Excess
of

To Grand Turk
Mariguana
Watling
Cat
Samana W. 8°– 1′ S.
W. 6° 37′ S.
W. 4° 38′ S.
W. 4° 20′ S.
W. 5° 37′ S.
2834
3032
3105
3141
3072
624
426
353
317
387

Columbus speaks of the island as being “small,” and again as “pretty large” (bien grande). He calls it very level, with abundance of water, and a very large lagune in the middle; and it was in the last month of the rainy season, when the low parts of the islands are usually flooded.

Some of the features of the several islands already named will now be mentioned, together with a statement of the authorities in favor of each as the landfall.

San Salvador, or Cat.—This island is forty-three miles long by about three broad, with an area of about one hundred and sixty square miles, rising to a height of four hundred feet, the loftiest land in the group, and with no interior water. It is usual in the maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to identify this island with the Guanahani of Columbus. It is so considered by Catesby in his Natural History of Carolina (1731); by Knox in his Collection of Voyages (1767); by De la Roquette in the French version of Navarrete, vol. ii. (1828); and by Baron de Montlezun in the Nouvelles annales des voyages, vols. x. and xii. (1828-1829). Alexander Slidell Mackenzie, of the United States Navy, worked out the problem for Irving; and this island is fixed upon in the latter’s Life of Columbus, app. xvi., editions of 1828 and 1848. Becher claims that the modern charts used by Irving were imperfect; and he calls “not worthy to be called a chart” the La Cosa map, which so much influenced Humboldt in following Irving, in his Examen critique (1837), iii. 181, 186-222.

Watling’s.—This is thirteen miles long by about six broad, containing sixty square miles, with a height of one hundred and forty feet, and having about one third its area of interior water. It was first suggested by Muñoz in 1793. Captain Becher, of the Royal Navy, elaborated the arguments in favor of this island in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, xxvi. 189, and Proceedings, i. 94, and in his Landfall of Columbus on his First Voyage to America, London, 1856. Peschel took the same ground in his Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen (1858). R. H. Major’s later opinion is in support of the same views, as shown by him in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society (1871), xvi. 193, and Proceedings, xv. 210. Cf. New Quarterly Review, October, 1856.

Lieut. J. B. Murdock, U. S. N., in a paper on “The Cruise of Columbus in the Bahamas, 1492,” published in the Proceedings (April, 1884, p. 449) of the United States Naval Institute vol. x, furnishes a new translation of the passages in Columbus’ Journal bearing on the subject, and made by Professor Montaldo of the Naval Academy, and repeats the map of the modern survey of the Bahamas as given by Fox. Lieutenant Murdock follows and criticises the various theories afresh, and traces Columbus’ track backward from Cuba, till he makes the landfall to have been at Watling’s Island. He points out also various indications of the Journal which cannot be made to agree with any supposable landfall.

Grand Turk.—Its size is five and one half by one and a quarter miles, with an area of seven square miles; its highest part seventy feet; and one third of its surface is interior water. Navarrete first advanced arguments in its favor in 1825, and Kettell adopted his views in the Boston edition of the Personal Narrative of Columbus. George Gibbs argued for it in the New York Historical Society’s Proceedings (1846), p. 137, and in the Historical Magazine (June, 1858), ii. 161. Major adopted such views in the first edition (1847) of his Select Letters of Columbus.

Mariguana.—It measures twenty-three and one half miles long by an average of four wide; contains ninety-six square miles; rises one hundred and one feet, and has no interior water. F. A. de Varnhagen published at St. Jago de Chile, in 1864, a treatise advocating this island as La verdadera Guanahani, which was reissued at Vienna, in 1869, as Das wahre Guanahani des Columbus.

Samana, or Attwood’s Cay.—This is nine miles long by one and a half wide, covering eight and a half square miles, with the highest ridge of one hundred feet. It is now uninhabited; but arrow-heads and other signs of aboriginal occupation are found there. The Samana of the early maps was the group now known as Crooked Island. The present Samana has been recently selected for the landfall by Gustavus V. Fox, in the United States Coast Survey Report, 1880, app. xviii.,—“An attempt to solve the problem of the first landing-place of Columbus in the New World.” He epitomized this paper in the Magazine of American History (April, 1883), p. 240.

C. Effect of the Discovery in Europe.—During the interval between the return of Columbus from his first voyage and his again treading the soil of Spain on his return from the second, 1494, we naturally look for the effect of this astounding revelation upon the intelligence of Europe. To the Portuguese, who had rejected his pleas, there may have been some chagrin. Faria y Sousa, in his Europa Portuguesa, intimates that Columbus’ purpose in putting in at the Tagus was to deepen the regret of the Portuguese at their rejection of his views; and other of their writers affirm his overbearing manner and conscious pride of success. The interview which he had with John II. is described in the Lyuro das obras de Garcia de Resende. Of his reception by the Spanish monarchs at Barcelona, we perhaps, in the stories of the historians, discern more embellishments than Oviedo, who was present, would have thought the ceremony called for. George Sumner (in 1844) naturally thought so signal an event would find some record in the “Anals consulars” of that city, which were formed to make note of the commonest daily events; but he could find in them no indication of the advent of the discoverer of new lands. It is of far more importance for us that provision was soon made for future records in the establishment of what became finally the “Casa de la Contratacion de las Indias,” at this time put in charge of Juan de Fonseca, who controlled its affairs throughout the reign of Ferdinand. We have seen how apparently an eager public curiosity prompted more frequent impressions of Columbus’ letter in other lands than in Spain itself; but there was a bustling reporter at the Spanish Court fond of letter-writing, having correspondents in distant parts, and to him we owe it, probably, that the news spread to some notable people. This was Peter Martyr d’Anghiera. He dated at Barcelona, on the ides of May, a letter mentioning the event, which he sent to Joseph Borromeo; and he repeated the story in later epistles, written in September, to Ascanio Sforza, Tendilla, and Talavera. There is every reason to suppose that Martyr derived his information directly from Columbus himself. He was now probably about thirty-seven years old, and he had some years before acquired such a reputation for learning and eloquence that he had been invited from Italy (he was a native of the Duchy of Milan) to the Spanish Court. His letters, as they have come down to us, begin about five years before this, and it is said that just at this time (1493) he began the composition of his Decades. Las Casas has borne testimony to the value of the Decades for a knowledge of Columbus, calling them the most worthy of credit of all the early writings, since Martyr got, as he says, his accounts directly from the Admiral, with whom he often talked. Similar testimony is given to their credibleness by Carbajal, Gomez, Vergara, and other contemporaries. Beginning with Muñoz, there has been a tendency of late years to discredit Martyr, arising from the confusion and even negligence sometimes discernible in what he says. Navarrete was inclined to this derogatory estimate. Hallam goes so far as to think him open to grave suspicion of negligent and palpable imposture, antedating his letters to appear prophetic. On the other hand, Prescott contends for his veracity, and trusts his intimate familiarity with the scenes he describes. Helps interprets the disorder of his writings as a merit, because it is a reflection of his unconnected thoughts and feelings on the very day on which he recorded any transactions.

What is thought to be the earliest mention in print of the new discoveries occurs in a book published at Seville in 1493.—Los tratados del Doctor Alonso Ortiz. The reference is brief, and is on the reverse of the 43d folio. Not far from the same time the Bishop of Carthagena, Bernardin de Carvajal, then the Spanish ambassador to the Pope, delivered an oration in Rome, June 19, 1493, in which he made reference to the late discovery of unknown lands towards the Indies. These references are all scant; and, so far as we know from the records preserved to us, the great event of the age made as yet no impression on the public mind demanding any considerable recognition.

D. Second Voyage (Sept. 25, 1493, to June 11, 1496).—First among the authorities is the narrative of Dr. Chanca, the physician of the Expedition. The oldest record of it is a manuscript of the middle of the sixteenth century, in the Real Academia de la Historia at Madrid. From this Navarrete printed it for the first time, under the title of “Segundo Viage de Cristobal Colon,” in his Coleccion, i. 198.

Not so directly cognizant of events, but getting his information at second hand from Guglielmo Coma,—a noble personage in Spain,—was Nicolas Scyllacius, of Pavia, who translated Coma’s letters into Latin, and published his narrative, De insulis meridiani atque indici maris nuper inventis, dedicating it to Ludovico Sforza, at Pavia (Brunet thinks Pisa), in 1594 or 1595. Of this little quarto there are three copies known. One is in the Lenox Library; and from this copy Mr. Lenox, in 1859, reprinted it sumptuously (one hundred and two copies), with a translation by the Rev. John Mulligan. In Mr. Lenox’s Introduction it is said that his copy had originally belonged to M. Olivieri, of Parma, and then to the Marquis Rocca Saporiti, before it came into Mr. Lenox’s hands, and that the only other copy known was an inferior one in the library of the Marquis Trivulzio at Milan. This last copy is probably one of the two copies which Harrisse reports as being in the palace library at Madrid and in the Thottiana (Royal Library) at Copenhagen, respectively. Scyllacius adds a few details, current at that time, which were not in Coma’s letters, and seems to have interpreted the account of his correspondent as implying that Columbus had reached the Indies by the Portuguese route round the Cape of Good Hope. Ronchini has conjectured that this blunder may have caused the cancelling of a large part of the edition, which renders the little book so scarce; but Lenox neatly replies that “almost all the contemporaneous accounts are equally rare.”

Another second-hand account—derived, however, most probably from the Admiral himself—is that given by Peter Martyr in his first Decade, published in 1511, and more at length in 1516.

Accompanying Columbus on this voyage was Bernardus Buell, or Boil, a monk of St. Benoit, in Austria, who was sent by Pope Alexander VI as vicar-general of the new lands, to take charge of the measures for educating and converting the Indians. It will be remembered he afterward became a caballer against the Admiral. What he did there, and a little of what Columbus did, one Franciscus Honorius Philoponus sought to tell in a very curious book, Nova typis transacta navigatio novi orbis Indiæ occidentalis, which was not printed till 1621. It is dedicated to Casparus Plautius, and it is suspected that he is really the author of the book, while he assumed another name, more easily to laud himself. Harrisse describes the book as having “few details of an early date, mixed with much second-hand information of a perfectly worthless character.”

So far as we know, the only contemporary references in a printed book to the new discoveries during the progress of the second voyage, or in the interval previous to the undertaking of the third voyage, in the spring of 1498, are these: The Das Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) of Sebastian Brant, a satire on the follies of society, published at Basle in 1494, and reprinted in Latin in 1497, 1498, and in French in 1497, 1498, and 1499, has a brief mention of the land previously unknown, until Ferdinand discovered innumerable people in the great Spanish ocean. Zacharias Lilio, in his De origine et laudibus scientiarum, Florence, 1496, has two allusions. In 1497 Fedia Inghirami, keeper of the Vatican Archives, delivered a funeral oration on Prince John, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, and made a reference to the New World. The little book was probably printed in Rome. There is also a reference in the Cosmographia of Antonius Nebrissensis, printed in 1498.

E. Third Voyage (May 30, 1498, to Nov. 20, 1500).—Our knowledge of this voyage is derived at first hand from two letters of Columbus himself, both of which are printed by Navarrete, and by Major, with a translation. The first is addressed to the sovereigns, and follows a copy in Las Casas’s hand, in the Archives of the Duque del Infantado. The other is addressed to the nurse of Prince John, and follows a copy in the Muñoz Collection in the Real Academia at Madrid, collated with a copy in the Columbus Collection at Genoa, printed by Spotorno.

F. Fourth Voyage (May 9, 1502, to Nov. 7, 1504).—While at Jamaica Columbus wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella a wild, despondent letter, suggestive of alienation of mind. It brings the story of the voyage down only to July 7, 1503, leaving four months unrecorded. Pinelo says it was printed in the Spanish, as he wrote it; but no such print is known. Navarrete found in the King’s private library, at Madrid, a manuscript transcript of it, written, apparently, about the middle of the sixteenth century; and this he printed in his Coleccion. It was translated into Italian by Costanzo Bayuera, of Brescia, and published at Venice, in 1505, as Copia de la lettera per Colombo mandata. Cavaliere Morelli, the librarian of St. Mark’s, reprinted it, with comments, at Bassano, in 1810, as Lettera rarissima di Cristoforo Colombo. Navarrete prints two other accounts of this voyage,—one by Diego Porras; the other by Diego Mendez, given in his last will, preserved in the Archives of the Duke of Veraguas.

While Columbus was absent on this voyage, as already mentioned, Bergomas had recorded the Admiral’s first discoveries.

G. Lives and Notices of Columbus.—Ferdinand Columbus—if we accept as his the Italian publication of 1571—tells us that the fatiguing career of his father, and his infirmities, prevented the Admiral from writing his own life. For ten years after his death there were various references to the new discoveries, but not a single attempt to commemorate, by even a brief sketch, the life of the discoverer. Such were the mentions in the Commentariorum urbanorum libri of Maffei, published in 1506, and again in 1511; in Walter Ludd’s Speculi orbis, etc.; in F. Petrarca’s Chronica; and in the Oratio of Marco Dandolo (Naples),—all in 1507. In the same year the narrative in the Paesi novamente retrovati (1507) established an account which was repeated in later editions, and was followed in the Novus orbis of 1532. The next year (1508) we find a reference in the Oratio of Fernando Tellez at Rome; in the Supplementi de le chroniche vulgare, novamente dal frate Jacobo Phillipo al anno 1503 vulgarizz. per Francesco C. Fiorentino (Venice); in Johannes Stamler’s Dyalogus; in the Ptolemy published at Rome with Ruysch’s map; and in the Collectanea of Baptista Fulgosus, published at Milan.

In 1509 there is reference to the discoveries in the Opera nova of the General of the Carmelites, Battista Mantuanus. Somewhere, from 1510 to 1519, the New Interlude presented Vespucius to the English public, rather than Columbus, as the discoverer of America, as had already been done by Waldseemüller at St. Dié.

In 1511 Peter Martyr, in his first Decade, and Sylvanus, in his annotations of Ptolemy, drew attention to the New World; as did also Johannes Sobrarius in his Panegyricum carmen de gestis heroicis divi Ferdinandi Catholici. The Stobnicza (Cracow) Appendix to Ptolemy presented a new map of the Indies in 1512; and the Chronicon of Eusebius, of the same date, recorded the appearance of some of the wild men of the West in Rouen, brought over by a Dieppe vessel. Some copies, at least, of Antonio de Lebrija’s edition of Prudentii opera, printed at Lucca, 1512, afford another instance of an early mention of the New World. Again, in 1513, a new edition of Ptolemy gave the world what is thought to have been a map by Columbus himself; and in the same year there was a Supplementum supplementi of Jacobo Philippo, of Bergomas. In 1514 the De natura locorum (Vienna), of Albertus Magnus, points again to Vespucius instead of Columbus; but Cataneo, in a poem on Genoa, does not forget her son, Columbus.

These, as books have preserved them for us, are about all the contemporary references to the life of the great discoverer for the first ten years after his death. In 1516, where we might least expect it, we find the earliest small gathering of the facts of his life. In the year of Columbus’ death, Agostino Giustiniani had begun the compilation of a polyglot psalter, which was in this year (1516) ready for publication, and, with a dedication to Leo X., appeared in Genoa. The editor annotated the text, and, in a marginal note to verse four of the nineteenth Psalm, we find the earliest sketch of Columbus’ life. Stevens says of the note: “There are in it several points which we do not find elsewhere recorded, especially respecting the second voyage, and the survey of the south side of Cuba, as far as Evangelista, in May, 1494. Almost all other accounts of the second voyage, except that of Bernaldez, end before this Cuba excursion began.”

Giustiniani, who was born in 1470, died in 1536, and his Annali di Genoa was shortly afterward published (1537), in which, on folio ccxlix, he gave another account of Columbus, which, being published by his executors with his revision, repeated some errors or opinions of the earlier Psalter account. These were not pleasing to Ferdinand Columbus, the son of the Admiral,—particularly the statement that Columbus was born of low parentage,—“vilibus ortus parentibus.” Stevens points out how Ferdinand accuses Giustiniani of telling fourteen lies about the discoverer; “but on hunting them out, they all appear to be of trifling consequence, amounting to little more than that Columbus sprang from humble parents, and that he and his father were poor, earning a livelihood by honest toil.”

To correct what, either from pride or from other reasons, he considered the falsities of the Psalter, Ferdinand was now prompted to compose a Life of his father,—or at least such was, until recently, the universal opinion of his authorship of the book. As to Ferdinand’s own relations to that father there is some doubt, or pretence of doubt, particularly on the part of those who have found the general belief in, and pretty conclusive evidence concerning, the illegitimacy of Ferdinand an obstacle in establishing the highly moral character which a saint, like Columbus, should have.

Ferdinand Columbus, or Fernando Colon, was born three or four years before his father sailed on his first voyage. His father’s favor at Court opened the way, and in attendance upon Prince Juan and Queen Isabella he gained a good education. When Columbus went on his fourth voyage, in 1502, the boy, then thirteen years of age, accompanied his father. It is said that he made two other voyages to the New World; but Harrisse could only find proof of one. His later years were passed as a courtier, in attendance upon Charles V. on his travels, and in literary pursuits, by which he acquired a name for learning. He had the papers of his father, and he is best known by the Life of Columbus which passes under his name. If it was written in Spanish, it is not known in its original form, and has not been traced since Luis Colon, the Duque de Veraguas, son of Diego, took the manuscript to Genoa about 1568. There is some uncertainty about its later history; but it appeared in 1571 at Venice in an Italian version made by Alfonzo de Ulloa, and was entitled Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; nelle quali s’ ha particolare & vera relatione della vita, & de’ fatti dell’Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, suo padre. It is thought that this translation was made from an inaccurate copy of the manuscript, and moreover badly made. It begins the story of the Admiral’s life with his fifty-sixth year, or thereabout; and it has been surmised that an account of his earlier years—if, indeed, the original draft contained it—was omitted, so as not to obscure, by poverty and humble station, the beginnings of a luminous career. Ferdinand died at Seville, July 12, 1539, and bequeathed, conditionally, his library to the Cathedral. The collection then contained about twenty thousand volumes, in print and manuscript; and it is still preserved there, though, according to Harrisse, much neglected since 1709, and reduced to about four thousand volumes. It is known as the Biblioteca Colombina. Spotorno says that this Luis Colon, a person of debauched character, brought this manuscript in the Spanish language to Genoa, and left it in the hands of Baliano de Fornari, from whom it passed to another patrician, Giovanni Baptista Marini, who procured Ulloa to make the Italian version in which it was first published.

Somewhat of a controversial interest has been created of late years by the critiques of Henry Harrisse on Ferdinand Columbus and his Life of his father, questioning the usually accepted statements in Spotorno’s introduction of the Codice of 1823. Harrisse undertakes to show that the manuscript was never in Don Luis’ hands, and that Ferdinand could not have written it. He counts it as strange that if such a manuscript existed in Spain not a single writer in print previous to 1571 refers to it. “About ten years ago,” says Henry Stevens, “a society of Andalusian bibliographers was formed at Seville. Their first publication was a fierce Hispano-French attack on the authenticity of the Life of Columbus by his second son, Ferdinand, written by Henri Harrisse in French, and translated by one of the Seville bibliófilos, and adopted and published by the Society. The book [by Columbus’ son] is boldly pronounced a forgery and a fraud on Ferdinand Columbus. Some fifteen reasons are given in proof of these charges, all of which, after abundant research and study, are pronounced frivolous, false, and groundless.” Such is Mr. Stevens’s view, colored or not by the antipathy which on more than one occasion has been shown to be reciprocal in the references of Stevens and Harrisse, one to the other, in sundry publications. The views of Harrisse were also expressed in the supplemental volume of his Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, published as Additions in 1872. In this he says, regarding the Life of Columbus: “It was not originally written by the son of the bold navigator; and many of the circumstances it relates have to be challenged, and weighed with the utmost care and impartiality.”

The authenticity of the book was ably sustained by D’Avezac before the French Academy in a paper which was printed in 1873 as Le livre de Ferdinand Colomb: Revue critique des allégations proposées contre son authenticité. Harrisse replied in 1875 in a pamphlet of fifty-eight pages, entitled L’histoire de C. Colomb attribuée à son fils Fernand: Examen critique du mémoire lu par M. d’Avezac à l’Académie, 8, 13, 22 Août, 1873. There were other disputants on the question.

The catalogue of the Colombina Library as made by Ferdinand shows that it contained originally a manuscript Life of the Admiral written about 1525 by Ferdinand Perez de Oliva, who presumably had the aid of Ferdinand Columbus himself; but no trace of this Life now exists, unless, as Harrisse ventures to conjecture, it may have been in some sort the basis of what now passes for the work of Ferdinand.

For a long time after the Historie of 1571 there was no considerable account of Columbus printed. Editions of Ptolemy, Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Grynæus, and other general books, made reference to his discoveries; but the next earliest distinct sketch appears to be that in the Elogia virorum illustrium of Jovius, printed in 1551 at Florence, and the Italian version made by Domenichi, printed in 1554. Ramusio’s third volume, in 1556, gave the story greater currency than before; but such a book as Cunningham’s Cosmographical Glasse, in its chapter on America, utterly ignores Columbus in 1559. We get what may probably be called the hearsay reports of Columbus’ exploits in the Mondo nuovo of Benzoni, first printed at Venice in 1565. There was a brief memorial in the Clarorum Ligurum elogia of Ubertus Folieta, published at Rome in 1573. In 1581 his voyages were commemorated in an historical poem, Laurentii Gambaræ Brixiani de navigatione Christophori Columbi, published at Rome. Boissard, of the De Bry coterie at Frankfort in 1597, included Columbus in his Icones virorum illustrium; and Buonfiglio Costanzo, in 1604, commemorated him in the Historia Siciliana, published at Venice.

Meanwhile the story of Columbus’ voyages was told at last with all the authority of official sanction in the Historia general of Herrera. This historian, or rather annalist, was born in 1549, and died in 1625; and the appointment of historiographer given him by Philip II. was continued by the third and fourth monarchs of that name. There has been little disagreement as to his helpfulness to his successors. All critics place him easily first among the earlier writers; and Muñoz, Robertson, Irving, Prescott, Ticknor, and many others have united in praise of his research, candor, and justness, while they found his literary skill compromised in a measure by his chronological method. Irving found that Herrera depended so much on Las Casas that it was best in many cases to go to that earlier writer in preference; and Muñoz thinks only Herrera’s judicial quality preserved for him a distinct character throughout the agglutinizing process by which he constructed his book. His latest critic, Hubert H. Bancroft, calls his style “bald and accurately prolix, his method slavishly chronological,” with evidence everywhere in his book of “inexperience and incompetent assistance,” resulting in “notes badly extracted, discrepancies, and inconsistencies.” The bibliography of Herrera is well done in Sabin.

Herrera had already published (1591) a monograph on the history of Portugal and the conquest (1582-1583) of the Azores, when he produced at Madrid his great work, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos, in eight decades, four of which, in two volumes, were published in 1601, and the others in 1615. It has fourteen maps; and there should be bound with it, though often found separate, a ninth part, called Description de las Indias occidentales. Of the composite work, embracing the nine parts, the best edition is usually held to be one edited by Gonzales Barcia, and supplied by him with an index, which was printed in Madrid during 1727, 1728, 1729, and 1730, so that copies are found with all those dates, though it is commonly cited as of 1730.

The principal chronicles of Spanish affairs in the seventeenth century contributed more or less to Columbus’ fame; and he is commemorated in the Dutch compilation of Van den Bos, Leven en Daden der Zeehelden, published at Amsterdam in 1676, and in a German translation in 1681.

There were a hundred years yet to pass before Robertson’s History of America gave Columbus a prominence in the work of a historian of established fame; but this Scotch historian was forced to write without any knowledge of Columbus’ own narratives.

In 1781 the earliest of the special Italian commemorations appeared at Parma, in J. Durazzo’s Elogi storici on Columbus and Doria. Chevalier de Langeac in 1782 added to his poem, Colomb dans les fers à Ferdinand et Isabelle, a memoir of Columbus.

The earliest commemoration in the United States was in 1792, on the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery, celebrated by the Massachusetts Historical Society, when Dr. Jeremy Belknap delivered an historical discourse, included later with large additions in his well-known American Biography. The unfinished history of Muñoz harbingered, in 1793, the revival in Europe of the study of his career. Finally, the series of modern Lives of Columbus began in 1818 with the publication at Milan of Luigi Bossi’s Vita di Cristoforo Colombo, scritta e corredata di nuove osservazioni. In 1823 the introduction by Spotorno to the Codice, and in 1825 the Coleccion of Navarrete, brought much new material to light; and the first to make use of it were Irving, in his Life of Columbus, 1828, and Humboldt, in his Examen critique de l’histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent, published originally, in 1834, in a single volume; and again in five volumes, between 1836 and 1839. “No one,” says Ticknor, “has comprehended the character of Columbus as Humboldt has,—its generosity, its enthusiasm, its far-reaching visions, which seemed watchful beforehand for the great scientific discovery of the sixteenth century.” Prescott was warned by the popularity of Irving’s narrative not to attempt to rival him; and his treatment of Columbus’ career was confined to such a survey as would merely complete the picture of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

In 1844 there came the first intimation of a new style of biography,—a protest against Columbus’ story being longer told by his natural enemies, as all who failed to recognize his pre-eminently saintly character were considered to be. There was a purpose in it to make the most possible of all his pious ejaculations, and of his intention, expressed in his letter to the Pope in 1502, to rescue the Holy City from the infidel, with his prospective army of ten thousand horse and a hundred thousand foot. The chief spokesman of this purpose has been Roselly de Lorgues. He first shadowed forth his purpose in his La croix dans les deux mondes in 1844. It was not till 1864 that he produced the full flower of his spirit in his Christophe Colomb, Histoire de sa vie et de ses voyages d’après des documents authentiques tirés d’Espagne et d’Italie. This was followed, in 1874, by his L’ambassadeur de Dieu et le Pape Pie IX. All this, however, and much else by the abetters of the scheme of the canonization of Columbus which was urged on the Church, failed of its purpose; and the movement was suspended, for a while at least, because of an ultimate adverse determination.

Of the other later lives of Columbus it remains to mention only the most considerable, or those of significant tendency.

The late Sir Arthur Helps wrote his Spanish Conquest of America with the aim of developing the results—political, ethnological, and economic—of the conquest, rather than the day-by-day progress of events, and with a primary regard to the rise of slavery. His Life of Columbus is simply certain chapters of this larger work excerpted and fitted in order. Mr. Aaron Goodrich, in A History of the so-called Christopher Columbus, New York, 1874, makes a labored and somewhat inconsiderate effort, characterized by a certain peevish air, to prove Columbus the mere borrower of others’ glories.

In French, mention may be made of the Baron de Bonnefoux’s Vie de Christophe Colomb, Paris, 1853, and the Marquis de Belloy’s Christophe Colomb et la découverte du Nouveau Monde, Paris, 1864.

In German, under the impulse given by Humboldt, some fruitful labors have been given to Columbus and the early history of American discovery; but it is only necessary to mention the names of Forster, Peschel, and Ruge.

H. Portraits of Columbus.—Of Columbus there is no likeness whose claim to consideration is indisputable. We have descriptions of his person from two who knew him,—Oviedo and his own son Ferdinand; we have other accounts from two who certainly knew his contemporaries,—Gomara and Benzoni; and in addition we possess the description given by Herrera, who had the best sources of information. From these we learn that his face was long, neither full nor thin; his cheek-bones rather high; his nose aquiline; his eyes light gray; his complexion fair, and high colored. His hair, which was of light color before thirty, became gray after that age. In the Paesi novamente retrovati of 1507 he is described as having a ruddy, elongated visage, and as possessing a lofty and noble stature.

These are the test with which to challenge the very numerous so-called likenesses of Columbus; and it must be confessed not a single one, when you take into consideration the accessories and costume, warrants us in believing beyond dispute that we can bring before us the figure of the discoverer as he lived. Such is the opinion of Feuillet de Conches, who has produced the best critical essay on the subject yet written.

A vignette on the map of La Cosa, dated 1500, represents Saint Christopher bearing on his shoulders the infant Christ across a stream. This has been considered symbolical of the purpose of Columbus in his discoveries; and upholders of the movement to procure his canonization, like De Lorgues, have claimed that La Cosa represented the features of Columbus in the face of Saint Christopher. It has also been claimed that Herrera must have been of the same opinion, since the likeness given by that historian can be imagined to be an enlargement of the head on the map. This theory is hardly accepted, however, by the critics.

Discarding the La Cosa vignette, the earliest claimant now known is an engraving published in the Elogia virorum illustrium (1575) of Paolo Giovio (Paulus Jovius, in the Latin form). This woodcut is thought to have been copied from a picture which Jovius had placed in the gallery of notable people which he had formed in his villa at Lake Como. That collection is now scattered, and the Columbus picture cannot be traced; but that there was a portrait of the discoverer there, we know from the edition of Vasari’s Lives of the Painters printed by Giunti at Florence (1568), wherein is a list of the pictures, which includes likenesses of Vespucius, Cortes, and Magellan, besides that of “Colombo Genovese.” This indicates a single picture; but it is held by some that Jovius must have possessed two pictures, since this woodcut gives Columbus the garb of a Franciscan, while the painting in the gallery at Florence, supposed also to follow a picture belonging to Jovius, gives him a mantle. A claim has been made that the original Jovius portrait is still in existence in what is known as the Yanez picture, now in the National Library in Madrid, which was purchased of Yanez in Granada in 1763. It had originally a close-fitting tunic and mantle, which was later painted over so as to show a robe and fur collar. This external painting has been removed; and the likeness bears a certain resemblance to the woodcut and to the Florence likeness. The Yanez canvas is certainly the oldest in Spain; and the present Duque de Veraguas considers it the most authentic of all the portraits. The annexed cut of it is taken from an engraving in Ruge’s Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen (p. 235). It bears the inscription shown in the cut.

The woodcut (1575) already mentioned passes as the prototype of another engraving by Aliprando Capriolo, in the Ritratti di cento capitani illustri, published at Rome in 1596.

The most interesting of all pictures bearing a supposed relation to the scattered collection at Lake Como is in the gallery at Florence, which is sometimes said to have been painted by Cristofano dell’Altissimo, and before the year 1568. A copy of it was made for Thomas Jefferson in 1784, which was at Monticello in 1814; and, having been sent to Boston to be disposed of, became the property of Israel Thorndike, and was by him given to the Massachusetts Historical Society, in whose gallery it now is; and from a photograph of it the cut (p. 74) has been engraved. It is perhaps the most commonly accepted likeness in these later years.

After the woodcut of 1575, the next oldest engraved likeness of Columbus is the one usually called the De Bry portrait. It shows a head with a three-cornered cap, and possesses a Dutch physiognomy,—its short, broad face not corresponding with the descriptions which we find in Oviedo and the others. De Bry says that the original painting was stolen from a saloon in the Council for the Indies in Spain, and, being taken to the Netherlands, fell into his hands. He claims that it was painted from life by order of Ferdinand, the King. De Bry first used the plate in Part V. of his Grands Voyages, both in the Latin and German editions, published in 1595, where it is marked as engraved by Jean de Bry. It shows what seem to be two warts on the cheek, which do not appear in later prints. Feuillet de Conches describes a painting in the Versailles gallery like the De Bry, which has been engraved by Mercuri; but it does not appear that it is claimed as the original from which De Bry worked.

Jomard, in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie (3d series), iii. 370, printed his “Monument à Christophe Colomb: son portrait,” in explanation and advocacy of a Titianesque canvas which he had found at Vicenza, inscribed “Christophorus Columbus.”

He claimed that the features corresponded to the written descriptions of Columbus by his contemporaries and accounted for the Flemish ruff, pointed beard, gold chain, and other anachronous accessories, by supposing that these had been added by a later hand. These adornments, however, prevented Jomard’s views gaining any countenance, though he seems to have been confident in his opinion. Irving at the time records his scepticism when Jomard sent him a lithograph of it. Carderera and Feuillet de Conches both reject it.

A similar out-of-date ruff and mustache characterize the likeness at Madrid associated with the Duke of Berwick-Alba, in which the finery of a throne makes part of the picture. The owner had a private plate engraved from it by Rafael Esteve, a copy of which, given by the engraver to Obadiah Rich, who seems to have had faith in it, is now in the Lenox Library.

A picture belonging to the Duke of Veraguas is open to similar objections,—with its beard and armor and ruff; but Muñoz adopted it for his official history, the plate being drawn by Mariano Maella.

A picture of a bedizened cavalier, ascribed to Parmigiano (who was three years old when Columbus died), is preserved in the Museo Borbonico at Naples, and is, unfortunately, associated in this country with Columbus, from having been adopted by Prescott for his Ferdinand and Isabella, and from having been copied for the American Antiquarian Society. It was long since rejected by all competent critics.

A picture in the Senate chamber (or lately there) at Albany was given to the State of New York in 1784 by Mrs. Maria Farmer, a granddaughter of Governor Jacob Leisler, and was said to have been for many years in that lady’s family. There are many other scattered alleged likenesses of Columbus, which from the data at hand it has not been easy to link with any of those already mentioned.

The best known, probably, of the sculptured effigies of Columbus is the bust of Peschiera, which was placed in 1821 at Genoa on the receptacle of the Columbus manuscripts. The artist discarded all painted portraits of Columbus, and followed the descriptions of those who had known the discoverer.

The most imposing of all the memorials is the monument at Genoa erected in 1862 after a design by Freccia, and finished by Michel Canzio.

I. Burial and Remains of Columbus.—There is no mention of the death of Columbus in the Records of Valladolid. Peter Martyr, then writing his letters from that place, makes no reference to such an event. It is said that the earliest contemporary notice of his death is in an official document, twenty-seven days later, where it is affirmed that “the said Admiral is dead.” The story which Irving has written of the successive burials of Columbus needs to be rewritten; and positive evidence is wanting to show that his remains were placed first, as is alleged, in a vault of the Franciscans at Valladolid. The further story, as told by Irving, of Ferdinand’s ordering the removal of his remains to Seville seven years later, and the erection of a monument, is not confirmed by any known evidence. From the tenor of Diego’s will in March, 1509, it would seem that the body of Columbus had already been carried to Seville, and that later, the coffins of his son Diego and of his brother Bartholomew were laid in Seville beside him, in the cuevas, or vaults of the Carthusians. Meanwhile the Cathedral in Santo Domingo was begun,—not to be completed till 1540; and in this island it had been the Admiral’s wish to be buried.

His family were desirous of carrying out that wish; but it seemed to require three royal orders to make good the project, and overcome objections or delays. These orders were dated June 2, 1537, Aug. 22, 1539, and Nov. 5, 1540. It has been conjectured from the language of Ferdinand Columbus’ will, in 1539, that the remains were still in the cuevas; and it is supposed that they were carried to Santo Domingo in 1541,—though, if so, there is no record of their resting-place from 1536,—when they are said, in the Convent’s Records, to have been delivered up for transportation. The earliest positive mention of their being in the Cathedral at Santo Domingo is in 1549; and it is not till the next century that we find a positive statement that the remains of Diego were also removed. Not till 1655 does any record say that the precise spot in the Cathedral containing the remains was known, and not till 1676 do we learn what that precise spot was,—“on the right of the altar.” In 1683 we first learn of “a leaden case in the sanctuary, at the side of the platform of the high altar, with the remains of his brother Don Luis on the other side, according to the tradition of the aged in this island.” The book from which this is extracted was published in Madrid, and erred in calling Luis a brother instead of grandson, whose father, Diego, lying beside the Admiral, seems at the time to have been forgotten.

Just a century later, in 1783, Moreau de Saint-Méry, prefacing his Description topographique of Santo Domingo, sought more explicit information, and learned that, shortly before his inquiry, the floor of the chancel had been raised so as to conceal the top of the vault, which was “a case of stone” (containing the leaden coffin), on the “Gospel side of the sanctuary.” This case had been discovered during the repairs, and, though “without inscription, was known from uninterrupted and invariable tradition to contain the remains of Columbus;” and the Dean of the Chapter, in certifying to this effect, speaks of the “leaden urn as a little damaged, and containing several human bones;” while he had also, some years earlier, found on “the Epistle side” of the altar a similar stone case, which, according to tradition, contained the bones of the Admiral’s brother.

A few years later the treaty of Basle, July 22, 1795, gave to France the half of Santo Domingo still remaining to Spain; and at the cost of the Duke of Veraguas, and with the concurrence of the Chapter of the Cathedral, the Spanish General, Gabriel de Aristazabal, somewhat hurriedly opened a vault on the left of the altar, and, with due ceremony and notarial record, took from it fragments of a leaden case and some human bones, which were unattested by any inscription found with them. The relics were placed in a gilt leaden case, and borne with military honors to Havana. It is now claimed that these remains were of Diego, the son, and that the vault then opened is still empty in the Cathedral, while the genuine remains of Columbus were left undisturbed.

In 1877, in making some changes about the chancel, on the right of the altar, the workmen opened a vault, and found a leaden case containing human bones, with an inscription showing them to be those of Luis, the grandson. This led to a search on the opposite, or “Gospel, side” of the chancel, where they found an empty vault, supposed to be the one from which the remains were taken to Havana. Between this and the side wall of the building, and separated from the empty vault by a six-inch wall, was found another cavity, and in it a leaden case. There seem to have been suitable precautions taken to avoid occasion for imputations of deceit, and with witnesses the case was examined. In it were found some bones and dust, a leaden bullet, two iron screws, which fitted the holes in a small silver plate found beneath the mould in the bottom of the case. This casket bore on the outside, on the front, and two ends—one letter on each surface—the letters C. C. A. On the top was an inscription here reduced:—

This inscription is supposed to mean “Discoverer of America, first Admiral.” Opening the case, which in this situation presented the appearance shown in the cut on page 80, the under surface of the lid was found to bear the following legend:—

This legend is translated, “Illustrious and renowned man, Christopher Columbus.” A fac-simile of the inscription found on the small silver plate is given on page 82, the larger of which is understood to mean “A part of the remains of the first Admiral, Don Christopher Columbus, discoverer.” The discovery was made known by the Bishop, Roque Cocchia, in a pastoral letter, and the news spread rapidly. The Spanish King named Señor Antonio Lopez Prieto, of Havana, to go to Santo Domingo, and, with the Spanish consul, to investigate. Prieto had already printed a tract, which went through two editions, Los restos de Colon: exámen histórico-critico, Havana, 1877.

In March, 1878, he addressed his Official Report to the Captain-general of Cuba, which was printed in two editions during the same year, as Informe sobre los restos de Colon. It was an attack upon the authenticity of the remains at Santo Domingo. Later in the same year, Oct. 14, 1878, Señor Manuel Colmeiro presented, in behalf of the Royal Academy of History of Madrid, a report to the King, which was printed at Madrid in 1879 as Los restos de Colon: informe de la Real Academia de la Historia, etc. It reinforced the views of Prieto’s Report; charged Roque Cocchia with abetting a fraud; pointed to the A (America) of the outside inscription as a name for the New World which Spaniards at that time never used; and claimed that the remains discovered in 1877 were those of Christopher Columbus, the grandson of the Admiral, and that the inscriptions had been tampered with, or were at least much later than the date of reinterment in the Cathedral. Besides Bishop Roque Cocchia, the principal upholder of the Santo Domingo theory has been Emiliano Tejera, who published his Los restos de Colon en Santo Domingo in 1878, and his Los dos restos de Cristóbal Colon in 1879, both in Santo Domingo. Henry Harrisse, under the auspices of the “Sociedad de Bibliófilos Andaluces,” printed his Los restos de Don Cristóval Colon at Seville in 1878, and his Les sépultures de Christophe Colomb: revue critique du premier rapport officiel publié sur ce sujet, the next year (1879) at Paris. From Italy we have Luigi Tommaso Belgrano’s Sulla recente scoperta delle ossa di Colombo (Genoa, 1878). One of the best and most recent summaries of the subject is by John G. Shea in the Magazine of American History, January, 1883; also printed separately, and translated into Spanish. Richard Cortambert (Nouvelle histoire des voyages, p. 39) considers the Santo Domingo theory overcome by the evidence.

J. Date and Place of Birth of Columbus, and Accounts of his Family.—The year and place of Columbus’ birth, and the station into which he was born, are questions of dispute. Harrisse epitomizes the authorities upon the year of his nativity. Oscar Peschel reviews the opposing arguments in a paper printed in Ausland in 1866. The whole subject was examined at greater length and with great care by D’Avezac before the Geographical Society of Paris in 1872. The question is one of deductions from statements not very definite, nor wholly in accord. The extremes of the limits in dispute are about twenty years; but within this interval, assertions like those of Ramusio (1430) and Charlevoix (1441) may be thrown out as susceptible of no argument.

In favor of the earliest date—which, with variations arising from the estimates upon fractions of years, may be placed either in 1435, 1436, or 1437—are Navarrete, Humboldt, Ferdinand Höfer, Émile Deschanel, Lamartine, Irving, Bonnefoux, Roselly de Lorgues, l’Abbé Cadoret, Jurien de la Gravière, Napione, Cancellieri, and Cantù. This view is founded upon the statement of one who had known Columbus, Andres Bernaldez, in his Reyes católicos, that Columbus was about seventy years old at his death, in 1506.

The other extreme—similarly varied from the fractions between 1455 and 1456—is taken by Oscar Peschel, who deduces it from a letter of Columbus dated July 7, 1503, in which he says that he was twenty-eight when he entered the service of Spain in 1484; and Peschel argues that this is corroborated by adding the fourteen years of his boyhood, before going to sea, to the twenty-three years of sea-life which Columbus says he had had previous to his voyage of discovery, and dating back from 1492, when he made this voyage.

A middle date—placed, according to fractional calculations, variously from 1445 to 1447—is held by Cladera, Bossi, Muñoz, Casoni, Salinerio, Robertson, Spotorno, Major, Sanguinetti, and Canale. The argument for this view, as presented by Major, is this: It was in 1484, and not in 1492, that this continuous sea-service, referred to by Columbus, ended; accordingly, the thirty-seven years already mentioned should be deducted from 1484, which would point to 1447 as the year of his birth,—a statement confirmed also, as is thought, by the assertion which Columbus makes, in 1501, that it was forty years since he began, at fourteen, his sea-life. Similar reasons avail with D’Avezac, whose calculations, however, point rather to the year 1446.

A similar uncertainty has been made to appear regarding the place of Columbus’ birth. Outside of Genoa and dependencies, while discarding such claims as those of England, Corsica, and Milan, there are more defensible presentations in behalf of Placentia (Piacenza), where there was an ancestral estate of the Admiral, whose rental had been enjoyed by him and by his father; and still more urgent demands for recognition on the part of Cuccaro in Montferrat, Piedmont, the lord of whose castle was a Dominico Colombo,—pretty well proved, however, not to have been the Dominico who was father of the Admiral. It seems certain that the paternal Dominico did own land in Cuccaro, near his kinspeople, and lived there as late as 1443.

In consequence of these claims, the Academy of Sciences in Genoa named a commission, in 1812, to investigate them; and their report, favoring the traditional belief in Genoa as the true spot of Columbus’ birth, is given in digest in Bossi. The claim of Genoa seems to be generally accepted to-day, as it was in the Admiral’s time by Peter Martyr, Las Casas, Bernaldez, Giustiniani, Geraldini, Gallo, Senaraya, and Foglietto. Columbus himself twice, in his will (1498), says he was born in Genoa; and in the codicil (1506) he refers to his “beloved country, the Republic of Genoa.” Ferdinand calls his father “a Genoese.” Of modern writers Spotorno, in the Introduction to the Codice diplomatico Colombo-Americano (1823), and earlier, in his Della origine e della patria di Colombo (1819), has elaborated the claim, with proofs and arguments which have been accepted by Irving, Bossi, Sanguinetti, Roselly, De Lorgues, and most other biographers and writers.

There still remains the possibility of Genoa, as referred to by Columbus and his contemporaries, signifying the region dependent on it, rather than the town itself; and with this latitude recognized, there are fourteen towns, or hamlets as Harrisse names them, which present their claims.

Ferdinand Columbus resented Giustiniani’s statement that the Admiral was of humble origin, and sought to connect his father’s descent with the Colombos of an ancient line and fame; but his disdainful recognition of such a descent is, after all, not conducive to a belief in Ferdinand’s own conviction of the connection.

There seems little doubt that his father was a wool-weaver or draper, and owned small landed properties, at one time or another, in or not far from Genoa; and, as Harrisse infers, it was in one of the houses on the Bisagno road, as you go from Genoa, that Columbus was perhaps born.

The pedigree (p. 87) shows the alleged descent of Columbus, as a table in Spotorno’s Della origine e della patria di Colombo, 1819, connects it with other lines, whose heirs at a later day were aroused to claim the Admiral’s honors; and as the usual accounts of his immediate descendants record the transmission of his rights. After Columbus’ death, his son Diego demanded the restitution of the offices and privileges which had been suspended during the Admiral’s later years.

He got no satisfaction but the privilege of contending at law with the fiscal minister of the Crown, and of giving occasion for all the latent slander about the Admiral to make itself heard. The tribunal was the Council of the Indies; the suit was begun in 1508, and lasted till 1527. The documents connected with the case are in the Archives of the Indies. The chief defence of the Crown was that the original convention was against law and public policy, and that Columbus, after all, did not discover Terra firma, and for such discovery alone honors of this kind should be the reward. Diego won the Council’s vote; but Ferdinand, the King, hesitated to confirm their decision. Meanwhile Diego had married a niece of the Duke of Alva, the King’s favorite, and got in this way a royal grant of something like vice-royal authority in the Indies, to which he went (1509) with his bride, prepared for the proper state and display. His uncles, Bartholomew and Diego, as well as Ferdinand Columbus, accompanied him. The King soon began to encroach on Diego’s domain, creating new provinces out of it. It does not belong to this place to trace the vexatious factions which, through Fonseca’s urging, or otherwise created, Diego was forced to endure, till he returned to Spain, in 1515, to answer his accusers. When he asked of the King a share of the profits of the Darien coast, his royal master endeavored to show that Diego’s father had never been on that coast. After Ferdinand’s death (Jan. 23, 1516), his successor, Charles V., acknowledged the injustice of the charges against Diego, and made some amends by giving him a viceroy’s functions in all places discovered by his father. He was subjected, however, to the surveillance of a supervisor to report on his conduct, upon going to his government in 1520. In three years he was again recalled for examination, and in 1526 he died. Don Luis, who succeeded to his father Diego, after some years exchanged, in 1556, his rights of vice-royalty in the Indies for ten thousand gold doubloons and the title of Duque de Veraguas (with subordinate titles), and a grandeeship of the first rank; the latter, however, was not confirmed till 1712.

His nephew Diego succeeded to the rights, silencing those of the daughter of Don Luis by marrying her. They had no issue; and on his death, in 1578, various claimants brought suit for the succession (as shown in the table), which was finally given, in 1608, to the grandson of Isabella, the granddaughter of Columbus. This suit led to the accumulation of a large amount of documentary evidence, which was printed. The vexations did not end here, the Duke of Berwick still contesting; but a decision in 1790 confirmed the title in the present line. The revolt of the Spanish colonies threatened to deprive the Duke of Veraguas of his income; but the Spanish Government made it good by charging it upon the revenues of Cuba and Porto Rico, the source of the present Duke’s support.