The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II)

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Various circumstances in the life of Columbus will be found to corroborate
the statement of the curate; such, for example, as the increasing
infirmities with which he struggled during his voyages, and which at last
rendered him a cripple and confined him to his bed. The allusion to his
advanced age in one of his letters to the sovereigns, wherein he relates
the consolation he had received from a secret voice in the night season:
_Tu vejez no impedira a toda cosa grande. Abraham pasaba cien anos
cuando engendro a Isaac, &c_. (Thy old age shall be no impediment to
any great undertaking. Abraham was above a hundred years old, when he
begat Isaac, &c.) The permission granted him by the king the year previous
to his death to travel on a mule, instead of a horse, on account of his
_age_ and infirmities; and the assertion of Oviedo that at the time
of his death he was quite old. (_era ya viejo._)

This fact of the advanced age of Columbus throws quite a new coloring over
his character and history. How much more extraordinary is the ardent
enthusiasm which sustained him through his long career of solicitation,
and the noble pride with which he refused to descend from his dignified
demands, and to bargain about his proposition, though life was rapidly
wasting in delays. How much more extraordinary is the hardihood with which
he undertook repeated voyages into unknown seas, amidst all kinds of
perils and hardships; the fortitude with which he bore up against an
accumulation of mental and bodily afflictions, enough to have disheartened
and destroyed the most youthful and robust, and the irrepressible buoyancy
of spirit with which to the last he still rose from under the ruined
concerns and disappointed hopes and blasted projects of one enterprise, to
launch into another, still more difficult and perilous.

We have been accustomed to admire all these things in Columbus when we
considered him in the full vigor of his life; how much more are they
entitled to our wonder as the achievements of a man whom the weight of
years and infirmities was pressing into the grave.

No. V.

Lineage of Columbus.

The ancestry of Christopher Columbus has formed a point of zealous
controversy, which is not yet satisfactorily settled. Several honorable
families, possessing domains in Placentia, Montferrat, and the different
parts of the Genoese territories, claim him as belonging to their houses;
and to these has recently been added the noble family of Colombo in
Modena. [Spotorno, Hist. Mem., p. 5.] The natural desire to prove
consanguinity with a man of distinguished renown has excited this rivalry;
but it has been heightened, in particular instances, by the hope of
succeeding to titles and situations of wealth and honor, when his male
line of descendants became extinct. The investigation is involved in
particular obscurity, as even his immediate relatives appear to have been
in ignorance on the subject.

Fernando Columbus, in his biography of the admiral, after a pompous
prelude, in which he attempts to throw a vague and cloudy magnificence
about the origin of his father, notices slightly the attempts of some to
obscure his fame, by making him a native of various small and
insignificant villages; and dwells with more complacency upon others who
make him a native of places in which there were persons of much honor of
the name, and many sepulchral monuments with arms and epitaphs of the
Colombos. He relates his having himself gone to the castle of Cucureo, to
visit two brothers of the family of Colombo, who were rich and noble, the
youngest of whom was above one hundred years of age, and who he had heard
were relatives of his father; but they could give him no information upon
the subject; whereupon he breaks forth into his professed contempt for
these adventitious claims, declaring, that he thinks it better to content
himself with dating from the glory of the admiral, than to go about
inquiring whether his father "were a merchant, or one who kept his hawks;"
[268] since, adds he, of persons of similar pursuits, there are thousands
who die every day, whose memory, even among their own neighbors and
relatives, perishes immediately, without its being possible afterwards
to ascertain even whether they existed.

After this, and a few more expressions of similar disdain for these empty
distinctions, he indulges in vehement abuse of Agostino Guistiniani, whom
he calls a false historian, an inconsiderate, partial, or malignant
compatriot, for having, in his psalter, traduced his father, by saying,
that in his youth he had been employed in mechanical occupations.

As, after all this discussion, Fernando leaves the question of his
father's parentage in all its original obscurity, yet appears irritably
sensitive to any derogatory suggestions of others, his whole evidence
tends to the conviction that he really knew nothing to boast of in his
ancestry.

Of the nobility and antiquity of the Colombo family, of which the admiral
probably was a remote descendant, we have some account in Herrera, "We
learn," he says, "that the emperor Otto the Second, in 940, confirmed to
the counts Pietro, Giovanni, and Alexandro Colombo, brothers, the
feudatory possessions which they held within the jurisdiction of the
cities of Ayqui, Savona, Aste, Montferrato, Turin, Viceli, Parma, Cremona,
and Bergamo, and all others which they held in Italy. It appears that the
Colombos of Cuccaro, Cucureo, and Placentia, were the same, and that the
emperor in the same year, 940, made donation to the said three brothers of
the castles of Cuccaro, Conzano, Rosignano, and others, and of the fourth
part of Bistanio, which appertained to the empire." [269]

One of the boldest attempts of those biographers, bent on ennobling
Columbus, has been to make him son of the Lord of Cuccaro, a burgh of
Montferrat, in Piedmont, and to prove that he was born in his father's
castle at that place; whence he and his brothers eloped at an early age,
and never returned. This was asserted in the course of a process brought
by a certain Baldasser, or Balthazar, Colombo, resident in Genoa, but
originally of Cuccaro, claiming the title and estates, on the death of
Diego Colon, duke of Veragua, in 1578, the great-grandson, and last
legitimate male descendant of the admiral. The council of the Indies
decided against this claim to relationship. Some account of the lawsuit
will be found in another part of the work.

This romantic story, like all others of the nobility of his parentage, is
at utter variance with the subsequent events of his life, his long
struggles with indigence and obscurity, and the difficulties he endured
from the want of family connections. How can it be believed, says Bossi,
that this same man, who, in his most cruel adversities was incessantly
taunted by his enemies with the obscurity of his birth, should not reply
to this reproach, by declaring his origin, if he were really descended
from the Lords of Cuccaro, Conzano, and Rosignano? a circumstance which
would have obtained him the highest credit with the Spanish nobility.
[270]

The different families of Colombo which lay claim to the great navigator,
seem to be various branches of one tree, and there is little doubt of his
appertaining remotely to the same respectable stock.

It appears evident, however, that Columbus sprang immediately from a line
of humble but industrious citizens, which had existed in Genoa, even from
the time of Giacomo Colombo the wool-carder, in 1311, mentioned by
Spotorno; nor is this in any wise incompatible with the intimation of
Fernando Columbus, that the family had been reduced from high estate to
great poverty, by the wars of Lombardy. The feuds of Italy, in those ages,
had broken down and scattered many of the noblest families; and while some
branches remained in the lordly heritage of castles and domains, others
were confounded with the humblest population of the cities,

No. VI.

Birthplace of Columbus.

There has been much controversy about the birthplace of Columbus. The
greatness of his renown has induced various places to lay claim to him as
a native, and from motives of laudable pride, for nothing reflects greater
lustre upon a city than to have given birth to distinguished men. The
original and long established opinion was in favor of Genoa; but such
strenuous claims were asserted by the states of Placentia, and in
particular of Piedmont, that the Academy of Sciences and Letters of Genoa
was induced, in 1812, to nominate three of its members, Signors Serra,
Carrega, and Piaggio, commissioners to examine into these pretensions.

The claims of Placentia had been first advanced in 1662, by Pietro Maria
Campi, in the ecclesiastical history of that place, who maintained that
Columbus was a native of the village of Pradello, in that vicinity. It
appeared probable, on investigation, that Bertolino Colombo,
great-grandfather to the admiral, had owned a small property in Pradello,
the rent of which had been received by Domenico Colombo of Genoa, and
after his death by his sons Christopher and Bartholomew. Admitting this
assertion to be correct, there was no proof that either the admiral, his
father, or grandfather, had ever resided on that estate. The very
circumstances of the case indicated, on the contrary, that their home was
in Genoa.

The claim of Piedmont was maintained with more plausibility. It was shown
that a Domenico Colombo was lord of the castle of Cuccaro in Montferrat,
at the time of the birth of Christopher Columbus, who, it was asserted,
was his son, and born in his castle. Balthazar Colombo, a descendant of
this person, instituted a lawsuit before the council of the Indies for the
inheritance of the admiral, when his male line became extinct. The council
of the Indies decided against him, as is shown in an account of that
process given among the illustrations of this history. It was proved that
Domenico Colombo, father of the admiral, was resident in Genoa both before
and many years after the death of this lord of Cuccaro, who bore the same
name.

The three commissioners appointed by the Academy of Sciences and Letters
of Genoa to examine into these pretensions, after a long and diligent
investigation, gave a voluminous and circumstantial report in favor of
Genoa. An ample digest of their inquest may be found in the History of
Columbus by Signer Bossi, who, in an able dissertation on the question,
confirms their opinion. It may be added, in farther corroboration, that
Peter Martyr and Bartholomew Las Casas, who were contemporaries and
acquaintances of Columbus, and Juan de Barros, the Portuguese historian,
all make Columbus a native of the Genoese territories.

There has been a question fruitful of discussion among the Genoese
themselves, whether Columbus was born in the city of Genoa, or in some
other part of the territory. Finale, and Oneglia, and Savona, towns on the
Ligurian coast to the west, Boggiasco, Cogoleto, and several other towns
and villages, claim him as their own. His family possessed a small
property at a village or hamlet between Quinto and Nervi, called Terra
Rossa; in Latin, Terra Kubra; which has induced some writers to assign his
birth to one of those places. Bossi says that there is still a tower
between Quinto and Nervi which bears the title of Torre dei Colombi.
[271] Bartholomew Columbus, brother to the admiral, styled himself of
Terra Rubra, in a Latin inscription on a map which he presented to Henry
VII of England, and Fernando Columbus states, in his history of the
admiral, that he was accustomed to subscribe himself in the same manner
before he attained to his dignities.

Cogoleto at one time bore away the palm. The families there claim the
discoverer and preserve a portrait of him. One or both of the two admirals
named Colombo, with whom he sailed, are stated to have come from that
place, and to have been confounded with him so as to have given support to
this idea. [272]

Savona, a city in the Genoese territories, has claimed the same honor, and
this claim has recently been very strongly brought forward. Signer
Giovanni Battista Belloro, an advocate of Savona, has strenuously
maintained this claim in an ingenious disputation, dated May 12th, 1826,
in form of a letter to the Baron du Zach, editor of a valuable
astronomical and geographical journal, published monthly at Genoa.
[273]

Signor Belloro claims it as an admitted fact, that Domenico Colombo was
for many years a resident and citizen of Savona, in which place one
Christopher Columbus is shown to have signed a document in 1472.

He states that a public square in that city bore the name of Platea
Columbi, toward the end of the 14th century; that the Ligurian government
gave the name of Jurisdizione di Colombi to that district of the republic,
under the persuasion that the great navigator was a native of Savona; and
that Columbus gave the name of Saona to a little island adjacent to
Hispaniola, among his earliest discoveries.

He quotes many Savonese writers, principally poets, and various historians
and poets of other countries, and thus establishes the point that Columbus
was held to be a native of Savona by persons of respectable authority. He
lays particular stress on the testimony of the Magnifico Francisco
Spinola, as related by the learned prelate Felippo Alberto Pollero,
stating that he had seen the sepulchre of Christopher Columbus in the
cathedral at Seville, and that the epitaph states him expressly to be a
native of Savona: "Hic jacet Christophorus Columbus Savonensis."
[274]

The prooft advanced by Signor Belloro show his zeal for the honor of his
native city, but do not authenticate the fact he undertakes to establish.
He shows clearly that many respectable writers believed Columbus to be a
native of Savona; but a far greater number can be adduced, and many of
them contemporary with the admiral, some of them his intimate friends,
others his fellow-citizens, who state him to have been born in the city of
Genoa. Among the Savonese writers, Giulio Salinorio, who investigated the
subject, comes expressly to the same conclusion: "_Geneva citta
nobilissima era la patria de Colombo_."

Signor Belloro appears to be correct in stating that Domenico, the father
of the admiral, was several years resident in Savona. But it appears from
his own dissertation, that the Christopher who witnessed the testament in
1472, styled himself of Genoa: "_Christophorus Columbus lancrius de
Janua._" This incident is stated by other writers, who presume this
Christopher to have been the navigator on a visit to his father, in the
interval of his early voyages. In as far as the circumstance bears on the
point, it supports the idea that he was born at Genoa.

The epitaph on which Signor Belloro places his principal reliance,
entirely fails. Christopher Columbus was not interred in the cathedral of
Seville, nor was any monument erected to him in that edifice. The tomb to
which the learned prelate Felippo Alberto Pollero alludes, may have been
that of Fernando Columbus, son of the admiral, who, as has been already
observed, was buried in the cathedral of Seville, to which he bequeathed
his noble library. The place of his sepulture is designated by a broad
slab of white marble, inserted in the pavement, with an inscription,
partly in Spanish, partly in Latin, recording the merits of Fernando, and
the achievements of his father. On either side of the epitaph is engraved
an ancient Spanish Galley. The inscription quoted by Signor Belloro may
have been erroneously written from memory by the Magnifico Francisco
Spinola, under the mistaken idea that he had beheld the sepulchre of the
great discoverer. As Fernando was born at Cordova, the term Savouensis
must have been another error of memory in the Magnifico; no such word is
to be found in the inscription.

This question of birthplace has also been investigated with considerable
minuteness, and a decision given in favor of Genoa, by D. Gio Battista
Spotorno, of the royal university in that city, in his historical memoir
of Columbus. He shows that the family of the Columbi had long been
resident in Genoa. By'an extract from the notarial register, it appeared
that one Giacomo Colombo, a woolcarder, resided without the gate of St.
Andria, in the year 1311. An agreement, also published by the academy of
Genoa, proved, that in 1489, Domenico Colombo possessed a house and shop,
and a garden with a well, in the street of St. Andrew's gate, anciently
without the walls, presumed to have been the same residence with that of
Giacomo Colombo. He rented also another house from the monks of St.
Stephen, in the Via Mulcento, leading from the street of St. Andrew to the
Strada Giulia. [275]

Signor Bossi states, that documents lately found in the archives of the
monastery of St. Stephen, present the name of Domenico Colombo several
times, from 1456 to 1459, and designate him as son of Giovanni Colombo,
husband of Susanna Fontanarossa, and father of Christopher, Bartholomew,
and Giacomo [276] (or Diego). He states also that the receipts of the
canons show that the last payment of rent was made by Domenico Colombo for
his dwelling in 1489. He surmises that the admiral was born in the
before-mentioned house belonging to those monks, in Via Mulcento, and that
he was baptized in the church of St. Stephen. He adds that an ancient
manuscript was submitted to the commissioners of the Genoese academy, in
the margin of which the notary had stated that the name of Christopher
was on the register of the parish as having been baptized in that church.
[277]

Andres Bernaldez, the curate of los Palacios, who was an intimate friend
of Columbus, says that he was of Genoa. [278] Agostino Giustiniani, a
contemporary of Columbus, likewise asserts it in his Polyglot Psalter,
published in Genoa, in 1516. Antonio de Herrera, an author of great
accuracy, who, though not a contemporary, had access to the best
documents, asserts decidedly that he was born in the city of Genoa.

To these names may be added that of Alexander Geraldini, brother to the
nuncio, and instructor to the children of Ferdinand and Isadella, a most
intimate friend of Columbus. [279] Also Antonio Gallo, [280] Bartolomeo
Senarega, [281] and Uberto Foglieta, [282] all contemporaries with the
admiral, and natives of Genoa, together with an anonymous writer, who
published an account of his voyage of discovery at Venice in 1509. [283]
It is unnecessary to mention historians of later date agreeing in the
same fact, as they must have derived their information from some of these
authorities.

The question in regard to the birthplace of Columbus has been treated thus
minutely, because it has been, and still continues to be, a point of warm
controversy. It may be considered, however, as conclusively decided by the
highest authority, the evidence of Columbus himself. In a testament
executed in 1498, which has been admitted in evidence before the Spanish
tribunals in certain lawsuits among his descendants, he twice declares
that he was a native of the city of Genoa: "_Siendo yo nacido en
Genova._" ("I being born in Genoa.") And again, he repeats the
assertion, as a reason for enjoining certain conditions on his heirs,
which manifest the interest he takes in his native place. "I command the
said Diego, my son, or the person who inherits the said mayorazgo (or
entailed estate), that he maintain always in the city of Genoa a person of
our lineage, who shall have a house and a wife there, and to furnish him
with an income on which he can live decently, as a person connected with
onr family, and hold footing and root in that city as a native of it, so
that he may have aid and favor in that city in case of need, _for from
thence I came and there was born_." [284]

In another part of his testament he expresses himself with a filial
fondness in respect to Genoa. "I command the said Don Diego, or whoever
shall possess the said mayorazgo, that he labor and strive always for the
honor, and welfare, and increase of the city of Genoa, and employ all his
abilities and means in defending and augmenting the welfare and honor of
her republic, in all matters which are not contrary to the service of the
church of God, and the state of the king and queen our sovereigns, and
their successors."

An informal codicil, executed by Columbus at Valladolid, May 4th, 1506,
sixteen days before his death, was discovered about 1785, in the Corsini
library at Rome. It is termed a military codicil, from being made in the
manner which the civil law allows to the soldier who executes such an
instrument on the eve of battle, or in expectation of death. It was
written on the blank page of a little breviary presented to Columbus by
Pope Alexander VII. Columbus leaves the book "to his beloved country, the
Republic of Genoa."

He directs the erection of a hospital in that city for the poor, with
provision for its support, and he declares that republic his successor in
the admiralty of the Indies, in the event of his male line becoming
extinct.

The authenticity of this paper has been questioned. It has been said, that
there was no probability of Columbus having resort to a usage with which
he was, most likely, unacquainted. The objections are not cogent. Columbus
was accustomed to the peculiarities of a military life, and he repeatedly
wrote letters, in critical moments, as a precaution against some fatal
occurrence that seemed to impend. The present codicil, from its date, must
have been written a few days previous to his death, perhaps at a moment
when he imagined himself at extremity. This may account for any difference
in the handwriting, especially as he was, at times, so affected by the
gout in his hands as not to be able to write except at night. Particular
stress has been laid on the signature; but it does not appear that he was
uniform in regard to that, and it is a point to which any one who
attempted a forgery would be attentive. It does not appear, likewise, that
any advantage could have been obtained by forging the paper, or that any
such was attempted.

In 1502, when Columbus was about to depart on his fourth and last voyage,
he wrote to his friend, Doctor Nicolo Oderigo, formerly ambassador from
Genoa to Spain, and forwarded to him copies of all his grants and
commissions from the Spanish sovereigns, authenticated before the alcaldes
of Seville. He, at the same time, wrote to the bank of San Giorgio, at
Genoa, assigning a tenth of his revenues to be paid to that city, in
diminution of the duties on corn, wine, and other provisions.

Why should Colnmbus feel this strong interest in Genoa, had he been born
in any of the other Italian states which have laid claim to him? He was
under no obligation to Genoa. He had resided there but a brief portion of
his early life; and his proposition for discovery, according to some
writers, had been scornfully rejected by that republic. There is nothing
to warrant so strong an interest in Genoa, but the filial tie which links
the heart of a man to his native place, however he may be separated from
it by time or distance, and however little he may be indebted to it for
favors.

Again, had Columbus been born in any of the towns and villages of the
Genoese coast which have claimed him for a native, why should he have made
these bequests in favor of the _city_ of Genoa, and not of his native
town or village?

These bequests were evidently dictated by a mingled sentiment of pride and
affection, which would be without all object if not directed to his native
place. He was at this time elevated above all petty pride on the subject.
His renown was so brilliant, that it would have shed a lustre on any
hamlet, however obscure: and the strong love of country here manifested
would never have felt satisfied until it had singled out the spot, and
nestled down, in the very cradle of his infancy. These appear to be
powerful reasons, drawn from natural feeling, for deciding in favor of
Genoa.

No. VII.

The Colombos.

During the early part of the life of Columbus, there were two other
navigators, bearing the same name, of some rank and celebrity, with whom
he occasionally sailed; their names occurring vaguely from time to time,
during the obscure part of his career, have caused much perplexity to some
of his biographers, who have supposed that they designated the discoverer.
Fernando Columbus affirms them to have been family connections,[285] and
his father says, in one of his letters, "I am not the first admiral of our
family."

These two were uncle and nephew; the latter being termed by historians
Colombo the younger, (by the Spanish historians Colombo el mozo.) They
were in the Genoese service, but are mentioned, occasionally, in old
chronicles, as French commanders, because Genoa, during a great part of
their time, was under the protection, or rather the sovereignty, of
France, and her ships and captains, being engaged in the expeditions of
that power, were identified with the French marine.