The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 6 (of 9) / Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private

by Thomas Jefferson

TO MR. DELAPLAINE.

Monticello, August 28, 1814.

Sir,—Your letter of the 17th is received. I have not the book of Munoz containing the print of Columbus. That work came out after I left Europe, and we have not the same facility of acquiring new continental publications here as there. I have no doubt that entire credit is to be given to the account of the print rendered by him in the extract from his work which you have sent me; and as you say that several have attempted translations of it, each differing from the other, and none satisfactory to yourself, I will add to your stock my understanding of it, that by a collation of the several translations, the author's meaning may be the better elicited.

Translation. "This first volume presents at the beginning the portrait of the discoverer, designed and engraved with care. Among many paintings and prints which are falsely sold as his likenesses, I have seen one only which can be such, and it is that which is preserved in the house of the most excellent Duke of Berwick and Lina, a descendant of our hero; a figure of the natural size, painted, as would seem, in the last century, by an indifferent copyist, in which, nevertheless, appear some catches from the hand of Antonio del Rincon, a celebrated painter of the Catholic kings. The description given by Fernando Colon, of the countenance of his father, has served to render the likeness more resembling, and to correct the faults which are observable in some of the features either imperfectly seized by the artist, or disfigured by the injuries of time."

Paraphrase explanatory of the above. Columbus was employed by Ferdinand and Isabella, on his voyage of discovery in 1492. Debry tells us that "before his departure, his portrait was taken by order of the king and queen," and most probably by Rincon, their first painter. Rincon died in 1500, and Columbus in 1506. Fernando, his son, an ecclesiastic, wrote the life of his father in 1530, and describes in that his father's countenance. An indifferent hand in the 17th century, copied Rincon's painting, which copy is preserved in the house of the Duke of Berwick. In 1793, when a print of Columbus was wanting for the history of Munoz, the artist from this copy, injured as it was by time, but still exhibiting some catches of Rincon's style, and from the verbal description of the countenance of Columbus in the history by his son, has been enabled to correct the faults of the copy, whether those of the copyist or proceeding from the injuries of time, and thus to furnish the best likeness.

The Spanish text admits this construction, and well-known dates and historical facts verify it.

I have taken from the second volume of Debry a rough model of the leaf on which is the print he has given of Columbus and his preface. It gives the exact size and outline of the print which, with a part of the preface, is on the first page of the leaf, and the rest on the second. I have extracted from it what related to the print, which you will perceive could not be cut out without a great mutilation of the book. This would not be regarded as to its cost, which was twelve guineas for the three volumes in Amsterdam, but that it seems to be the only copy of the work in the United States, and I know from experience the difficulty, if not impossibility, of getting another. I had orders lodged with several eminent booksellers in the principal book-marts of Europe, to-wit: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfort, Madrid, several years before this copy was obtained at the accidental sale of an old library in Amsterdam, on the death of its proprietor.

We have, then, three likenesses of Columbus, from which a choice is to be made.

1. The print in Munoz' work, from a copy of Rincon's original, taken in the 17th century by an indifferent hand, with conjectural alterations suggested by the verbal description of the younger Columbus of the countenance of his father.

2. The miniature of Debry, from a copy taken in the sixteenth century from the portrait made by order of the king and queen, probably that of Rincon.

3. The copy in my possession of the size of life, taken for me from the original, which is in the gallery of Florence. I say from an original, because it is well known that in collections of any note, and that of Florence is the first in the world, no copy is ever admitted; and an original existing in Genoa would readily be obtained for a royal collection in Florence. Vasari, in his lives of the painters, names this portrait in his catalogue of the paintings in that gallery, but does not say by whom it was made. It has the aspect of a man of thirty-five, still smooth-faced and in the vigor of life, which would place its date about 1477, fifteen years earlier than that of Rincon. Accordingly, in the miniature of Debry, the face appears more furrowed by time. On the whole, I should have no hesitation at giving this the preference over the conjectural one of Munoz, and the miniature of Debry.

The book from which I cut the print of Vespucius which I sent you, has the following title and date: "Elogio d'Amerigo Vespucci che ha riportato il premio dalla nobile accademia Etrusca de Cortona nel dè 15 d'Ottobre dell' Anno 1788, del P. Stanislao Canovai della scuole prie publico professore di fisica. Matematica in Firenze 1788, nella stamp di Pietro Allegrini." This print is unquestionably from the same original in the gallery of Florence from which my copy was also taken. The portrait is named in the catalogue of Vasari, and mentioned also by Bandini, in his life of Americus Vespucius; but neither gives its history. Both tell us there was a portrait of Vespucius taken by Domenico, and a fine head of him by Da Vinci, which, however, are lost, so that it would seem that this of Florence is the only one existing.

With this offering of what occurs to me on the subject of these prints, accept the assurance of my respect.