Footnote 410: M. d'Avezac (Canevas chronologique, etc.) objects to this date that we have positive documentary evidence of the birth of Christopher's youngest brother Giacomo (afterwards spanished into Diego) in 1468, which makes an interval of 32 years; so that if the mother were (say) 18 in 1436 she must have borne a child at the age of 50. That would be unusual, but not unprecedented. But M. Harrisse (tom. ii. p. 214), from a more thorough sifting of this documentary evidence, seems to have proved that while Giacomo cannot have been born later than 1468 he may have been born as early as 1460; so that whatever is left of M. d'Avezac's objection falls to the ground.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 411: "Serenissimi principi, di età molto tenera io entrai in mare navigando, et vi ho continovato fin' hoggi: ... et hoggimai passano quaranta anni che io uso per tutte quelle parti che fin hoggi si navigano." Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. iv.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 412: Op. cit. cap. iv. ad fin.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 413: "Traido en disputas," Navarrete, Coleccion, tom. ii. p. 254.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 414: "Muy altos Reyes, de muy pequeña edad entré en la mar navegando, é lo he continuado fasta hoy.... Yá pasan de cuarenta años que yo voy en este uso: todo lo que hoy se navega, todo lo he andado." Navarrete, Coleccion, tom. ii. p. 262. Observe the lame phrase "pasan de cuarenta;" what business has that "de" in such a place without "mas" before it? "Pasan mas de cuarenta," i. e. "more than forty;" writing in haste and excitement, Columbus left out a little word; or shall we blame the proof-reader? Avezac himself translates it "il y a plus de quarante ans," and so does Eugène Müller, in his French version of Ferdinand's book, Histoire de la vie de Christophe Colomb, Paris, 1879, p. 15.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 415: That was the golden age of sumptuary laws. Because Alfonso XI. of Castile (1312-1350), when he tried to impress horses for the army, found it hard to get as many as he wanted, he took it into his head that his subjects were raising too many mules and not enough horses. So he tried to remedy the evil by a wholesale decree prohibiting all Castilians from riding upon mules! In practice this precious decree, like other villainous prohibitory laws that try to prevent honest people from doing what they have a perfect right to do, proved so vexatious and ineffective withal that it had to be perpetually fussed with and tinkered. One year you could ride a mule and the next year you couldn't. In 1492, as we shall see, Columbus immortalized one of these patient beasts by riding it a few miles from Granada. But in 1494 Ferdinand and Isabella decreed that nobody except women, children, and clergymen could ride on mules,—"dont la marche est beaucoup plus douce que celle des chevaux" (Humboldt, Examen critique, tom. iii. p. 338). This edict remained in force in 1505, so that the Discoverer of the New World, the inaugurator of the greatest historic event since the birth of Christ, could not choose an easygoing animal for the comfort of his weary old weather-shaken bones without the bother of getting a special edict to fit his case. Eheu, quam parva sapientia regitur mundus![Back to Main Text]
Footnote 416: "Nous avons démontré l'inanité des théories qui le font naître à Pradello, à Cuccaro, à Cogoleto, à Savona, à Nervi, à Albissola, à Bogliasco, à Cosseria, à Finale, à Oneglia, voire même en Angleterre ou dans l'isle de Corse." Harrisse, tom. i. p. 217. In Cogoleto, about sixteen miles west of Genoa on the Corniche road, the visitor is shown a house where Columbus is said first to have seen the light. Upon its front is a quaint inscription in which the discoverer is compared to the dove (Colomba) which, when sent by Noah from the ark, discovered dry land amid the waters:—
Con generoso ardir dall' Arca all' onde
Ubbidiente il vol Colomba prende,
Corre, s' aggira, terren scopre, e fronde
D' olivo in segno, al gran Noè ne rende.
L' imita in ciò Colombo, ne' s' asconde,
E da sua patria il mar solcando fende;
Terreno al fin scoprendo diede fondo,
Offerendo all' Ispano un Nuovo Mondo.
This house is or has been mentioned in Baedeker's Northern Italy as the probable birthplace, along with Peschel's absurd date 1456. It is pretty certain that Columbus was not born in that house or in Cogoleto. See Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 148-155.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 417: Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 166-216.[Back to Main Text]