Footnote 418: Harrisse, tom. i. p. 188; Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. xi.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 419: "Fué este varon escogido de nacion genovés, de algun lugar de la provincia de Génova; cual fuese, donde nació ó qué nombre tuvo el tal lugar, no consta la verdad dello más de que se solia llamar ántes que llegase al estado que llegó, Cristobal Colombo de Terra-rubia y lo mismo su hermano Bartolomé Colon." Las Casas, Historia de las Indias, tom. i. p. 42; cf. Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 217-222.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 420: "Mando al dicho D. Diego, mi hijo, ó á la persona que heredare el dicho mayorazgo, que tenga y sostenga siempre en la Ciudad de Génova una persona de nuestro linage ... pues que della salí y en ella naci" [italics mine]. Navarrete, Coleccion, tom. ii. p. 232.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 421: Las Casas, Historia, tom. i. p. 46.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 422: The reader must beware, however, of some of the stories of adventure attaching to this part of his life, even where they are confirmed by Las Casas. They evidently rest upon hearsay, and the incidents are so confused that it is almost impossible to extract the kernel of truth.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 423: The date 1470 rests upon a letter of Columbus to King Ferdinand of Aragon in May, 1505. He says that God must have directed him into the service of Spain by a kind of miracle, since he had already been in Portugal, whose king was more interested than any other sovereign in making discoveries, and yet God closed his eyes, his ears, and all his senses to such a degree that in fourteen years Columbus could not prevail upon him to lend aid to his scheme. "Dije milagrosamente porque fui á aportar á Portugal, adonde el Rey de allí entendia en el descubrir mas que otro: él le atajó la vista, oido y todos los sentidos, que en catorce años no le pude hacer entender lo que yo dije." Las Casas, op. cit. tom. iii. p. 187; Navarrete, tom. iii. p. 528. Now it is known that Columbus finally left Portugal late in 1484, or very early in 1485, so that fourteen years would carry us back to before 1471 for the first arrival of Columbus in that country. M. Harrisse (op. cit. tom. i. p. 263) is unnecessarily troubled by the fact that the same person was not king of Portugal during the whole of that period. Alfonso V. (brother of Henry the Navigator) died in 1481, and was succeeded by his son John II.; but during a considerable part of the time between 1475 and 1481 the royal authority was exercised by the latter. Both kings were more interested in making discoveries than any other European sovereigns. Which king did Columbus mean? Obviously his words were used loosely; he was too much preoccupied to be careful about trifles; he probably had John in his mind, and did not bother himself about Alfonso; King Ferdinand, to whom he was writing, did not need to have such points minutely specified, and could understand an elliptical statement; and the fact stated by Columbus was simply that during a residence of fourteen years in Portugal he had not been able to enlist even that enterprising government in behalf of his novel scheme.
In the town archives of Savona we find Christopher Columbus witnessing a document March 20, 1472, endorsing a kind of promissory note for his father August 26, 1472, and joining with his mother and his next brother Giovanni, August 7, 1473, in relinquishing all claims to the house in Genoa sold by his father Domenico by deed of that date. It will be remembered that Domenico had moved from Genoa to Savona in 1471. From these documents (which are all printed in his Christophe Colomb, tom. ii. pp. 419, 420, 424-426) M. Harrisse concludes that Christopher cannot have gone to Portugal until after August 7, 1473. Probably not, so far as to be domiciled there; but inasmuch as he had long been a sailor, why should he not have been in Portugal, or upon the African coast in a Portuguese ship, in 1470 and 1471, and nevertheless have been with his parents in Savona in 1472 and part of 1473? His own statement "fourteen years" is not to be set aside on such slight grounds as this. Furthermore, from the fact that Bartholomew's name is not signed to the deed of August 7, 1473, M. Harrisse infers that he was then a minor; i. e. under five and twenty. But it seems to me more likely that Bartholomew was already domiciled at Lisbon, since we are expressly told by two good contemporary authorities—both of them Genoese writers withal—that he moved to Lisbon and began making maps there at an earlier date than Christopher. See Antonio Gallo, De navigatione Columbi per inaccessum antea Oceanum Commentariolus, apud Muratori, tom. xxiii. col. 301-304; Giustiniani, Psalterium, Milan, 1516 (annotation to Psalm xix.); Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, No. 88. To these statements M. Harrisse objects that he finds (in Belloro, Notizie, p. 8) mention of a document dated Savona, June 16, 1480, in which Domenico Colombo gives a power of attorney to his son Bartholomew to act for him in some matter. The document itself, however, is not forthcoming, and the notice cited by M. Harrisse really affords no ground for the assumption that Bartholomew was in 1480 domiciled at Savona or at Genoa.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 424: Las Casas, op. cit. tom. i. p. 224; tom. ii. p. 80. He possessed many maps and documents by both the brothers.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 425: "Spesse volte navigando da Lisbona a Guinea," etc. Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. iv. The original authority is Columbus's marginal note in his copy of the Imago Mundi of Alliacus, now preserved in the Colombina at Seville: "Nota quod sepius navigando ex Ulixbona ad austrum in Guineam, notavi cum diligentia viam, etc." Compare the allusions to Guinea in his letters, Navarrete, Coleccion, tom. i. pp. 55, 71, 101.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 426: There are some vexed questions concerning this lady and the connections between the Moñiz and Perestrelo families, for which see Harrisse, tom. i. pp. 267-292.[Back to Main Text]