Question of the identity of his remains.
It was represented, moreover, that those features of the inscription on the lately found leaden box which seemed to indicate it as the casket of the first Admiral of the Indies had been fraudulently added or altered. The question has probably been thrown into the category of doubt, though the case as presented in favor of Santo Domingo has some recognizably weak points, which the advocates of the other side have made the most of, and to the satisfaction perhaps of the more careful inquirers. The controversial literature on the subject is considerable. The repairs of 1877 in the Santo Domingo cathedral revealed the empty vault from which the transported body had been taken; but they showed also the occupied vault of the grandson Luis, and another in which was a leaden case which bore the inscriptions which are in dispute.
Alleged burial of his chains with him.
It is the statement of the Historie that Columbus preserved the chains in which he had come home from his third voyage, and that he had them buried with him, or intended to do so. The story is often repeated, but it has no other authority than the somewhat dubious one of that book; and it finds no confirmation in Las Casas, Peter Martyr, Bernaldez, or Oviedo.
Humboldt says that he made futile inquiry of those who had assisted in the reinterment at Havana, if there were any trace of these fetters or of oxide of iron in the coffin. In the accounts of the recent discovery of remains at Santo Domingo, it is said that there was equally no trace of fetters in the casket.
The age of Columbus.
The age of Columbus is almost without a parallel, presenting perhaps the most striking appearances since the star shone upon Bethlehem. It saw Martin Luther burn the Pope's bull, and assert a new kind of independence. It added Erasmus to the broadeners of life. Ancient art was revivified in the discovery of its most significant remains. Modern art stood confessed in Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Titian, Raphael, Holbein, and Dürer. Copernicus found in the skies a wonderful development without great telescopic help. The route of the Portuguese by the African cape and the voyage of Columbus opened new worlds to thought and commerce. They made the earth seem to man, north and south, east and west, as man never before had imagined it. It looked as if mercantile endeavor was to be constrained by no bounds. Articles of trade were multiplied amazingly. Every movement was not only new and broad, but it was rapid beyond conception. It was more like the remodeling of Japan, which we have seen in our day, than anything that had been earlier known.