SIGN-MANUALS OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.
[C.] Effect of the Discovery in Europe.—During the interval between the return of Columbus from his first voyage and his again treading the soil of Spain on his return from the second, 1494, we naturally look for the effect of this astounding revelation upon the intelligence of Europe. To the Portuguese, who had rejected his pleas, there may have been some chagrin. Faria y Sousa, in his Europa Portuguesa, intimates that Columbus’ purpose in putting in at the Tagus was to deepen the regret of the Portuguese at their rejection of his views; and other of their writers affirm his overbearing manner and conscious pride of success. The interview which he had with John II. is described in the Lyuro das obras de Garcia de Resende.[188] Of his reception by the Spanish monarchs at Barcelona,[189] we perhaps, in the stories of the historians, discern more embellishments than Oviedo, who was present, would have thought the ceremony called for. George Sumner (in 1844) naturally thought so signal an event would find some record in the “Anals consulars” of that city, which were formed to make note of the commonest daily events; but he could find in them no indication of the advent of the discoverer of new lands.[190] It is of far more importance for us that provision was soon made for future records in the establishment of what became finally the “Casa de la Contratacion de las Indias,” at this time put in charge of Juan de Fonseca, who controlled its affairs throughout the reign of Ferdinand.[191] We have seen how apparently an eager public curiosity prompted more frequent impressions of Columbus’ letter in other lands than in Spain itself; but there was a bustling reporter at the Spanish Court fond of letter-writing, having correspondents in distant parts, and to him we owe it, probably, that the news spread to some notable people. This was Peter Martyr d’Anghiera. He dated at Barcelona, on the ides of May, a letter mentioning the event, which he sent to Joseph Borromeo; and he repeated the story in later epistles, written in September, to Ascanio Sforza, Tendilla, and Talavera.[192] There is every reason to suppose that Martyr derived his information directly from Columbus himself. He was now probably about thirty-seven years old, and he had some years before acquired such a reputation for learning and eloquence that he had been invited from Italy (he was a native of the Duchy of Milan) to the Spanish Court. His letters, as they have come down to us, begin about five years before this,[193] and it is said that just at this time (1493) he began the composition of his Decades. Las Casas has borne testimony to the value of the Decades for a knowledge of Columbus, calling them the most worthy of credit of all the early writings, since Martyr got, as he says, his accounts directly from the Admiral, with whom he often talked. Similar testimony is given to their credibleness by Carbajal, Gomez, Vergara, and other contemporaries.[194] Beginning with Muñoz, there has been a tendency of late years to discredit Martyr, arising from the confusion and even negligence sometimes discernible in what he says. Navarrete was inclined to this derogatory estimate. Hallam[195] goes so far as to think him open to grave suspicion of negligent and palpable imposture, antedating his letters to appear prophetic. On the other hand, Prescott[196] contends for his veracity, and trusts his intimate familiarity with the scenes he describes. Helps interprets the disorder of his writings as a merit, because it is a reflection of his unconnected thoughts and feelings on the very day on which he recorded any transactions.[197]
What is thought to be the earliest mention in print of the new discoveries occurs in a book published at Seville in 1493.—Los tratados del Doctor Alonso Ortiz. The reference is brief, and is on the reverse of the 43d folio.[198] Not far from the same time the Bishop of Carthagena, Bernardin de Carvajal, then the Spanish ambassador to the Pope, delivered an oration in Rome, June 19, 1493, in which he made reference to the late discovery of unknown lands towards the Indies.[199] These references are all scant; and, so far as we know from the records preserved to us, the great event of the age made as yet no impression on the public mind demanding any considerable recognition.
[D.] Second Voyage (Sept. 25, 1493, to June 11, 1496).—First among the authorities is the narrative of Dr. Chanca, the physician of the Expedition. The oldest record of it is a manuscript of the middle of the sixteenth century, in the Real Academia de la Historia at Madrid. From this Navarrete printed it for the first time,[200] under the title of “Segundo Viage de Cristobal Colon,” in his Coleccion, i. 198.
Not so directly cognizant of events, but getting his information at second hand from Guglielmo Coma,—a noble personage in Spain,—was Nicolas Scyllacius, of Pavia, who translated Coma’s letters into Latin, and published his narrative, De insulis meridiani atque indici maris nuper inventis, dedicating it to Ludovico Sforza, at Pavia (Brunet thinks Pisa), in 1594 or 1595. Of this little quarto there are three copies known. One is in the Lenox Library; and from this copy Mr. Lenox, in 1859, reprinted it sumptuously (one hundred and two copies[201]), with a translation by the Rev. John Mulligan. In Mr. Lenox’s Introduction it is said that his copy had originally belonged to M. Olivieri, of Parma, and then to the Marquis Rocca Saporiti, before it came into Mr. Lenox’s hands, and that the only other copy known was an inferior one in the library of the Marquis Trivulzio at Milan. This last copy is probably one of the two copies which Harrisse reports as being in the palace library at Madrid and in the Thottiana (Royal Library) at Copenhagen, respectively.[202] Scyllacius adds a few details, current at that time, which were not in Coma’s letters, and seems to have interpreted the account of his correspondent as implying that Columbus had reached the Indies by the Portuguese route round the Cape of Good Hope. Ronchini has conjectured that this blunder may have caused the cancelling of a large part of the edition, which renders the little book so scarce; but Lenox neatly replies that “almost all the contemporaneous accounts are equally rare.”
Another second-hand account—derived, however, most probably from the Admiral himself—is that given by Peter Martyr in his first Decade, published in 1511, and more at length in 1516.[203]
Accompanying Columbus on this voyage was Bernardus Buell, or Boil, a monk of St. Benoit, in Austria, who was sent by Pope Alexander VI as vicar-general of the new lands, to take charge of the measures for educating and converting the Indians.[204] It will be remembered he afterward became a caballer against the Admiral. What he did there, and a little of what Columbus did, one Franciscus Honorius Philoponus sought to tell in a very curious book, Nova typis transacta navigatio novi orbis Indiæ occidentalis,[205] which was not printed till 1621. It is dedicated to Casparus Plautius, and it is suspected that he is really the author of the book, while he assumed another name, more easily to laud himself. Harrisse describes the book as having “few details of an early date, mixed with much second-hand information of a perfectly worthless character.”
So far as we know, the only contemporary references in a printed book to the new discoveries during the progress of the second voyage, or in the interval previous to the undertaking of the third voyage, in the spring of 1498, are these: The Das Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) of Sebastian Brant, a satire on the follies of society, published at Basle in 1494,[206] and reprinted in Latin in 1497, 1498, and in French in 1497, 1498, and 1499,[207] has a brief mention of the land previously unknown, until Ferdinand discovered innumerable people in the great Spanish ocean. Zacharias Lilio, in his De origine et laudibus scientiarum, Florence, 1496,[208] has two allusions. In 1497 Fedia Inghirami, keeper of the Vatican Archives, delivered a funeral oration on Prince John, son of Ferdinand and Isabella, and made a reference to the New World. The little book was probably printed in Rome. There is also a reference in the Cosmographia of Antonius Nebrissensis, printed in 1498.[209]
