The catalogue of the Colombina Library as made by Ferdinand shows that it contained originally a manuscript Life of the Admiral written about 1525 by Ferdinand Perez de Oliva, who presumably had the aid of Ferdinand Columbus himself; but no trace of this Life now exists,[249] unless, as Harrisse ventures to conjecture, it may have been in some sort the basis of what now passes for the work of Ferdinand.
For a long time after the Historie of 1571 there was no considerable account of Columbus printed. Editions of Ptolemy, Peter Martyr, Oviedo, Grynæus, and other general books, made reference to his discoveries; but the next earliest distinct sketch appears to be that in the Elogia virorum illustrium of Jovius, printed in 1551 at Florence, and the Italian version made by Domenichi, printed in 1554.[250] Ramusio’s third volume, in 1556, gave the story greater currency than before; but such a book as Cunningham’s Cosmographical Glasse, in its chapter on America, utterly ignores Columbus in 1559.[251] We get what may probably be called the hearsay reports of Columbus’ exploits in the Mondo nuovo of Benzoni, first printed at Venice in 1565. There was a brief memorial in the Clarorum Ligurum elogia of Ubertus Folieta, published at Rome in 1573.[252] In 1581 his voyages were commemorated in an historical poem, Laurentii Gambaræ Brixiani de navigatione Christophori Columbi, published at Rome.[253] Boissard, of the De Bry coterie at Frankfort in 1597, included Columbus in his Icones virorum illustrium;[254] and Buonfiglio Costanzo, in 1604, commemorated him in the Historia Siciliana, published at Venice.[255]
Meanwhile the story of Columbus’ voyages was told at last with all the authority of official sanction in the Historia general of Herrera. This historian, or rather annalist, was born in 1549, and died in 1625;[256] and the appointment of historiographer given him by Philip II. was continued by the third and fourth monarchs of that name. There has been little disagreement as to his helpfulness to his successors. All critics place him easily first among the earlier writers; and Muñoz, Robertson, Irving, Prescott, Ticknor, and many others have united in praise of his research, candor, and justness, while they found his literary skill compromised in a measure by his chronological method. Irving found that Herrera depended so much on Las Casas that it was best in many cases to go to that earlier writer in preference;[257] and Muñoz thinks only Herrera’s judicial quality preserved for him a distinct character throughout the agglutinizing process by which he constructed his book. His latest critic, Hubert H. Bancroft,[258] calls his style “bald and accurately prolix, his method slavishly chronological,” with evidence everywhere in his book of “inexperience and incompetent assistance,” resulting in “notes badly extracted, discrepancies, and inconsistencies.” The bibliography of Herrera is well done in Sabin.[259]
Herrera had already published (1591) a monograph on the history of Portugal and the conquest (1582-1583) of the Azores, when he produced at Madrid his great work, Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos, in eight decades, four of which, in two volumes, were published in 1601, and the others in 1615.[260] It has fourteen maps; and there should be bound with it, though often found separate, a ninth part, called Description de las Indias occidentales.[261] Of the composite work, embracing the nine parts, the best edition is usually held to be one edited by Gonzales Barcia, and supplied by him with an index, which was printed in Madrid during 1727, 1728, 1729, and 1730, so that copies are found with all those dates, though it is commonly cited as of 1730.[262]
The principal chronicles of Spanish affairs in the seventeenth century contributed more or less to Columbus’ fame;[263] and he is commemorated in the Dutch compilation of Van den Bos, Leven en Daden der Zeehelden, published at Amsterdam in 1676, and in a German translation in 1681.[264]
There were a hundred years yet to pass before Robertson’s History of America gave Columbus a prominence in the work of a historian of established fame; but this Scotch historian was forced to write without any knowledge of Columbus’ own narratives.
In 1781 the earliest of the special Italian commemorations appeared at Parma, in J. Durazzo’s Elogi storici on Columbus and Doria.[265] Chevalier de Langeac in 1782 added to his poem, Colomb dans les fers à Ferdinand et Isabelle, a memoir of Columbus.[266]
The earliest commemoration in the United States was in 1792, on the three hundredth anniversary of the discovery, celebrated by the Massachusetts Historical Society, when Dr. Jeremy Belknap delivered an historical discourse,[267] included later with large additions in his well-known American Biography. The unfinished history of Muñoz harbingered, in 1793, the revival in Europe of the study of his career. Finally, the series of modern Lives of Columbus began in 1818 with the publication at Milan of Luigi Bossi’s Vita di Cristoforo Colombo, scritta e corredata di nuove osservazioni.[268] In 1823 the introduction by Spotorno to the Codice, and in 1825 the Coleccion of Navarrete, brought much new material to light; and the first to make use of it were Irving, in his Life of Columbus, 1828,[269] and Humboldt, in his Examen critique de l’histoire de la géographie du nouveau continent, published originally, in 1834, in a single volume; and again in five volumes, between 1836 and 1839.[270] “No one,” says Ticknor,[271] “has comprehended the character of Columbus as Humboldt has,—its generosity, its enthusiasm, its far-reaching visions, which seemed watchful beforehand for the great scientific discovery of the sixteenth century.” Prescott was warned by the popularity of Irving’s narrative not to attempt to rival him; and his treatment of Columbus’ career was confined to such a survey as would merely complete the picture of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.[272]
In 1844 there came the first intimation of a new style of biography,—a protest against Columbus’ story being longer told by his natural enemies, as all who failed to recognize his pre-eminently saintly character were considered to be. There was a purpose in it to make the most possible of all his pious ejaculations, and of his intention, expressed in his letter to the Pope in 1502, to rescue the Holy City from the infidel, with his prospective army of ten thousand horse and a hundred thousand foot. The chief spokesman of this purpose has been Roselly de Lorgues. He first shadowed forth his purpose in his La croix dans les deux mondes in 1844. It was not till 1864 that he produced the full flower of his spirit in his Christophe Colomb, Histoire de sa vie et de ses voyages d’après des documents authentiques tirés d’Espagne et d’Italie.[273] This was followed, in 1874, by his L’ambassadeur de Dieu et le Pape Pie IX. All this, however, and much else by the abetters of the scheme of the canonization of Columbus which was urged on the Church, failed of its purpose; and the movement was suspended, for a while at least, because of an ultimate adverse determination.[274]