[17] This prelate, Diego de Deza, was born of poor but respectable parents, at Toro. He early entered the Dominican order, where his learning and exemplary life recommended him to the notice of the sovereigns, who called him to court to take charge of Prince John's education. He was afterwards raised, through the usual course of episcopal preferment, to the metropolitan see of Seville. His situation, as confessor of Ferdinand, gave him great influence over that monarch, with whom he appears to have maintained an intimate correspondence, to the day of his death. Oviedo, Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Deza.
[18] Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 11.—Salazar de Mendoza, Crón. del Gran Cardenal, p. 215.—Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 25, 29.—Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i., Introd., sec. 60.
[19] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.—Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 27.—Spotorno, Memorials of Columbus, pp. 31-33.—The last dates the application to Genoa prior to that to Portugal.
A letter from the duke of Medina Celi to the cardinal of Spain, dated 19th March, 1493, refers to his entertaining Columbus as his guest for two years. It is very difficult to determine the date of these two years. If Herrera is correct in the statement, that, after a five years' residence at court, whose commencement he had previously referred to 1484, he carried his proposals to the duke of Medina Celi, (see cap. 7, 8.) the two years may have intervened between 1489-1491. Navarrete places them between the departure from Portugal and the first application to the court of Castile, in 1486. Some other writers, and among them Muñoz and Irving, referring his application to Genoa to 1485, and his first appearance in Spain to a subsequent period, make no provision for the residence with the duke of Medina Celi. Mr. Irving indeed is betrayed into a chronological inaccuracy, in speaking of a seven years' residence at the court in 1491, which he had previously noticed as having before begun in 1486. (Life of Columbus, (London, 1828,) comp. vol. i. pp. 109, 141.) In fact, the discrepancies among the earliest authorities are such as to render hopeless any attempt to settle with precision the chronology of Columbus's movements previous to his first voyage.
[20] Ferreras, Hist. d'Espagne, tom. viii. pp. 129, 130.—Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 31.—Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.—Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i., Introd., sec. 60.
[21] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.—Primer Viage de Colon, apud Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. i. pp. 2, 117.— Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 13.
[22] Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 28, 29.—Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, ubi supra.
[23] Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 8.—Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo-Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 32, 33.—Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 14.—Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 15.
[24] Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Diplomat., nos. 5, 6. —Zuñiga, Annales de Sevilla, p. 412.—Mariana, Hist. de España, tom. ii. p. 605.
[25] Peter Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe, (Coloniae, 1574,) dec. 1, lib. 1.—Navarrete, Coleccion de Viages, tom. ii., Col. Diplomat., nos. 7, 8, 9, 10, 12.—Herrera, Indias Occidentales, dec. 1, lib. 1, cap. 9.— Fernando Colon, Hist. del Almirante, cap. 14.—Muñoz, Hist. del Nuevo- Mundo, lib. 2, sec. 33.—Benzoni, Novi Orbis Hist., lib. 1, cap. 6.— Gomara, Hist. de las Indias, cap. 15.