We must adopt some such explanation as this, or else we must charge the deponents or their informants with wilful falsehood; for certain it is, independently of the positive proof adduced in the text, of the Admiral's Genoese origin, the testimony of Balthazar's witnesses contains many statements on the face of it intrinsically incredible, and irreconcilable with undisputed facts. Not to labor this point too much, I will mention but two or three examples. One is, that some of the deponents say the Admiral and his brothers were born at Cuccaro, which even Balthazar himself was compelled to disclaim. Again, Domenico Colombo of Cuccaro confessedly died in 1456; and yet the Admiral held intercourse with his father at a much later period, as we learn from the Spanish writer Oviedo. Furthermore, we have the testimony of all the historians, including Ferdinand Columbus, that the Admiral was poor, and of poor parentage; and yet, as we have seen, Domenico Colombo of Cuccaro was the son of a rich feudatory, and inherited very considerable property. Lastly, the fact of Ferdinand's being ignorant of his father's family is ample proof, that they were not wealthy nobles; for if so, would the Admiral have concealed it from his own domestic circle? Instead of shunning the mention of it, would he not rather have sedulously made public a circumstance, so well calculated to further his views, and facilitate his intercourse with the haughty Spanish grandees? (Concerning the Cuccaro claim, besides the books already cited on that point, see Tiraboschi ut supra, p. 229; Cancellieri, Notizie, passim; Spotorno, p. 8 and 64; Napione, del primo Scopritore del Continente del Nuovo Mondo, Pref.)

I think whoever has followed the argument thus far will be perfectly satisfied, that Domenico, the Admiral's father, was a very different person from Domenico of Cuccaro. Indeed, other things out the question, the advocates for their identity would have no right to presume it, unless they could prove it impossible for two men of that name to be living at the same time in all Italy. But the evidence of their not being the same person, and of the Admiral's Genoese origin, is such, I venture to say, as no candid mind will controvert. The proofs of this consist of the declarations of several highly respectable writers, fortified by the belief of all the most credible later historians; of certain documents

relating to the occupation and residence at Genoa of a family cor-
responding to his; in addition to the various expressions and acts
attributed to the Admiral.

In referring to the authors, who are cited in support of the
Admiral's Genoese origin, I shall omit those of his contemporaries,
who, like P. Martyr, merely designate him as a Ligurian.
'Colonus quidam, Ligur vir.' These words occur in P. Mar-
tyr's first letter, written to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, in Novem-
ber, 1493, and containing one of the earliest published accounts
of the discovery of America. (P. Martyr, De Rebus Oceanicis,
dec. i, 1. 1. The oldest book published on the subject, is a
Latin translation of a letter written in Spanish by Columbus, on
his arrival at Lisbon, in March, 1493, addressed to Don Rafael
Saenz. This was printed at Rome the same year; and several
copies of this first edition are now extant. An exact transcript
of the Latin, accompanied by an Italian translation, is printed by
Bossi p. 167, and an English translation in the Edinburgh Re-
view, no. liv, p. 505. The original Spanish is preserved in
the MS. history of Bernaldez, as quoted by Muñoz, Prol. p. 11.)
For although I apprehend they intended to restrict the word to
the Ligurian or Genoese republic, yet unquestionably it is sus-
ceptible of, and often receives, a much wider meaning. Thus
Denina, in speaking of this very subject, observes that the com-
mercial prosperity of Genoa would naturally attract persons from
all other parts of 'Liguria, that is, Mondovi, the Langhe, and
Montferrat.' ('Uomini di tutte le parti della Liguria; cioè delle
Langhe, delle Provincie del Mondovi, e del Monferrato.' Rivo-
luzioni d'Italia, 1. xv, c. 9.) I begin with the nuncio Ales-
sandro Geraldini, afterwards first Bishop of St. Domingo and of
the Indies, a personal and very particular friend of the Admiral's,
who relates some valuable facts concerning him, commencing his
account thus; 'Christopher Columbus, an Italian, was from
Genoa, a city of Liguria.' (Itinerarium ad Regiones sub aequi-
noctiali Plaga constitutas, l. xiv. See Cancellieri, p. 63; Na-
pione, Ragion. p. 74.) To the same effect is Agostino Giustini-
ani, Bishop of Nebbio, who published at Genoa, in 1516, a psalter
in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and Chaldaic, and in commenting on
the verse, Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their

words to the end of the world, gives an account of the discovery of America. (See Tiraboschi, ut s. p. 231; Everett's Plymouth Oration, p. 64.) Bartolommeo Senarega, a Genoese, wrote Annals of the Republic during his own time, from 1448 to 1514, and describes the Admiral and his brother Bartholomew, and their parents, as of Genoa. (Muratori, Scriptores Rer. Italic. vol. xxiv, p. 535.) The same statement is made by Antonio Gallo, who wrote a tract on the voyages of Columbus, and by Uberto Foglietto, in his Eulogies of Illustrious Ligurians, both Genoese writers of that day; and by the author of Cademosto's voyages, or Itinerarium Portugallensium, published in 1507, at Venice. (Muratori, v. xxiii, p. 301; Tiraboschi, ut s. p. 232; Folietæ Elog. Clar. Lig. in Grævii Thes. Antiq. Italic. i, 770. Cademosto is reprinted in Grinæi Nov. Orb.) All these were contemporary authors, men of undoubted intelligence, possessed of the means of obtaining accurate information upon this point, and several of them men, whose characters and station must put them above the suspicion of hazarding a light or unadvised assertion. Their declarations, deliberately made and recorded in grave writings, appear to me hardly less conclusive, than if they were clothed in the solemnity of judicial testimony.

As to the opinion of later writers in different countries, it is of weight only in this one respect, namely, that in all doubtful questions of fact, the presumption is in favor of the side adopted by the most intelligent men. But as the great body of respectable authors, in Italy and out of it, accord in believing the Admiral a Genoese, nothing is needed here but to indicate a few of the most distinguished, whose writings have fallen beneath my eye. The writers in our own language will speak for theinselves, from honest old Purchas down to Robertson, Belknap, and Irving. Of Spaniards I may notice Herrera, Mariana, Pizarro y Orellano, Muñoz, and Lampillas; of Frenchmen, Voltaire, Charlevoix, Langeac; of Italians, Benzone, Giovio, Muratori, Tiraboschi, and Andres : specifying these few great names only, as the representatives of the better opinion in their respective nations.

The documentary evidence composes the last class of proofs. It is an ascertained fact, derived from various documents, such as every municipal corporation affords, that the city of Genoa con

tained persons of the name of Colombo, so early as the year 1190, and from thence down to the sixteenth century. In the last years of the fifteenth century, not unfrequent mention is made in Savonese papers, of a family answering precisely in name and description to the Admiral's, as being of Genoa. These documents are of unquestioned authenticity. The countrymen of the great navigator were, as we have seen, first made fully acquainted with his wonderful discoveries, in the notes to a polyglot psalter; and about a hundred years afterwards, the proofs of his originating there were published in a place equally strange, namely, in a Commentary on Tacitus, by Giulio Salinerio, a lawyer of Savona. A specimen of these will suffice. In a writing dated 1470, we find the words, 'Domenico Colombo, a citizen of Genoa, [son] of the late Giovanni of Quinto.' In another of the same year, 'Domenico Colombo of Genoa.' In one of 1473, 'Domenico Colombo of Genoa, an inhabitant of Savona.' In one, which has no date, are the words, 'the brothers Christopher and Giacomo Colombo, sons and heirs of the late Domenico their father;' and the words 'Christopher and Giacomo, called Diego.' And in one dated 1501, there is this clause; 'said Christopher, Bartholomew, and Giacomo Colombo, sons and heirs of the late Domenico, their father, now for a long time absent from the city and posse of Savona, beyond Pisa and Nice of Provence, and commorant in the parts of Spain, as it has been and is notorious.' In addition to these, it appears, on examining the notarial archives of Genoa, from 1456 to 1489, that mention of the same persons repeatedly occurs, in notarial acts of the day. (See Tiraboschi, p. 227; Bossi, p. 54.) What answer can be given to evidence of this description?

END OF VOL. I.

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