been about equally at home with Peter the Hermit or Copernicus, Godfrey of Boulogne or Galileo. While he challenged philosophy at every point where she appeared to conflict with his cherished theories, in matters of religion he yielded a blind, unreasoning faith. To him a dream was a revelation. In his sleeping visions he heard a voice that to him was the voice of God. yourself in the midst of a city of prisons. | paladin and a philosopher, he would have But as you catch frequent glimpses of spacious courts and stately colonnades, grand marble stairways, broad sunny terraces, and beautiful gardens adorned with fountains and statuary, and all abloom with the orange or magnolia, you look upward and around, surprised to find yourself instead in a city of palaces, weather-stained and decayed it may be, but truly palatial, with walls massive enough for a medieval castle, and with as many stories as Dante's Paradise. Few men belong less to the age in which they lived than Columbus. In truth, he can scarcely be said to belong to any age. Thoroughly imbued with the spirit of chivalry, he was a Knight Templar who had lost his way amidst the romantic cycles of the His piety, though deep and fervent, was nevertheless tinctured with the superstition of his times. He engages in every important enterprise in the name of the "Holy Trinity," whether it be a voyage of discovery or the shipment of a cargo of slaves to be sold in the shambles of Seville. If, however, he enslaves untutored savages, it is with a view REPUTED BIRTH-PLACE OF COLUMBUS. to Christianizing them-such is his implicit faith in the saving power of baptism and the efficacy of the holy wafer. At a time when the popular imagination had not thoroughly purged itself of the legendary lore of fairies and salamanders, hippogriffs and anthropophagi, dog-faced women and lionbodied men, flying islands and fountains of perpetual youth, it is not surprising that Columbus should have seen "mermaids," though "not so like ladies as they are painted," or should become the bearer of dispatches to that mythical potentate Prester John, or, fancying he had discovered the river that flowed from the fountain of the tree of life, should have located the terrestrial paradise upon the apex of the "pearshaped" earth, far above the "heats and frosts and storms" of this lower world, like the enchanted gardens of Armida in the Fortunate Isles. It is somewhat surprising, however, in view of the apprehensive fears of his superstitious crew, that on his first voyage he should have set sail on a Friday, and not a little remarkable that he should have discovered America, and returned again to the port of departure, all on the same unlucky day. In the life of Columbus, so full of illusions and strange vicissitudes, there is a striking disparity between the ends he aimed at and those he actually accomplished. Like Saul, the son of Kish, he went out in search of his father's asses, and found a kingdom. The son of a wool-comber, with the key-note of a grand discovery ringing in his brain, he emblazons on his shield the royal arms of Castile and Leon. His favorite dream had been to find a direct route westward to the rich and populous realms of Kublai Khan, and he discovered a new world instead, though he died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his achievement. He had stipulated with the Spanish sovereigns, in the event of his success, for honors and emoluments that were regarded at first as absurdly extravagant. But if he insists on a tenth of all the profits arising from his discoveries, it is not in his own personal interest, but that he may obtain the means for fitting out an expedition for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre and the evangelization of the heathen. And yet at a time when he had vowed to furnish an army of 4000 horse and 50,000 foot for a crusade against the infidel Turk, he, who had "staked both soul and body on his success," had no resort but an inn, and was, for the most part, without the wherewithal to pay his bill; while it was reserved for another to confer his name upon the continent he had discovered: "a fine example," as Voltaire remarks, "of the quid pro quos of glory." He went out in quest of gold, and discovered tobacco, the "divine weed" of Spensera discovery that has proved more productive, financially and commercially, than all the mines of Mexico or Peru. He sought to Christianize the untutored Indians, and thereby elevate them in the scale of modern civilization; but the lust, cruelty, and rapac ity of his followers transformed a paradise of almost primeval beauty and simplicity into a land of cruel bondage, desolation, and death. But whoever he is or whatever he does; whether a penitent at the confessional or a suppliant at court, a desperate adventurer or a successful discoverer, a viceroy of the Indies or a prisoner in chains; whether chanting a Salva Regina or performing a pilgrimage to the shrine of our Lady of Guadalupe; whether quelling a mutinous crew, or combating a junto of cosmographical pedants, or curbing a cabal of Spanish hidalgos; whether engaged in piratical expeditions against the infidel or erecting wooden crosses on every headland of the New World-he is ever inspired with the same glowing enthusiasm-that sublime fervor of an ardent imagination that dignified his failures scarcely less than his success, and shed a halo of romance around the simplest of his acts as well as the grandest of his achievements. While seven cities disputed the honor of being the birth-place of the divine Homer, and an almost equal number claim the nativity of the scarcely less divine Tasso, Columbus bears away the palm from both. Genoa, Cogoleto, Savona, Nervi, Piacenza, Cuccaro, Monterosso, and Quinto do not exhaust the list of ambitious cities and villages that aspire to the glory of having given to the world the Corypheus of Genoese heroes. And still another rival claim ant has recently appeared. We see it stated, on the authority of the Revue Politique et Littéraire, that documents have lately been discovered in the island of Corsica and city of Calvi, purporting to be the original register of birth and baptism of Columbus, in which it is expressly affirmed that he was a native of that city. In the absence of similar documents to be found elsewhere, BOOM WHERE COLUMBUS 18 SAID TO HAVE BEEN BORN. this would appear to open up again the whole of this vexed question. The uncertainty in which the early life of Columbus is involved is the more to be regretted, as Humboldt observes, when one remembers all that the historians have so minutely preserved relative to the life of the dog Becerillo or the elephant Abulababat that Haroun-al-Raschid presented to Charlemagne. Without entering, however, upon the discussion of a question that would occupy the space of a score of magazine articles, we may say that the claims of Genoa, and those of Cogoleto, a village about fifteen miles distant from the former, on the Ligurian coast, appear to be the best. The will of Columbus, not long since discovered, seems to settle the point conclusively in favor of Genoa; but as its authenticity has been called in question, we have deemed it best, in furnishing our illustrations, to give the rival claims of Cogoleto the benefit of the doubt; the more so as the inscriptions found here upon the façade of his traditional birth-place are said to be the only ones in all Liguria relating to the birth of the great navigator. Of these, the following, in Italian, dates back to December 2, 1650, and is subscribed by Anthony Columbus, who appears to have been a priest: "Con generoso ardir dall' Arca all' onde "Li 2 Dicembre, 1650." Then follow the two Latin epigraphs: "Hospes siste gradum: Fuit Hic lux prima Columbo Orbe Viro majori; Heu! nimis arcta Domus!" "Unus erat mundus; duo sunt ait Iste, fuere." The room that is shown as the one where the great discoverer was born, and of which we furnish a faithful illustration, exhibits in its broken brick pavement evident traces of the vandalism of relic hunters; while the peasant woman who now occupies and exhibits it informed us, with a great deal of Italian fervor, that an American tourist had recently carried off one of the doors bodily. There is also preserved in the town-hall of Cogoleto what claims to be a faithful portrait of Columbus, more than three hundred years old, the large frame of which is covered with the autographs of ambitious travelers vainly seeking a cheap immortality. One of the objects of interest that will first arrest the attention of the tourist on his arrival in Genoa from the north will be the monument erected to Columbus in front of the railway station-a rather unsuccess- The two-story house on the opposite side of the square, with a bassrelief and inscription relating to the discovery of America, is not unfrequently mistaken for the traditional birth-place of Columbus. This, however, is to be found not far from the prison of San Andrea, in a narrow alley-the Vico di Morcento. Whatever doubt may exist as to Columbus having been born here, it is quite certain that his father once lived here, and carried on his trade as a woolcarder a fact that is attested by the commemorative marble tablet inserted in the wall near the main entrance. The American tourist will hardly fail to visit the Municipal Palace, where, among other objects of interest, will be found a fine mosaic portrait, the Codice Diplomatico, and some autograph letters of Columbus. The portrait is the gift of Venice to Genoa, sent, it may be, as a peaceoffering to her ancient rival on her annexation to the great sisterhood of states that now constitute the Kingdom of Italy. Inclosed in an elegant frame of ebony inlaid with ivory, and superior as a work of art, it is a gift well worthy of the giver, and in the absence of any authentic likeness of the illustrious hero, is probably as reliable as any other extant. The Codice Diplomatico, sometimes called the Portfolio, contains authenticated copies, beautifully engrossed on parchment, of the royal letters patent corferring upon Columbus his various titles, dignities, and privileges, together with other important letters and public documents. Among the latter is the famous bull of partition of Pope Alexander VI., establishing an imaginary line drawn from the north to the south pole, which was to determine the question of ter MONUMENT TO COLUMBUS. |