Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery Part 1

Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery.

by Justin Winsor.

CHAPTER I.

SOURCES, AND THE GATHERERS OF THEM.

In considering the sources of information, which are original, as distinct from those which are derivative, we must place first in importance the writings of Columbus himself. We may place next the doc.u.mentary proofs belonging to private and public archives.

[Sidenote: His prolixity.]

Harrisse points out that Columbus, in his time, acquired such a popular reputation for prolixity that a court fool of Charles the Fifth linked the discoverer of the Indies with Ptolemy as twins in the art of blotting. He wrote as easily as people of rapid impulses usually do, when they are not restrained by habits of orderly deliberation. He has left us a ma.s.s of jumbled thoughts and experiences, which, unfortunately, often perplex the historian, while they of necessity aid him.

[Sidenote: His writings.]

Ninety-seven distinct pieces of writing by the hand of Columbus either exist or are known to have existed. Of such, whether memoirs, relations, or letters, sixty-four are preserved in their entirety. These include twenty-four which are wholly or in part in his own hand. All of them have been printed entire, except one which is in the Biblioteca Colombina, in Seville, the _Libro de las Proficias_, written apparently between 1501 and 1504, of which only part is in Columbus's own hand. A second doc.u.ment, a memoir addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella, before June, 1497, is now in the collection of the Marquis of San Roman at Madrid, and was printed for the first time by Harrisse in his _Christophe Colomb_. A third and fourth are in the public archives in Madrid, being letters addressed to the Spanish monarchs: one without date in 1496 or 1497, or perhaps earlier, in 1493, and the other February 6, 1502; and both have been printed and given in facsimile in the _Cartas de Indias_, a collection published by the Spanish government in 1877. The majority of the existing private papers of Columbus are preserved in Spain, in the hands of the present representative of Columbus, the Duke of Veragua, and these have all been printed in the great collection of Navarrete. They consist, as enumerated by Harrisse in his _Columbus and the Bank of Saint George_, of the following pieces: a single letter addressed about the year 1500 to Ferdinand and Isabella; four letters addressed to Father Gaspar Gorricio,--one from San Lucar, April 4, 1502; a second from the Grand Canaria, May, 1502; a third from Jamaica, July 7, 1503; and the last from Seville, January 4, 1505;--a memorial addressed to his son, Diego, written either in December, 1504, or in January, 1505; and eleven letters addressed also to Diego, all from Seville, late in 1504 or early in 1505.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ma.n.u.sCRIPT OF COLUMBUS.

[From a MS. in the Biblioteca Colombina, given in Harrisse's _Notes on Columbus_.]]

[Sidenote: All in Spanish.]

Without exception, the letters of Columbus of which we have knowledge were written in Spanish. Harrisse has conjectured that his stay in Spain made him a better master of that language than the poor advantages of his early life had made him of his mother tongue.

[Sidenote: His privileges.]

Columbus was more careful of the doc.u.mentary proofs of his t.i.tles and privileges, granted in consequence of his discoveries, than of his own writings. He had more solicitude to protect, by such records, the pecuniary and t.i.tular rights of his descendants than to preserve those personal papers which, in the eyes of the historian, are far more valuable. These attested evidences of his rights were for a while inclosed in an iron chest, kept at his tomb in the monastery of Las Cuevas, near Seville, and they remained down to 1609 in the custody of the Carthusian friars of that convent. At this date, Nuno de Portugallo having been declared the heir to the estate and t.i.tles of Columbus, the papers were transferred to his keeping; and in the end, by legal decision, they pa.s.sed to that Duke of Veragua who was the grandfather of the present duke, who in due time inherited these public memorials, and now preserves them in Madrid.

[Sidenote: _Codex Diplomaticus._]

In 1502 there were copies made in book form, known as the _Codex Diplomaticus_, of these and other pertinent doc.u.ments, raising the number from thirty-six to forty-four. These copies were attested at Seville, by order of the Admiral, who then aimed to place them so that the record of his deeds and rights should not be lost. Two copies seem to have been sent by him through different channels to Nicolo Oderigo, the Genoese amba.s.sador in Madrid; and in 1670 both of these copies came from a descendant of that amba.s.sador as a gift to the Republic of Genoa.

Both of these later disappeared from its archives. A third copy was sent to Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal, the factor of Columbus in Espanola, and this copy is not now known. A fourth copy was deposited in the monastery of Las Cuevas, near Seville, to be later sent to Father Gorricio. It is very likely this last copy which is mentioned by Edward Everett in a note to his oration at Plymouth (Boston, 1825, p. 64), where, referring to the two copies sent to Oderigo as the only ones made by the order of Columbus, as then understood, he adds: "Whether the two ma.n.u.scripts thus mentioned be the only ones in existence may admit of doubt. When I was in Florence, in 1818, a small folio ma.n.u.script was brought to me, written on parchment, apparently two or three centuries old, in binding once very rich, but now worn, containing a series of doc.u.ments in Latin and Spanish, with the following t.i.tle on the first blank page: 'Treslado de las Bullas del Papa Alexandro VI., de la concession de las Indias y los t.i.tulos, privilegios y cedulas reales, que se dieron a Christoval Colon.' I was led by this t.i.tle to purchase the book." After referring to the _Codice_, then just published, he adds: "I was surprised to find my ma.n.u.script, as far as it goes, nearly identical in its contents with that of Genoa, supposed to be one of the only two in existence. My ma.n.u.script consists of almost eighty closely written folio pages, which coincide precisely with the text of the first thirty-seven doc.u.ments, contained in two hundred and forty pages of the Genoese volume."

Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng says of the Everett ma.n.u.script, which he had examined before he wrote of it in the _North American Review_, October, 1825, that, "so far as it goes, it is a much more perfect one than the Oderigo ma.n.u.script, as several pa.s.sages which Spotorno was unable to decipher in the latter are very plain and legible in the former, which indeed is in most complete preservation." I am sorry to learn from Dr. William Everett that this ma.n.u.script is not at present easily accessible.

Of the two copies named above as having disappeared from the archives of Genoa, Harrisse at a late day found one in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris. It had been taken to Paris in 1811, when Napoleon I. caused the archives of Genoa to be sent to that city, and it was not returned when the chief part of the doc.u.ments was recovered by Genoa in 1815. The other copy was in 1816 among the papers of Count Cambiaso, and was bought by the Sardinian government, and given to the city of Genoa, where it is now deposited in a marble _custodia_, which, surmounted by a bust of Columbus, stands at present in the main hall of the palace of the munic.i.p.ality. This "custodia" is a pillar, in which a door of gilded bronze closes the receptacle that contains the relics, which are themselves inclosed in a bag of Spanish leather, richly embossed. A copy of this last doc.u.ment was made and placed in the archives at Turin.

[Sidenote: Their publication by Spotorno.]

These papers, as selected by Columbus for preservation, were edited by Father Spotorno at Genoa, in 1823, in a volume called _Codice diplomatico Colombo-Americano_, and published by authority of the state.

There was an English edition at London, in 1823; and a Spanish at Havana, in 1867. Spotorno was reprinted, with additional matter, at Genoa, in 1857, as _La Tavola di Bronzo, il pallio di seta, ed il Codice Colomboamericano, nuovamente ill.u.s.trati per cura di Giuseppe Banchero_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GENOA CUSTODIA.]

[Sidenote: Letters to the Bank of St. George.]

This Spotorno volume included two additional letters of Columbus, not yet mentioned, and addressed, March 21, 1502, and December 27, 1504, to Oderigo. They were found pasted in the duplicate copy of the papers given to Genoa, and are now preserved in a gla.s.s case, in the same custodia. A third letter, April 2, 1502, addressed to the governors of the bank of St. George, was omitted by Spotorno; but it is given by Harrisse in his _Columbus and the Bank of Saint George_ (New York, 1888). This last was one of two letters, which Columbus sent, as he says, to the bank, but the other has not been found. The history of the one preserved is traced by Harrisse in the work last mentioned, and there are lithographic and photographic reproductions of it. Harrisse's work just referred to was undertaken to prove the forgery of a ma.n.u.script which has within a few years been offered for sale, either as a duplicate of the one at Genoa, or as the original. When represented as the original, the one at Genoa is p.r.o.nounced a facsimile of it. Harrisse seems to have proved the forgery of the one which is seeking a purchaser.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COLUMBUS'S LETTER, APRIL 2, 1502, ADDRESSED TO THE BANK OF ST. GEORGE IN GENOA.

[Reduced in size by photographic process.]]

[Sidenote: Marginalia.]

[Sidenote: Toscanelli's letter.]

Some ma.n.u.script marginalia found in three different books, used by Columbus and preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina at Seville, are also remnants of the autographs of Columbus. These marginal notes are in copies of aeneas Sylvius's _Historia Rerum ubique gestarum_ (Venice, 1477) of a Latin version of Marco Polo (Antwerp, 1485?), and of Pierre d'Ailly's _De Imagine Mundi_ (perhaps 1490), though there is some suspicion that these last-mentioned notes may be those of Bartholomew, and not of Christopher, Columbus. These books have been particularly described in Jose Silverio Jorrin's _Varios Autografos ineditos de Cristobal Colon_, published at Havana in 1888. In May, 1860, Jose Maria Fernandez y Velasco, the librarian of the Biblioteca Colombina, discovered a Latin text of the letter of Toscanelli, written by Columbus in this same copy of aeneas Sylvius. He believed it a Latin version of a letter originally written in Italian; but it was left for Harrisse to discover that the Latin was the original draft. A facsimile of this script is in Harrisse's _Fernando Colon_ (Seville, 1871), and specimens of the marginalia were first given by Harrisse in his _Notes on Columbus_, whence they are reproduced in part in the _Narrative and Critical History of America_ (vol. ii.).

[Sidenote: Harrisse's memorial of Columbus.]

It is understood that, under the auspices of the Italian government, Harrisse is now engaged in collating the texts and preparing a national memorial issue of the writings of Columbus, somewhat in accordance with a proposition which he made to the Minister of Public Instruction at Rome in his _Le Quatrieme Centenaire de la Decouverte du Nouveau Monde_ (Genoa, 1887).

[Sidenote: Columbus's printed works.]

There are references to printed works of Columbus which I have not seen, as a _Declaracion de Tabla Navigatoria_, annexed to a treatise, _Del Uso de la Carta de Navegar_, by Dr. Grajales: a _Tratado de las Cinco Zonas Habitables_, which Humboldt found it very difficult to find.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANNOTATIONS BY COLUMBUS ON THE _IMAGO MUNDI_.

[From Harrisse's _Notes on Columbus_.]]

[Sidenote: His lost writings.]

Of the ma.n.u.scripts of Columbus which are lost, there are traces still to be discovered. One letter, which he dated off the Canaries, February 15, 1493, and which must have contained some account of his first voyage, is only known to us from an intimation of Marino Sanuto that it was included in the _Chronica Delphinea_. It is probably from an imperfect copy of this last in the library at Brescia, that the letter in question was given in the book's third part (A. D. 1457-1500), which is now missing. We know also, from a letter still preserved (December 27, 1504), that there must be a letter somewhere, if not destroyed, sent by him respecting his fourth voyage, to Messer Gian Luigi Fieschi, as is supposed, the same who led the famous conspiracy against the house of Doria. Other letters, Columbus tells us, were sent at times to the Signora Madonna Catalina, who was in some way related to Fieschi.

In 1780, Francesco Pesaro, examining the papers of the Council of Ten, at Venice, read there a memoir of Columbus, setting forth his maritime project; or at least Pesaro was so understood by Marin, who gives the story at a later day in the seventh volume of his history of Venetian commerce. As Harrisse remarks, this paper, if it could be discovered, would prove the most interesting of all Columbian doc.u.ments, since it would probably be found to fall within a period, from 1473 to 1487, when we have little or nothing authentic respecting Columbus's life. Indeed, it might happily elucidate a stage in the development of the Admiral's cosmographical views of which we know nothing.

We have the letter which Columbus addressed to Alexander VI., in February, 1502, as preserved in a copy made by his son Ferdinand; but no historical student has ever seen the Commentary, which he is said to have written after the manner of Caesar, recounting the haps and mishaps of the first voyage, and which he is thought to have sent to the ruling Pontiff. This act of duty, if done after his return from his last voyage, must have been made to Julius the Second, not to Alexander.

[Sidenote: Journal of his first voyage.]

Irving and others seem to have considered that this Caesarian performance was in fact, the well-known journal of the first voyage; but there is a good deal of difficulty in identifying that which we only know in an abridged form, as made by Las Casas, with the narrative sent or intended to be sent to the Pope.

Ferdinand, or the writer of the _Historie_, later to be mentioned, it seems clear, had Columbus's journal before him, though he excuses himself from quoting much from it, in order to avoid wearying the reader.

The original "journal" seems to have been in 1554 still in the possession of Luis Colon. It had not, accordingly, at that date been put among the treasures of the Biblioteca Colombina. Thus it may have fallen, with Luis's other papers, to his nephew and heir, Diego Colon y Pravia, who in 1578 entrusted them to Luis de Cardona. Here we lose sight of them.

[Sidenote: Abridged by Las Casas.]

Las Casas's abridgment in his own handwriting, however, has come down to us, and some entries in it would seem to indicate that Las Casas abridged a copy, and not the original. It was, up to 1886, in the library of the Duke of Orsuna, in Madrid, and was at that date bought by the Spanish government. While it was in the possession of Orsuna, it was printed by Varnhagen, in his _Verdadera Guanahani_ (1864). It was clearly used by Las Casas in his own _Historia_, and was also in the hands of Ferdinand, when he wrote, or outlined, perhaps, what now pa.s.ses for the life of his father, and Ferdinand's statements can sometimes correct or qualify the text in Las Casas. There is some reason to suppose that Herrera may have used the original. Las Casas tells us that in some parts, and particularly in describing the landfall and the events immediately succeeding, he did not vary the words of the original. This Las Casas abridgment was in the archives of the Duke del Infantado, when Navarrete discovered its importance, and edited it as early as 1791, though it was not given to the public till Navarrete published his _Coleccion_ in 1825. When this journal is read, even as we have it, it is hard to imagine that Columbus could have intended so disjointed a performance to be an imitation of the method of Caesar's _Commentaries_.

The American public was early given an opportunity to judge of this, and of its importance. It was by the instigation of George Ticknor that Samuel Kettell made a translation of the text as given by Navarrete, and published it in Boston in 1827, as a _Personal Narrative of the first Voyage of Columbus to America, from a Ma.n.u.script recently discovered in Spain_.

[Sidenote: Descriptions of his first voyage.]