Part 7

It would be out of place here to enter into the complicated arguments in which this question is involved; but I have elsewhere shown[20] on how frail a tenure the claim in question is founded. In the same place I have also traced in detail the mode adopted for giving to the New World the name of Vespucci instead of that of Columbus, who, by the exercise of such transcendently superior qualities had earned for himself that honour. I will here sketch it in brief. Vespucci was an intimate friend of the Giocondi family, one of whom, the celebrated architect, Fra Giovanni Giocondi, who built the bridge of Nôtre Dame at Paris, was the translator into Latin of Vespucci’s letter to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de’ Medici describing his third voyage. A young Alsatian, named Mathias Ringmann, who was at this time pursuing his studies in Paris, appears to have made the acquaintance of this Giocondi and to have carried back with him into Alsace an admiration for Vespucci and his achievements, which showed itself in his editing at Strasbourg in 1505, Giocondi’s translation of Vespucci’s letter, accompanied by some laudatory verses in Latin by himself. Now in the neighbouring province of Lorraine, one of the canons of the cathedral at St. Dié, Walter Lud, who was secretary to René II, Duke of Lorraine, had already for many years established a gymnasium or college under the duke’s auspices, and also a printing-press. Ringmann, better known in literature by the pseudonym of Philesius, became professor of Latin at the college and corrector of the press in the printing-office. On the 25th of April, 1507, _a year after the death of Columbus_, one of the members of this little clique, named Martin Waldseemüller, otherwise known as Hylacomylus, produced from this press a small work entitled _Cosmographiæ Introductio_, to which was appended a Latin translation of Vespucci’s four voyages, as described by himself and addressed to Duke René II, although it can be shown by the contents to have been really intended for Pietro Soderini, Gonfaloniere of Florence, who had been Vespucci’s schoolfellow. In my _Life of Prince Henry the Navigator_, I have ventured to suggest the process by which these letters, intended for another, came to be addressed to Duke René, and that suggestion supplies the solution of some riddles, there treated of, which it would be out of place to speak of here. We have seen the connection of the Giocondi with Vespucci. We have seen, also, the connection of Ringmann with the work of Fra Giovanni Giocondi and his interest in the glory of Vespucci. This interest he infuses into the little circle of St. Dié, and we can imagine their pleasure at having the opportunity of blazoning forth to the world, from their own printing-press, a story which would throw so bright a reflection on the obscurity of their secluded valley. But in the little book thus issued, not only were printed for the first time four voyages of Vespucci, but also a suggestion was made that from his name, Amerigo, should be given the name of “Amerige” or “America” to the newly-discovered western world. In September of the same year, 1507, appeared a re-issue of the same book; and in 1509 a new edition of it was issued from the printing-press of Johann Grüninger of Strasburg. In this same year, 1509, three years before the death of Vespucci, the name of America appears, as if it were already accepted as a well-known denomination, in an anonymous work entitled _Globus Mundi_, printed also at Strasburg. But although this work is anonymous, it was my good fortune to detect from the colophon, in which occur the words “Adelpho Castigatore,” that the source of the suggestion of the name of America in the one case, and of the adoption of the suggestion in the other, are either identical or in close proximity, inasmuch as the already mentioned re-issue of the _Cosmographiæ Introductio_ in 1509, has in the colophon, “Johanne Adelpho Mulicho Argentinensi Castigatore.” Now, Mulicho merely means native of Muhlingen, near Strasburg, and this Adelphus, so named, was a physician established in that city, and reviser of both the one work and the other.

The first place in which we find the name of America used a little further a-field, is in a letter dated Vienna, 1512, from Joachim Vadianus to Rudolphus Agricola, and inserted in the _Pomponius Mela_ of 1518, edited by the former. The expression used is “America discovered by Vesputius.”[21] But although this Vadianus, whose real name was Joachim Watt, writes from Vienna in 1512, I find that he was a native of St. Gall, whence in 1508, being then twenty-four years old, he went to the High School of Vienna. His learned disputations and verses gained him the chair of the professorship of the liberal arts at that school, and he subsequently studied medicine, of which faculty he obtained the doctorate. This attachment to the study of medicine recalls to my mind a fact which awakens a suspicion that he may have been a personal friend of John Adelphus, just referred to, and if so, of the little confraternity of St. Dié. Before Adelphus established himself in Strasburg, he had practised as a physician at Schaffhausen, and this at the time when Joachim Watt was a young man, still resident at St. Gall, which is distant from Schaffhausen seventy English miles, a distance which would offer very little hindrance to Swiss intercommunication. Whether this suspicion be worth anything or no, I advance it as a possible clue to yet further researches which may show the process by which this spurious appellation of America became adopted, through the efforts of a small cluster of men in an obscure corner of France.

The earliest engraved map of the new world yet known as bearing the name of America, is a mappe-monde by Appianus, bearing the date of 1520, annexed to the edition by Camers of the Polyhistoria of Julius Solinus (_Viennæ Austr._, 1520), and a second time to the edition of _Pomponius Mela_ by Vadianus, printed at Basle in 1522. The earliest manuscript map hitherto found bearing that name, is in a most precious collection of drawings by the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, now in Her Majesty’s collections at Windsor, to which, from an examination of its contents, I have assigned the date of 1513-14.[22]

I have thus endeavoured to unravel the intricate story of a great and irreparable injustice. No one can deny to Vespucci the credit of possessing courage, perseverance, and a practical acquaintance with the art of navigation; but he had never been the commander of an expedition, and had it not been for the great initiatory achievement of Columbus, we have no reason to suppose that we should ever have heard his name.

“To say the truth,” as has been well remarked by the illustrious Baron von Humboldt, “Vespucci shone only by reflection from an age of glory. When compared with Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, Bartolomé Dias, and Da Gama, his place is an inferior one. The majesty of great memories seems concentrated in the name of Christopher Columbus. It is the originality of his vast idea, the largeness and fertility of his genius, and the courage which bore up against a long series of misfortunes, which have exalted the Admiral high above all his contemporaries.”

A tardy tribute has been at length paid to his memory by his fellow-citizens of Genoa, and the first stone of a monument in commemoration of his achievements was laid in that city on the 27th of September, 1846, and completed in 1862. There is now serious talk of his canonization.

Among the many so-called portraits of Columbus, too numerous to be detailed here, but for elaborate notices of which the reader is referred to the works mentioned at foot,[23] there is not one that can be regarded as unquestionably authentic. It was at the suggestion of my friend M. Ferdinand Denis, the distinguished Librarian of the Ste. Geneviève in Paris, that I have inserted as the frontispiece to this volume a chromolithograph fac-simile of the St. Christopher on the famous map of Juan de la Cosa, Columbus’s pilot, made in 1500. My friend most reasonably suggests that, in this case, St. Christopher represented Christopher Columbus carrying the Christian faith across the Atlantic, and that the face would be a portrait. In corroboration of his idea, I may quote the words of Herrera, whose possession of the Columbian documents enabled him to speak with accuracy. He says, “Columbus was tall of stature, with a long and imposing visage. His nose was aquiline; his eyes blue; his complexion clear, and having a tendency to a glowing red; the beard and hair red in his youth, but his fatigues early turned them white.” The cap and costume seem also less those of the saint than of the sailor. It is to my late revered and dear friend, His Excellency the Count de Lavradio, that I am indebted for procuring the coloured photograph from the original map on his visit to Madrid in 1869. The chromolithograph has been prepared in Berlin.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Society possesses, in my _Early Voyages to Terra Australis_, printed in 1859, the evidence of these discoveries; and in my _Prince Henry the Navigator_, published in 1868, will be seen the procession of these discoveries from the Prince’s efforts.

[2] The _li_ is about one-tenth of the common league.

[3] The most strenuous advocate for the truth of the tradition that America was discovered by Prince Madoc, was Dr. John Williams of Sydenham, who wrote two tracts on the subject in the year 1791 and 1792, which, if betraying a little of the bias of prejudice, yet manifest a degree of research that does great credit to his industry and zeal.

[4] A copy of this map is given in the second vol. of Sastre’s _Mercurio Italico_, Lond. 1789, 8vo., and a photograph of it was published in Venice in 1869 by H. F. and M. Münster.

[5] The work quoted is Cordeyro’s _Historia Insulana das Ilhas a Portugal sugeytas no Oceano Occidental_, Lisbon 1717.

[6] For a demonstration that the discovery of the east coast of North America was made by Sebastian Cabot in 1497, a year before Columbus reached the terra firma, I must refer the reader to a paper of mine read before the Society of Antiquaries on May 5, 1870, and now being printed for the _Archæologia_.

[7] Humboldt has fallen into an error in saying that Joachim Lelewel, in his _Pisma pomniejsze geogr. historyczné_, 1814, has recently called up fresh attention to this Polish pilot. The editor has examined the work carefully from beginning to end, and does not find the name even once mentioned, although the page to which reference is made contains allusions to early discoveries.

[8] A copy of this globe is given in Dr. F. W. Ghillany’s _Geschichte des Seefahrers Ritter Martin Behaim_, Nürnberg, 1853, 4to.

[9] _Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo_, cap. iv.

[10] “_Siendo yo nacido en Genova”; and “mando al dicho Don Diego, mi hijo, a la persona que heredare el dicho mayorazgo que tenga y sostenga siempre en la Ciudad de Genova una persona de nuestro linage ... pues que della salí y en ella nací._”

[11] Another Caseneuve, probably of this family, is said by De Bry to have been captain of the fourth expedition of the French to Mexico, in the year 1567.

[12] Las Casas, in his _History of the Indies_, tells us distinctly that Columbus derived much information from Perestrello’s maps and papers, and adds that “in order to acquaint himself practically with the method pursued by the Portuguese in navigating to the coast of Guinea, he sailed several times with them as if he had been one of them.” Las Casas says that he learned this from the admiral’s son Diego, adding that “some time before his famous voyage Columbus resided in Madeira, where news of fresh discoveries was constantly arriving, and this,” he says, “appeared to have been the occasion of Christopher Columbus coming to Spain, and the beginning of the discovery of this great world” (America).

[13] Humboldt, _Examen Critique_, vol. ii, p. 246-251.

[14] It was shortly after this period that Bartholomew Columbus was sent by his brother to king Henry VII, to offer his services in a voyage of navigation; the king is said to have received the offer “con allegro volto”—“with a cheerful countenance”; but his acceptance of the proposition was rendered null by Columbus having in the interim attached himself to the service of queen Isabella.

[15] Vide _Athenæum_ for 1846, page 1274.

[16] While agreeing with Captain Becher in the identification of Guanahani with Watling’s Island, I find that officer entirely at issue with the Diary of Columbus in making him anchor near the N.E. end of the island, and then sail round its northern point. In a detailed Paper on this subject, read by me on the 16th of September of this year, at the Meeting of the Geographical Section of the British Association at Liverpool, I had the honour of proving for the first time that the first anchorage of Columbus in the New World was off the S.E. point of Watling’s Island, a position which entirely tallies with all his movements as mentioned in the Diary.

[17] The following remark by Mr. George Sumner was kindly supplied to me by that gentleman in 1847, as an interesting item connected with this period of the history of Columbus:—

From the brilliant description given by Irving and Prescott of the arrival of Columbus at Barcelona, and of his reception there by the Catholic sovereigns, it seemed to me as probable that some contemporary account of this arrival and reception, as well as of the sojourn of Columbus, might be found at Barcelona; and, while there in the spring of 1844, I searched the admirably arranged archives of Aragon, and also those of the city of Barcelona, for such notice, but without any success. I could not so much as find a mention of the name of Columbus.

The _Dietaria_, or day book, of Barcelona, notices the arrival of ambassadors, the movements of the king and queen, and even records incidents of as trifling note as those which in our day serve to fill the columns of a court journal; yet not a word appears in regard to Columbus.

How account for this silence? Is it another evidence of the old feeling of jealousy between the Aragonese and Castilians, of which the student of Spanish history meets so many proofs? Such was the opinion to which I was forced, and such I found also was the interpretation given to it by the intelligent Archevero, who had himself gone over this ground a few years since at the request of Navarrete. The voyage of Columbus was undertaken at the expense and for the benefit of the crown of Castile. It was not to Aragon, but to Castilla and Leon, that Columbus gave a new world, and as the Aragonese did not profit directly by this gift, they saw fit to treat it and its donor with scornful silence.

In one of the notes to the great work of Capmany,—_Memorias sobre la ciudad de Barcelona_, 1789—he gives a list of distinguished men who have enjoyed the hospitality of the city, and among them places the name of Columbus, making no allusion however to any contemporary account of his sojourn there.

In the _Dietaria_ of Barcelona, under date 15th November 1492, is the following entry:—“The king, queen, and primogenito, entered to-day the city, and lodged in the palace of the bishop of Urgil in the Calle Ancha.” This is followed by a description of the festivities which followed. “1493, 4th February.—King and queen went to Alserrat. 14th—King and queen returned to Barcelona.”

As there appears no notice of the king having changed his abode after taking possession of the palace in the Calle Ancha, it was probably there that Columbus recounted to Isabella his adventures and his success. The American pilgrim may still, in the beautiful Alcazar of the Moorish kings, recall the figure of the discoverer of his land, standing in the presence of the Catholic sovereigns of Spain;—in the cotton-spinning town of Barcelona the besom of modern improvement has long since swept away the palace of the bishop of Urgil.

[18] It is well known that Columbus was preceded in the discovery of terra firma by John Cabot in 1497.

[19] I am indebted to Mr. George Sumner for the following copy of the inscription on the tomb of Fernando Columbus, in the pavement of the cathedral of Seville, and for the note which accompanies it:—

“Aqui yaze el M. Magnifico S. D. Hernando Colon, el qual aplicó y gastó toda su vida y hazienda en aumento de las letras, y juntar y perpetuar en esta ciudad todos sus libros de todas las ciencias, que en su tiempo halló y en reducirlo a quatro libros. Falleció en esta ciudad a 12 de Julio de 1539 de edad de 50 años 9 meses y 14 dias, fue hijo del valeroso y memorable S. D. Christ. Colon primero Almirante que descubrió las Yndias y nuevo mundo en vida de los Cat. R. D. Fernando y D. Ysabel de gloriosa memoria a 11 de Oct. de 1492 con tres galeras y 90 personas, y partió del puerto de Palos a descubrirlas a 3 de Agosto antes, y Bolvió a Castilla con victoria a 7 de Maio del Año Siguiente y tornó despues otras dos veces ā poblar lo que descubrió. Falleció en Valladolid à 20 de Agosto de 1506 años.

“ROGAD A DIOS POR ELLOS.”

Beneath this is described, in a circle, a globe, presenting the western and part of the eastern hemispheres, surmounted by a pair of compasses. Within the border of the circle is the same inscription as that which was placed over Columbus himself at the Cartuja, with the exception of the word “mundo” being placed before, instead of after, the word “nuevo”.

Throughout all Spain I know of no other inscription to the memory of Columbus. At Valladolid, where he died, and where his body lay for some years, there is none that I could discover, neither is there any trace of any at the Cartuja, near Seville, to which his body was afterwards transferred, and in which his brother was buried.

It is a striking confirmation of the reproach of negligence, in regard to the memory of this great man, that in this solitary inscription in old Spain, the date of his death should be inaccurately given.

G. S.

[20] See _Life of Prince Henry the Navigator_, pp. 367 to 379.

[21] “Americam a Vespuccio repertam.”

[22] See _Archæologia_, vol. xl, 1866.

[23] Carderera (Valentin): Informe sobre los retratos de Cristóbal Colon, su trage y escudo de Armas. Imprenta de la Real Academia de la historia. Madrid. 1851. Small 4to.

Feuillet de Conches (F). “Portraits de Christophe Colomb,” extrait de la Revue contemporaine, T. xxv, 95ᵐᵉ livraison in 8ᵒ, and in the “Revue Archéologique,” an article by Mr. Isidore de Lœwenstern, on the Mémoires of MM. Jomard et Carderera respecting the portraits of Columbus.

A POEM

COMPOSED BY GIULIANO DATI IN 1493,

[FROM COLUMBUS’S FIRST LETTER,]

And sung in Florence to announce the discovery of the New World.

LA LETTERA DELLISOLE CHE HA TROVATO NUOVAMENTE IL RE DISPAGNA.

Omnipotente idio, che tucto regge, donami gratia chio possa cantare allaude tua & di tu sancta legge, cosa che piaccia achi stara ascoltare maxim al popol tuo & alla tua grege, el qual nō resta mai magnificare, como al ꝕsēte ha fatto nella Spagna, delle isole trovate cosa magna.

Io ho gia lecto degli antichi regi & principi signori stanti in terra, del re della soria & facti egregi, & lebactaglie loro & la gran guerra, & delle giostre gli acquistati pregi di Bello lessi & selmio dir nō erra, de persi, medi, & degli ateniensi, Dāfinione & gli altri egregi immēsi.

Et de lacedemoni le grandi entrate, di Labores di Oreste & daltri assai, del Principe Gisippo cose late, come si legge so che inteso lhai, di Tholomeo piu cose smisurate, & del gran Faraone come saprai. di judici & de regi de giudei, che afaccia parlavano con lei.

Et de latini lessi, & degli albani, & di quel fiesolano Re Atalante, de regi & consolati de romani, & de tribuni lessi cose tante, dedeci viri electi tanti humani, & degli īmperadori potrei dir quāte cose chi tengo nel mio pecto fisse. ꝓ che sarian nel dir troppo plisse.

che sio volesse tucti efacti dire disopra nominati & altri assai, certo farei latua mente stupire maximi alcuni che nō ludiron mai, q̃ste cose alte degne magne et mire che se tu leggi tu letroverrai invernacula lingua & ī latino, si come narra un decto dagostino.

Ma chi potessi leggere nel futuro duno Alexādro magno papa sexto, della sua creatione il modo puro, grato a ciascūo anessū mai molesto, & del primanno suo il magno muro, che nō glipuo nessuno esser infesto sesto alexādro pappa borgia ispano, justo nel giudicare & tucto humano.

Et chi leggesi poi del sua Ferrādo christianissimo rege xꝕiani che lisabella tiene al suo comādo, unica sposa sua, che nelle mani tanti reami indota allui donando, gliha dati ītendi ben cō pēsier sani, che glie re della spagna & di castella & di leon tolecto villa bella.

Simile re di cordube chiamato, & poi dimutia re mipar che sia & digalitia re incoronato, dalgarbe re & tienla in sua balia, re digranata sai che conquistato diragona signor & divalēzia pia conte mipar che sia dibarzalona, & disicilia re isola buona.

Di quāta altura principe mipare & disardigna tien la signoria, & di corsica sifa simil chiamare, di q̃lla parte che glha in sua balia & conte di serdeina appellare, & dirosello conte par che sia simile re mi pare che dimaiorica, l’altro reame e poi della minorica.

Et poi signor dibiscaia & molina, delalsesiras signor chiamato, dellasturias terra peregrina, ꝓ tucto il mondo q̃sto e nominato, tucto fedele della legge divina, chi altro crede e mal dallui trattato come sivede che nō e mai satio, dimarrani giudei far ogni stratio.

Pero il signore lha semꝕ īvicto facto, che si puo uno agusto nominare, ogni sua lega triegua legge o pacto, mai nō sividde dallui maculare lui nō derise mai savio ne macto limosine per dio sempre fa fare della chiesa zeloso a tucte lhore come fedel, xꝕiano, & pio signore.

Come mōstra lamagna ābascieria, che glha mandato adar lubidiēza al suo sesto Alexādro anima pia che mai sivide tal magnificenza in tucte cose la sua signoria dimōstrā aver fra gli altri grā potēza ī q̃sti magni ābascidor sispechi chi nol credessi nōcti ꝕsti orecchi.

Se io volessi e sua titoli dire, o auditore io ti potrei tediare, de sua reame io ti farei stupire, sol que che lisabelela volse dare indota a q̃sto Re o questo sire, quando luso ꝓ marito pigliare q̃sta isabella e dispagna Regina, honesta doña savia & peregrina.

Hor vo tornar almio primo tractato dellisole trovate incognite a te in q̃sto anno presente q̃sto e stato nel millequatrocento novātatre, uno che xꝕofan colōbo chiamato, che e stato in corte del prefato Re ha molte volte questo stimolato, el Re ch’cerchi acrescere il suo stato.

Dicendo, signor mio, io vo cercare ꝓ che comprēdo che ce molta terra che nostri antichi nō seppō trovare & spero dacquistarle senza guerra, se vostra signoria si vuol degnare ajuto darmi che so que non erra lamente mia spera nel signore chimbrieve cidara rengo & honore.

Voi mectetē la roba io la persona non sara vostra signoria disfacta, ispesse volte la fortuna dona ꝓ picol prezo assai & non e macta che sua sperāza tucto il mōdo sprona savio e colui che dicercar sadacta ꝑ che dice elvāgelio ī legge nuova che chicercādo va spesso truova.

Hō poi ch’ lebbe ilre piu volte udito & facto carisposta sorridendo xꝕofano ripigliando come ardito q̃sto āno il re secōdo ch’ io cōprēdo prese di dargli aiuto per partito & disse il tuo sperare oggi cōmēdo piglia una nave cō due carovelle di q̃ste mie armate le piu belle.