To Return To The Quality And Persons Of His Progenitors; However
Considerable They May Once Have Been, It Is Certain That They Were Reduced
To Poverty And Want, Through The Long Wars And Factions In Lombardy.
I
have not been able to discover in what manner they lived; though in one of
his letters the admiral asserted that his ancestors and himself had always
traded by sea.
While passing through Cuguero, I endeavoured to receive
some information on this subject from two brothers of the Colombi, who
were the richest in those parts, and who were reported to be somewhat
related to him; but the youngest of them being above an hundred years old,
they could give me no information. Neither do I conceive this any
dishonour to us his descendants; as I think it better that all our honour
be derived from his own person, without inquiring whether his father were
a merchant, or a nobleman who kept hawks and hounds. There have been
thousands such in all parts, whose memory was soon lost among their
neighbours and kindred, so that no memorials remain of there ever having
been such men. I am therefore of opinion, that the nobility of such men
would reflect less lustre upon me than the honour I receive from such a
father: And, since his honourable exploits made him stand in no need of
the wealth of predecessors, who though poor were not destitute of virtue,
he ought from his name and worth to have been raised by authors above the
rank of mechanics or peasants.
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