Of the Country, Original, and Name of Admiral Christopher Columbus; with
other particulars of his Life previous to his arrival in Portugal.
It is a material circumstance in the history of a great man to make known
his country and original, as those are best esteemed in the world who are
derived from noble cities and born of illustrious parents. Wherefore some
would have engaged me to prove that the admiral my father was honourably
descended, although his parents, through the fickleness of fortune, had
fallen into great poverty. Those persons required me to prove that his
ancestors descended from Junius Colomus, who, as Tacitus relates,
brought Mithridates a prisoner to Rome, for which service he was raised
by the Roman people to the consulate. They would likewise have induced me
to give an account at large of the two illustrious Colomi his
predecessors, who gained a great victory over the Venetians, as recorded
by Sabellius, and which shall be mentioned in this work. But considering
that my father seemed to have been peculiarly chosen by the Almighty for
the great work which he performed, and may be considered in some measure
as an apostle of the Lord by carrying the gospel among the heathen; and
that the other apostles were called upon from the sea and the rivers, and
not from courts and palaces, by him whose progenitors were of the royal
blood of the Jews, yet who was pleased that they should be in a low and
unknown estate: And seeing that God had gifted my father with those
personal qualities which so well fitted him for so great an undertaking,
he was himself inclined that his country and original might remain hidden
and obscure.
Some who would throw a cloud upon his fame, have alleged that he was from
Nerni, others from Cuguero, and others from Bugiesco, all small towns in
the Riviera of Genoa: While others again, who were disposed rather to
exalt his origin, say that he was a native of Savona, others of Genoa,
and some more vain, make him to have been a native of Placentia, where
there are some honourable persons of the name, and several tombs having
the arms and inscriptions of the family of Columbus, which was the usual
sirname of his predecessors; but he, in compliance with the country where
he went to reside, modelled the name in resemblance of the ancients to
Colon, thereby distinguishing the direct descent from the collateral
lines.
Many names have been given by secret impulse, to denote the effects those
persons were to produce; and as most of my fathers affairs were guarded by
some special providence, his name and sirname were not without some
mysterious significations. Thus, considering the sirname of his ancestors,
Columbus or Columba, since he conveyed the grace of the Holy Ghost into
that New World which he discovered, shewing the knowledge of the beloved
Son of God to those people who knew him not, as was done by the Holy Ghost
in the form of a Dove at the baptism of St John; and because, like Noahs
dove, he carried the olive branch and the oil of baptism across the waters
of the ocean, to denote the peace and union of those people with the
church, which had long been shut up in the ark of darkness and ignorance.
So likewise of the sirname of Colon which he revived, which was
appropriate to him as signifying a member; and, in conjunction with his
sirname of Christopher, denoted that he was a member of Christ, by whom
salvation was to be conveyed to the heathen people whom he discovered.
Thus, as St Christopher received that name because he carried Christ over
the deep waters with great danger to himself; so the admiral Christopher
Colonus, imploring the protection of Christ, safely carried himself and
his people over the unknown ocean, that those Indian nations which he
discovered might become citizens and inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem.
For many souls, whom the Devil expected for his prey, were through his
means passed through the water of baptism, and made inhabitants of the
eternal glory of heaven.
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