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.
Should any one be disposed to affirm that the predecessors of my father
were handicrafts, founding upon the assertion of Justiniani, I shall not
engage to prove the contrary; for, as the writing of Justiniani is not to
be considered as an article of faith, so I have received the contrary from
a thousand persons. Neither shall I endeavour to prove the falsehood of
his history from those other authors who have written concerning my father;
but shall convict him of falsehood out of his own writings and by his own
testimony; thus verifying proverb which says "that liars ought to have
good memories," because otherwise they contradict themselves, as
Justiniani has done in this case, of which I propose to exhibit sufficient
proofs.
In his comparison of the four languages, when commenting upon that passage
in the psalms, "In omnem terrarum exivit sonus eorum," he says, "This
Christopher Columbus having acquired some rudiments of learning in his
tender years, applied himself to navigation when he came to manhood, and
went to Lisbon, where he learned cosmography from a brother who there made
sea charts; in consequence of which improvement, and by discoursing with
those who had sailed to St George del Mina in Africa, and through his own
reading in cosmography, he entertained thoughts of sailing towards those
countries which he afterwards discovered." Hence, contrary to the
assertion of Justiniani, it appears from his own words that my father
followed no handicraft or mechanic employment, but devoted his childhood
to learning, his youth to navigation and cosmography, and his riper years
to discoveries.
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