The Life of Columbus

Christopher Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa. The honor of his birth-place has been claimed by may villages in that Repubic, and the house in which he was born cannot be now pointed out with certainty. But the best authorities agree that the children and the grown people of the world have never been mistaken when they have said: “America was discovered in 1492 by Christopher Columbus, a native of Genoa. ” His name, and that of his family, is always written Columbo, in the Italian papers which refer to them, for more than one hundred years before his time. In Spain it was always written Colon; in France it is written as Colomb; while in England it has always kept its Latin form, Columbus. It has frequently been said that he himself assumed this form, because Columba is the Latin word for “Dove, ” with a fanciful feeling that, in carrying Christian light to the West, he had taken the mission of the dove. Thus, he had first found land where men thought there was ocean, and he was the messenger of the Holy Spirit to those who sat in darkness. It has also been assumed that he took the name of Christopher, “the Christ-bearer, ” for similar reasons. But there is no doubt that he was baptized “Christopher, ” and that the family name had long been Columbo. The coincidences of name are but two more in a calendar in which poetry delights, and of which history is full.