The Life & Times of Columbus [antikvár]

A MAN OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE? Below: One of the many depictions of the landing of Columbus, stressing the Christian spirit of the enterprise. Christopher Columbus was convinced that his name predestined him to be, like his patron saint, a "Christ-bearer." This is the meaning of the words "Xpo FERENS" in his somewhat enigmatic signature, which has been much discussed by scholars. Among the many biographies of Columbus there is a recurring theme of what we might call "divine providence." In his own writings Columbus returns over and over again to the idea that God put into his mind the conviction that it was possible to sail all the way to the Indies. "An obvious miracle," he writes in the preface to the Libro de las profecías, "meant to ensure the success of such a great voyage." Indeed the life of the discoverer abounds in episodes in which an acute observer may see evidence of a will external and superior to his, or, in other words, divine. Often it is a matter of coincidence, but to Columbus every coincidence was significant. He was a mystic—not, to be sure, a saint, but certainly an inspired spirit. The enthusiasm he put into everything he did derived from the intensity of his spiritual life. Queen Isabella of Spain and Christopher Columbus were bom in the same year, 1451, the former on April 22 at Madrigal de Las Altas Torres and the latter in Genoa between August and October. Fate seems sometimes to delight in making strange combinations among the pieces of the game it plays through the centuries. If it could be further proved, as some historians would have it, that Amerigo Vespucci was born in the same year, the coincidence would be even stranger. The three protagonists of the great oceanic advemure destined to change the face of the world—the discoverer, his noble patron and the man from whom the new world was to take its name—were all born in the first year of the second half of that 15th century, which was to open a new period of history. Right: Christopher Columbus in the New World, a fresco by Car lone. Far right: Christopher Columbus. This mosaic by Antonio Salviati is in the Palazzo Tursi in Genoa, the town where the discoverer was born and to which he always felt a patriot's loyalty.