Any one at all familiar with the various portraits that pass, here and there, for likenesses of Columbus, must have been impressed with the fact that, while a few of them present considerable resemblance to one another, they are, almost without exception, lacking in those elements of individuality that are necessary to impress themselves firmly on the attention and memory of the beholder. From the collection as a whole, one is apt to derive a very confused impression as to how Columbus really appeared. If there is to be any exception to this general statement, it should perhaps be made in favour of the portrait by Lorenzo Lotto, recently discovered at Venice. Lotto was quite the most distinguished of the contemporaneous painters whose portraits of Columbus have been preserved. He was absent from Venice during the later years of Columbus’s life, and it is possible that he was in Spain during the winter and spring just before the Admiral set out for his fourth voyage. We know that Columbus was in Granada during the winter and spring of 1501-1502, and that during those winter months the Venetian ambassador Pisani and his secretary Camerino were assiduous in courting and entertaining him, in order to obtain maps, charts, and other information about the newly discovered countries. It is possible that Lotto also was present at Granada and that he had an opportunity to paint the portrait from life. But there is no positive evidence on the subject. After all the possibilities are admitted, there is nothing more than a doubtful conjecture that he ever saw the discoverer; still less is it probable that Columbus sat for his portrait.