Many of this miserable race came to Rome, where, under the expressed order of the Lord Alexander P.P. VI, they were protected, and allowed to share in that security of life and limb which He, at the beginning of His pontificate, had ordained. The Romans did not like these Marañas, as the Moorish Jews were called, any more than they liked, or like, Catalans, or Franks, or Goths, or any other foreigners save the English-speaking race; and, following hereditary instinct, there were occasional attempts at persecution, the rigorous stamping out of which, by the justice of the Pope, caused intermittent rioting and disaffection of the citizens who only could look upon the Jews as fair game. That was the only disturbance of the peace with which King Don Ferrando could charge the Holy Father; and it was an act of justice and humanity. But the fifteenth century, in common with the nineteenth (the twentieth is too young yet to be judged), was very wont to give a bad name to the dog that it had failed to hang.] * * * * * Any success that might have attended the rabid calumnies of the Majesty of Naples was prevented by an occurrence of the most startling species. A mariner of Genoa, called Messer Cristoforo Colombi, announced to the Spanish Court, in March 1493, the astounding news of his discovery of a continent. An explorer’s ardour, combined with religious zeal, had made him seek to extend the boundaries of Christendom. He had set out in the hope of finding a few islands. He returned to Europe solemnly asserting that he had found a world. Universal curiosity was awakened, and a fresh expedition planned, with which the intrepid mariner set forth on a second voyage to prove, and to secure, his prize. Meanwhile, Don Hernando and Doña Isabella, the Catholic King and Queen of Spain, thought it would be prudent to bind this new world to their domain by a bond that easily could not be broken. The Pope, as Ruler of the World and Earthly Vicar of Jesus Christ, was held to have authority over all heathen lands, and to His Holiness an envoy went from Spain commissioned to announce the discovery, and to pray Him graciously to confirm it to the Catholic King and Queen.