Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2 (of 8): Spanish Explorations and Settlements in America from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2 (of 8): Spanish Explorations and Settlements in America from the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Century
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
A vignette on the map of La Cosa, dated 1500, represents Saint
Christopher bearing on his shoulders the infant Christ across a
stream. This has been considered symbolical of the purpose of Columbus
in his discoveries; and upholders of the movement to procure his
canonization, like De Lorgues, have claimed that La Cosa represented
the features of Columbus in the face of Saint Christopher. It has also
been claimed that Herrera must have been of the same opinion, since the
likeness given by that historian can be imagined to be an enlargement
of the head on the map. This theory is hardly accepted, however, by the
critics.[284]
[Illustration: THE YANEZ COLUMBUS (_National Library, Madrid_).
This picture was prominently brought before the Congress of
Américanistes which assembled at Madrid in 1881, and not, it seems,
without exciting suspicion of a contrived piece of flattery for
the Duke of Veraguas, then presiding over this same congress. Cf.
Cortambert, _Nouvelle histoire des voyages_, p. 40.]
Discarding the La Cosa vignette, the earliest claimant now known is
an engraving published in the _Elogia virorum illustrium_ (1575)[285]
of Paolo Giovio (Paulus Jovius, in the Latin form). This woodcut is
thought to have been copied from a picture which Jovius had placed in
the gallery of notable people which he had formed in his villa at Lake
Como. That collection is now scattered, and the Columbus picture cannot
be traced; but that there was a portrait of the discoverer there, we
know from the edition of Vasari’s _Lives of the Painters_ printed by
Giunti at Florence (1568), wherein is a list of the pictures, which
includes likenesses of Vespucius, Cortes, and Magellan, besides that
of “Colombo Genovese.” This indicates a single picture; but it is
held by some that Jovius must have possessed two pictures, since this
woodcut gives Columbus the garb of a Franciscan, while the painting in
the gallery at Florence, supposed also to follow a picture belonging
to Jovius, gives him a mantle. A claim has been made that the original
Jovius portrait is still in existence in what is known as the Yanez
picture, now in the National Library in Madrid, which was purchased
of Yanez in Granada in 1763. It had originally a close-fitting tunic
and mantle, which was later painted over so as to show a robe and fur
collar. This external painting has been removed; and the likeness bears
a certain resemblance to the woodcut and to the Florence likeness. The
Yanez canvas is certainly the oldest in Spain; and the present Duque de
Veraguas considers it the most authentic of all the portraits.[286] The
annexed cut of it is taken from an engraving in Ruge’s _Geschichte des
Zeitalters der Entdeckungen_ (p. 235). It bears the inscription shown
in the cut.[287]
The woodcut (1575) already mentioned passes as the prototype of another
engraving by Aliprando Capriolo, in the _Ritratti di cento capitani
illustri_, published at Rome in 1596.[288]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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