A similar uncertainty has been made to appear regarding the place of Columbus’ birth. Outside of Genoa and dependencies, while discarding such claims as those of England,[344] Corsica,[345] and Milan,[346] there are more defensible presentations in behalf of Placentia (Piacenza), where there was an ancestral estate of the Admiral, whose rental had been enjoyed by him and by his father;[347] and still more urgent demands for recognition on the part of Cuccaro in Montferrat, Piedmont, the lord of whose castle was a Dominico Colombo,—pretty well proved, however, not to have been the Dominico who was father of the Admiral. It seems certain that the paternal Dominico did own land in Cuccaro, near his kinspeople, and lived there as late as 1443.[348] In consequence of these claims, the Academy of Sciences in Genoa named a commission, in 1812, to investigate them; and their report,[349] favoring the traditional belief in Genoa as the true spot of Columbus’ birth, is given in digest in Bossi.[350] The claim of Genoa seems to be generally accepted to-day, as it was in the Admiral’s time by Peter Martyr, Las Casas, Bernaldez, Giustiniani, Geraldini, Gallo, Senaraya, and Foglietto.[351] Columbus himself twice, in his will (1498), says he was born in Genoa; and in the codicil (1506) he refers to his “beloved country, the Republic of Genoa.” Ferdinand calls his father “a Genoese.”[352] Of modern writers Spotorno, in the Introduction to the _Codice diplomatico Colombo-Americano_ (1823), and earlier, in his _Della origine e della patria di Colombo_ (1819), has elaborated the claim, with proofs and arguments which have been accepted by Irving, Bossi, Sanguinetti, Roselly, De Lorgues, and most other biographers and writers. There still remains the possibility of Genoa, as referred to by Columbus and his contemporaries, signifying the region dependent on it, rather than the town itself; and with this latitude recognized, there are fourteen towns, or hamlets as Harrisse names them,[353] which present their claims.[354] * * * * * Ferdinand Columbus resented Giustiniani’s statement that the Admiral was of humble origin, and sought to connect his father’s descent with the Colombos of an ancient line and fame; but his disdainful recognition of such a descent is, after all, not conducive to a belief in Ferdinand’s own conviction of the connection. [Illustration: FERDINAND OF SPAIN. This follows an ancient medallion as engraved in Buckingham Smith’s _Coleccion_. Cf. also the sign-manual on p. 56.] There seems little doubt that his father[355] was a wool-weaver or draper, and owned small landed properties, at one time or another, in or not far from Genoa;[356] and, as Harrisse infers, it was in one of the houses on the Bisagno road, as you go from Genoa, that Columbus was perhaps born.[357] [Illustration: BARTHOLOMEW COLUMBUS.