Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries: Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron SteamshipsGoodrich, Frank B. (Frank Boott)
History
Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries: Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron Steamships
Goodrich, Frank B. (Frank Boott)
Discoveries in geography; Voyages and travels
The agitation of the life of Columbus followed his remains to the
grave,--for he was buried four successive times, and his dead body made
the passage of the Atlantic. It was first deposited in the vaults of
the Franciscan Convent of Valladolid, where it remained seven years.
In 1513, Ferdinand, now old and perhaps repentant, caused the coffin
to be brought from Valladolid to Seville, where a solemn service was
said over it in the grand cathedral. It was then placed in the chapel
belonging to the Chartreux. In 1536, the coffin was transported to the
city of St. Domingo, in the island of Hispaniola. Here it remained
for two hundred and sixty years. In 1795, Spain ceded the island to
France, stipulating that the ashes of Columbus should be transferred
to Spanish soil. In December of the same year, the vault was opened,
and the fragments which were found--those of a leaden coffin, mingled
with bones and dust returned to dust--were carefully collected. They
were carried on board the brigantine Discovery, which transported them
to the frigate San Lorenzo, by which they were taken to Havana, where,
in the presence of the Governor-General of Cuba and in the midst of
imposing ceremonies, they were consigned to their fourth and final
resting-place.
It will not be altogether out of place to group together here the
numerous and remarkable instances of the world's injustice and
ingratitude towards Columbus. We have said that he died in penury at
Valladolid. A publication, issued periodically in that city from 1333
to 1539, chronicling every event of local interest--births, marriages,
deaths, fires, executions, appointments, church ceremonies--did not
mention, or in any way allude to, the death of Columbus. Pierre Martyr,
a poet of Lombardy, once his intimate friend, and who had said, at
the time of his first voyage, that by singing of his discoveries he
would descend to immortality with him, seemed to think, later in
life, that he should peril his chances of immortality were he to sing
of his death, for his muse held her peace. In 1507, a collection of
voyages was published by Fracanzo de Montalbodo, in which no mention
was made of Columbus' fourth voyage, and in which Columbus himself was
alluded to as still alive. In 1508, a Latin translation of this work
was published, in the preface to which Columbus was mentioned as still
living in honor at the court of Spain. Another famous work of the time
attributes the discovery of the New World, not to the calculations and
science of a man, but to the accidental wanderings of a tempest-driven
caravel. Not ten years after the death of Columbus, the chaplain of
one of the kings of Italy, in a work upon "Memorable Events in Spain,"
stated that a New World had been discovered in the West by one PETER
COLUMBUS. And, in the same taste and spirit, a German doctor, in the
first German book which spoke of the New World, did not once mention
the name of Columbus, but, translating the proper name as if it were a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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