was not with bowed head and heavy heart, but with his whole soul rejoicing. We may be sure that he turned back for a last affectionate look at the lovely mountain city; for it had given him what historians now call "the most important paper that ever sovereign put pen to, "—a royal order for the long-desired ships and men with which to discover "lands in the west."
CHAPTER II
THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS
Having seen how that great event in Spanish history, the fall of Granada, set the date for the discovery of America, let us see how it was that a humble Italian sailor came to be present among all those noble Spanish soldiers and statesmen. Let us see why he had brought to Spain the idea of a round world, when most Spaniards still believed in a flat one; and why his round world was perfectly safe to travel over, even to its farthest point, while their flat one was edged with monsters so terrible that no man had ever sought their evil acquaintance.
[Illustration: From "The Story of Columbus" by Elizabeth L. Seelys, courtesy of D. Appleton and Company. THE GENOA HOME]
The amount of really reliable information which we possess concerning the childhood of Christopher Columbus could be written in a few lines. We do not know accurately the date of his birth, though it was probably 1451. Sixteen Italian cities have claimed him as a native; and of these Genoa in northern Italy offers the best proofs. Papers still exist showing that his father owned a little house there. Men who have studied the life of Columbus, and who have written much about him, say that he was born in the province, not the city, of Genoa; but Columbus himself says in his diary that he was a native of Genoa city; and present-day Genoese have even identified the very street where he was born and where he played as a child—the Vico Dritto di Ponticello. In the wall of the house in which he is believed to have lived is placed an iron tablet containing an inscription in Latin. It tells us that "no house is more to be honored than this, in which Christopher Columbus spent his boyhood and his early youth."
More important than the exact spot of his birth would be a knowledge of the sort of childhood he passed and of the forces that molded his character. To learn this we must look into the condition of civilization, and particularly of Italian civilization, in the middle sixteenth century.
Columbus was born in a brilliant period known now as the Renaissance—a French word meaning re-birth—which marks the beginning of modern history. It followed a long, painful period known to us as the Dark Ages, or Middle Ages, namely, the period between ancient and modern times. In the Middle Ages humanity was very ignorant, hampered by all sorts of evil superstitions; while the daily life of the people was miserable and without comforts, lacking many things which we consider necessities. Yet even in those far-away days things were improving, because man has always felt the desire to make his lot better; and the constant effort of these people of the Middle Ages led to that beautiful awakening which we call the Renaissance.
One of the first glimmers of this new life may be said to have come from the Crusades. The Europeans who had journeyed down into Asia to drive the Mohammedans, or Saracens, out of the Holy Land, came back impressed with the fact that these infidel Asiatics had more refinement and courtesy than Christian Europe knew. The returning Crusaders introduced some of this refinement into their own countries, and it caused people to abandon some of their rude ways. Of course there were many more influences working toward the great awakening, principally the growth of commerce. All Europe became alive with the desire for progress; many new things were invented, many old ones perfected; and before the Renaissance ended it had given us some wonderful discoveries and achievements—paper and printing; the mariner's compass; an understanding of the solar system; oil painting, music, and literature; and lastly, the New World.
Why, then, if it brought all these arts and inventions and discoveries, do we not call it the birth, instead of the re-birth? Because many of the beautiful elements of the Renaissance, such as art, science, and poetry, enjoyment of life, freedom to investigate and study nature—all these had existed in the days of ancient Greece and Rome; but after the fall of Roman civilization it took the barbarian peoples of other portions of Europe a long, long time to grow civilized, and to establish some sort of order out of their jumbled affairs; and while they were slowly learning lessons of government and nationality, the culture of the antique world was lost sight of. When it was found again, when young men wished to learn Latin and Greek so that they could read the long- neglected books and poetry of the ancients, human life was made much richer and happier.
This desire came first to the people of Italy. It was very natural, for ancient Rome, where great learning had last flourished, was in Italy; furthermore, the Italian peninsula, jutting out into the much-navigated Mediterranean, was full of seaports, to which came vessels with the merchandise, the language, and the legends of other countries; and when we learn of other countries, we broaden our ideas.
Add to Italy's favorable geographical position the fact that her people were unusually quick of intellect, and were gifted with great imagination, and you will see how natural it was that the Renaissance should have started there. Also, you will see why the great discoverer was a very natural product of Italy and its Renaissance.
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Genoa, like other large Italian cities, was teeming with this new spirit of investigation and adventure when Cristoforo Colombo (in his native land his name was pronounced Cristof'oro Colom'bo) was born there or first came there to live. Long before, Genoa had taken an active part in the Crusades, and every Genoese child knew its story. It had carried on victorious wars with other Italian seaports. It had an enormous commerce. It had grown rich, it was so full of marble palaces and churches, and it had such a glorious history, that its own people loved to call it Genova la Superba (Superb Genoa).
Although Cristoforo's family were humble people of little or no education, the lad must have had, or made, many opportunities for acquiring knowledge. Probably he made them; for, as a boy in those days generally followed his father's trade, Cristoforo must have spent a good deal of time in "combing" wool; that is, in making the tangled raw wool ready for weaving. Perhaps he was sent to school, the school supported by the "Weavers' Guild." But between working at home and going to school, he evidently made many little trips down to the busy wharves.
Was there ever any spot more fascinating than the wharves in olden days—in that far-off time when there were no books to read, and when a boy's only chance of hearing about other countries was to go and talk to the crew of each vessel that came into port? The men to whom our lad talked had sailed the whole length and breadth of the biggest body of explored water, the Mediterranean. Some had gone farther east, into the Black Sea; and still others—bravest of all—had passed beyond the Straits of Gibraltar and out on to the great unknown ocean. It was to these last, we may be sure, that the adventurous boy listened most eagerly.
Those hardy sailors were the best possible professors for a boy who intended to follow the sea. They were, doubtless, practical men who never talked much about the sea-monsters and other nonsense that many landsmen believed in; nor did they talk of the world being flat, with a jumping-off place where the sun set. That belief was probably cherished by men of book-learning only, who lived in convents and who never risked their lives on the waves. Good men these monks were, and we are grateful to them for keeping alive a little spark of learning during those long, rude Middle Ages; but their ideas about the universe were not to be compared in accuracy with the ideas of the practical mariners to whom young Cristoforo talked on the gay, lively wharves of Genova la Superba.
Many years after Columbus's death, his son Fernando wrote that his father had studied geography (which was then called cosmogony) at the University of Pavia. Columbus himself never
