Colombos Crabfe of f 0e CofomBoB IRELAND AND COLUMBUS. Father Flattery's Brochure Brings Up Some Strong Arguments. The Rev. Hugh Flattery, the well-known Harlem clergyman and one of the best authorities on early American history, has made extended and diligent research into the ancestry of Columbus. He has un earthed facts which have led to some very inter esting conclusions, and these he has set forth in a hand some little brochure, entitled "The Cradle of the Colombos." It will prove particularly interesting to all Irish men, as showing the existence of another link in the chain that binds Ireland and America. This pamphlet traces the patronymic of the discoverer to its source in the city of Bobbio, Lombardy. This once renowned center of culture was founded in the sixth century by St. Columban, a distinguished Irish abbott. The name of this champion of arts and letters was adopted as a patrony mic by one of the ancestors of the discov erer. In other words, Father Flattery be lieves that had it not been for an Irishman New York's Columbian Celebration might have been conducted under some other name. This pamphlet is an interesting sequel to an address by General Butterfielr 1 published in the MOBNING ADVEKTISER so- months ago, in which facts were adduce show that St. Brendan, also an Irish- "" visited America centuries bef o us. of $e <Dofom6o* BY THE REV. HUGH FLATTERY AUTHOR OF *f "THE POPE OF THE NEW CRUSADE," ETC. NEW YORK UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY 5 AND 7 EAST SIXTEENTH STREET CHICAGO: 266 & 268 WABASH AVE. COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY [All rights reserved.] Who was the First Columbus? Etymology of the Patronymic. Columbian Nomenclature. Word-Picture of an Ancient Literary Landmark. Historic Retrospect of Bob bio. Aboriginal Homestead of the Ancestry of Christo pher Columbus. PREFACE. It is the unambitious aim of this monograph to unfold in brief outline the aboriginal home of the Colombos, as well as the interesting Hiberno-Biblical surname of the " Admiral of the Indies," as discover able in the dim, historic twilight of pre-mediasval times. To the illustrious Saint Columban the abbatial city of Bobbio owes its Organic existence ; while to the powerful emperor, Saint Henry II., the Lombard city is indebted for municipal freedom, chartered liberty, together with the official * muniments of plenary civic autonomy. Saint Henry was the fifth emperor of the Saxon 12 PREFACE. race to wear the imperial crown of Charlemagne ; but he has worn it so as to enhance its splendor by the brighter effulgence of heroic virtue both in him self and his far-famed consort, Saint Conegunda. It is but natural that sovereigns of so lofty a type of character should have chosen as beneficiary of their regal munificence a commonwealth founded by the Apostolic Columban, so well beloved of yore in the Kingdom of Burgundy, and in the embryonic cities along the Rhine. In this fair land of Columbia, the Celt and the Teuton are potential factors in building up a system of civilization alike unprecedented in the achievements of the past, and the possibilities of the future. If their average lot in life's struggle afford scant leisure to probe the subtleties of ancient history, they must feel a keen interest in all that bears upon the incu- nabular details of a family immortalized by the " Revealer of the World." PREFACE. 13 To the German and Irish-American citizens of the United States it would be difficult to present two nobler standards of moral excellence than Saint Henry, the gem of the imperial Teutonic Crown, and Saint Columban, the pride of the Emerald Isle. H. F, ARMS OF BOBBIO. BOBBIO is in the order of time one of the first cities of Europe to possess an authorized coat of arms. In this civic escutcheon, Columbianism is conspicuously prominent. The device consists of a red cross upon a white ground. Perched upon the limbs of the cross two doves carrying olive branches salute the hallowed symbol of Atonement. Upon this sacrificial altar of Calvary was consum mated the peace-triumph enunciated to the shep herds of Bethlehem. A golden shield supports the ancient crown of the Kings of Lombardy, encircled with an ornamental wreath of laurel. The twin doves represent the Old and the New Dispensa tions, the end of a deluge never to be repeated, and the advent to Bobbio in its dove-like Founder of that peace which passeth all understanding. THE CRADLE OF THE COLOMBOS. PATRONYMICS have interesting pedigrees. This is particularly true in respect of our own country, called after Americo Vespucci. But the principle is appli cable to all times and peoples, from the eternal Rome of the suckling Romulus to the legislative capital on the Potomac, named after the Father of his country. The origin of the names of distin guished personages has ever been capricious. Thus, a Roman emperor, whose real name was Bassianus, affected a short cassock called by the Gauls caracalla, whence the imperial Caracalla himself. If our noun pertinacity does not come from the emperor Perti- nase, it is certain that his gaiter or top boot, caliga y iS THE CRADLE OF THE COLOMBOS. has given his name to Caligula ; while the Caesarean operation, whereby they were brought into life, is the accepted etymology of Scipio, Julius, and all the Caesars. Applying this line of thought to the greatest of maritime discoverers, two things become at once apparent. First, there must have been some person by whom, first in the order of time, the name Co lumbus has been borne ; secondly, it must be deeply interesting to determine with approximate accuracy who that primal personage is, thus establishing the true fans et origo of the most distinguished name in American history. Such is the genesis of the fol lowing observations. In the sixth century, two Irishmen appear on the historic stage, Columba and Columban. Identical in name, nationality, and professional pursuits, they have differed widely in various respects. Columba was born in Ulster in 521 ; Columban in Leinster THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. 19 some two and twenty years later, 543. While Co- lumba has evangelized most of Scotland, continuing to this day the popular idol of Caledonia, Columban does not appear to have developed much interest in that chivalrous country. There is, I believe, no conclusive evidence that Columban has ever set foot in either the Highlands or the Lowlands. The Scottish form of Columba is Colon, identical with the Irish Gaelic, modified by the Latin Columba, which, upon Ireland's conversion to Christianity, became so popular with the Bards and Druids. In the Spanish, also, the primitive Colon of the Gaels continues in its unchanged dress, making the full Hispanic appellative of the Admiral of the Ocean, Cristobal Colon Christopher Columbus. As Colon of Ulster unto the pagan Picts of North Britain, such was Colon of Leinster to Burgundy, Switzerland, and Italy. In dove-like gentleness ' they have borne each the olive-branch of Christian 20 THE CRADLE OF THE COLO M BOS. peace, amid regions agitated with strife and war. The metaplasm in either name, by which Columba becomes respectively Columbkille and Columbanus, has been adopted for purposes of contradistinction. Besides, terminal variety in names, while of frequent occurrence, is of no material significance. Thus Bede and Bedan, Offa and Offano, Thega and Tegano are mutually convertible names. It would seem, indeed, to be a usage inherited from pre-Christian times, as is evident from the variety of suffix common among the Hebrews. Thus Jehovah expresses simple being or existence I AM. By this is implied the changeless identity of the self-existent, or uncreated Deity; but the par ticular phase of providential favor, or interposition, needed for the nonce by the Israelite, is enunciated in copious terminal modifications. When, for instance, there is question of daily sustenance it is Jehovah-Jirieh, the bountiful God. If it be a THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. 21 matter of fields and flocks, it is Jehovah-Robi. When war is impending, the form is Jehovah-Nissi, as a rallying-point : but if hostilities are over, and a truce is to be proclamed, the suffix is Jehovah- Shehem. Similarly as to Colon Cill, euphemized Columbkille, the Dove of the Church, from his having been professionally a churchman. Apart, however, from variety in the sense here illustrated, Columba was in both instances, a sobriquet, or term of endearment, expressive of the winsome disposi tion and delightful individuality of the teachers toward their scholars, pupils, attendants, and fol lowers. And whereas there has been in Ireland in this sixth century a third Columba, contempora neous with the two great missionaries, but other wise unknown beyond his quiet official sphere as Abbot of Tyrdaglas, in Munster, the conclusion is irresistible that the popular pet-name was taken either from the winped nuncio of peace at the end 22 THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. of the Deluge, " Columba Noachi" Noah's Dove : or from the apparition at the Baptism in the Jordan of the Holy Spirit, " in Columbcz specie" in the sem blance of a dove, or else from eager emulation to exemplify the evangelical injunction " Be ye there fore prudent even as the serpent, and simple like unto the dove." A similar change of name occurs in the person of St. Winfrid, better-known by the physiognomical description of Boniface. (755, A. D.) But there is abundant evidence that this is not the first person named, or nick-named Boniface. It is distinctively Latin, and thence in popular speech Italian buona- faccia. There have been a dozen Popes of the name. One hundred years before St. Winfrid's birth, an Italian bishop named Boniface had lived and died in Caledonia. Upon his death in 630, he was buried at Rosmark, the capital of the county of Ross, Scotland. Earlier still another Italian Bon- THE CRADLE OF THE COLOMBOS. 23 iface had been martyred in Greece, about the year 307, A. D. Not so as to Columba and its derivatives. This Irish name is first in the field in connection with any person of the masculine gender. Moreover, the Colons of the sixth century are the first persons so named in Irish, Scottish, and Spanish history. Besides being of noble lineage, through the O'Don- nells of Gartan in Donegal, and therefore a con spicuous personage in Ireland, Columba of the Hebrides had already achieved distinction in the Ulster University of Beuchor, when Columba of Leinster was born, A. D. 543. The latter outlived the former by a score of years, dying in 615, at Bobbio, in Italy, wherewith his name is inseparably interwoven. The episcopal see of Bobbio takes its historical pedigree from the far-famed school which St. Co- lumban here founded as a duplicate of his Irish 24 THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. Alma Mater, Beuchor. The history of Bobbio is the history of the Hiberno-Italian Colon, the greatest of Irish missionaries. But it is also the true record of Italian Colombianism. The Columbanian Institute of Bobbio is the very raison d'etre of the city itself. attracted thither by the virtue, scholarship, and eloquence of the hermit-founder, a few families settled on the bank of the brook Bobio, whence the Abbatial, collegiate city of a thousand years. As a seat of learning Bobbio has continued from the outset to shine in ever increasing lustre. The royalties, from Queen Theolinda, who rocked its cradle, to the empress St. Cunegunda, have loved to visit, patronize, and enrich the sequestered hamlet during the first centuries of its pre-mediseval life. For Bobbio, the reader must remember, is the day- star of the Universities. Ancient before Oxford and Cambridge had been heard of, before old Bologna, " Mater studio-rum" had donned its swaddling- THE CRADLE OF THE CO LOME OS. 25 clothes, this initial Columbanian college carries us back to the corner-stone of Monte Cassino, and the archaic medical gymnasia of Salerno in southern Italy, and Montpelier in France. Even its famous neighbor, Pavia, is the fair daughter of Bobbio. At best this renowned filiation can claim no higher ascendancy than that implied in the Horatian dictum : " O ! Matre pulchra ! Filia pulchrior ! " Situated between the Ligurian Republic, and the martial capital of Lombardy, the sages of Bobbio attracted the adolescent flower of Genoa the Superb, and of the imperial stronghold of the Goth and the Longobard. To filch the Golden Fleece of Colom- banian distinction has been the laudable ambition of the Italian nobility from the dawn of the feudal Houses of Visconti, Trivulzio, Sforza, and numerous others. In those days to be a Bobbian graduate 26 THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. was, in current parlance, to have captured the Blue Ribbon of Oxford, to have won a double first, to be an Oxonian par excellence, a typical Cantabrigian, or, what in American phraseology is rightly considered a much more enviable mark of sterling ability, a Yaleite, or Hartford man. It was the guerdon of honest worth, and the symbol of established excel lence. Such is the fountain source of Italian Colum- bianism. Bobbio grew to be instinctively beloved and admired of all great and good men. It was espe cially the magnet of attraction for brilliant ecclesias tics. The Apostolic See was wont to regard the bright northern Pharos as the embattled citadel of orthodoxy against the ensanguined vicissitudes of Hun, Goth, Frank, Teuton, and Ghibelline. The successors of Columban have been unexceptionally intellectual athletes, after the heart of the poet- philosopher-saint himself. THE CRADLE OF THE COLO MB OS. 27 In an incomplete Bobbian catalogue of one hun dred and one Abbots, I find that forty-two have been elevated to the episcopate. This does not include fifty other bishops of the Bobbian diocese, whose episcopal residence, during more than two centuries, had been the Columban Abbey. Of these four have been enrolled in the Kalendar, and repose beneath a costly mausoleum erected to their honor by King Luitprand. Several have been created Cardinals, notably Castiglione, promoted by Pius IV. in recog nition of his valuable services before the Council of Trent. In the ninth century, the Abbot was made a feudatory ruler, with the hereditary title of Count, holding jurisdiction over all the neighboring territory, himself subject only to the imperial sovereignty. The first prince- Abbot was Hilduin, (846 86 1) some time imperial chancellor of Lothair, and sub sequently archbishop of Cologne. Among the conspicuous laity of Bobbio are 28 THE CRADLE OF THE CO LOME OS. families which ante-date the Crusaders. The re nowned House of Malaspina, a plant from the out set of local growth, would alone make the ancestral fame of any commonwealth. As marquisate of Massa and Carrara, it has been prominent since the ninth century, while its primitive annals are among the crystal springs of inspiration whence flow the early lays of the Troubadour. But the crowning glory of this immemorial Apennine homestead is the rare distinction of having been embalmed for all time in that archetypal creation of the human intel lect, the DIVINA COMMEDIA. To have been Dante's host in, the flesh were in itself no obscure quater- ing in the proudest escutcheon of heraldry. It was in the halcyon days of the Malaspina, and in the chaotic convulsions of the Guelph-Ghibelline fac tions, that the Bard of Florence began what he so amusingly designates as his " exile " in the moun tains of Lombardy. Among the' curios which still THE CRADLE OF THE CO LOME OS. 29 attract the antiquary are " Dante's Tower," and a house called ever since " Dante's House." As guest of the Malaspina the irascible poet poses paradoxically enough as Head Pacificator in the Valley of the Trebbia. To send Dante on a pacific mission seem like pouring vinegar upon nitre. But whether or not he may have been the firebrand to kindle among the Bobbiese the lurid torch of that Ghibellinism which he loved so well, it is certain that in behalf of the erring scions of the leading house he went as intermediary to the bishop of Lemi, a prelate staunchly Guelph, and who could stand no nonsense at the hands of flexible trimmers. In his triple pilgrimage Dante meets in Purgatory, Conrad Malaspina : " One turned to Virgil ; one addressed a shade Who sat there crying : ' Conrad, up, and view The grace of God here signally displayed.' " 30 THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. This was the father of Morello Malaspina who received and entertained Dante during his exile. The poet had not yet been to Bobbio, but the fame thereof, and that of its leading house is suitably touched in the passing interview : " Conrado Malaspina was my name Sprung from the older-one ; the love I bear To mine own race, here burns with purer flame. Oh, never have I seen thy land, I said ; But where, throughout all Europe may be found The spot to which thy glory hath not spread ? " The fame which o'er this house such lustre throws Makes both its nobles and the land renowned ; E'en 'he who ne'er was there, their greatness knows. I swear by all my hopes to mount on high The name thy offspring won, both by the sword And generous deeds, they do not now belie. Habit and nature have such grace bestowed That though the world pursues a vicious lord Upright alone they spurn the evil road." THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. 31 It will be in the memory of Dantesque students that in the 24th Canto of the Inferno the pilgrim songster again refers to a crushing victory gained by the House of Malaspina to the ruin of the Flor entines. When the opening eleventh century blazed forth in a galaxy of emperors, kings, queens, bishops, warriors, and statesmen conspicuous alike in vir tue and literary culture, it was apparent to Europe that the luminary of that gorgeous constellation was Gerbert of Aurillac, successor during twenty years of St. Columban. Having swept the gamut of sacred and secular literature, he was the first French man to ascend the Fisherman's throne, A. D. 999. From the plains of Lombardy to the Gulf of Genoa joyous holiday was kept, for Bobbio had now at tained the zenith of its glory. Its gifted master, confessedly the colossus of his age, whether as phil osopher, mathematician, man, musician, or canonist, 3 2 THE CRADLE OF THE COLO M BUS. was now Pope Sylvester II. Having already been incumbent successively of the Sees of Rheims and Ravenna, there was wanting but the Popedom to set the plenitude of honor upon the greatest of all the Abbots of Bobbio. Having introduced to Europe the use of Arabic figures, originated the jubilee and the crusade, and founded in the person of St. Stephen the kingdom of Hungary, Gerbert passed hence together with the literary eclipse which his golden life had dispelled. Eleven years later, the seven-hilled city witnessed a truly gorgeous pageant. At the vestibule of St. Peter's basilica stood Benedict VIII., where amid the glitter of imperial insignia, and the mingled pomp of civic and religious ceremonies, St. Henry and St. Cunegunda, attended by Roman senators, the hierarchy and nobility, with the flower of the army, received sacred unction, with the jewelled dia dems of sovereign dominion. THE CRADLE OF THE COLO MB OS. 33 Three Columbian incidents here synchronize in a chromatic picture which the historian's prism reflects in kaleidoscopic crystallization, (i.) This solemn function of coronation was first introduced into Christian Europe by one of the two Irish Colons under consideration, when Columba of Donegal anointed and set the golden sphere upon his compatriot, King Aiden, successor to Comal on the Scottish throne of Alba, in 574. A. D. (2). The Roman coronation of Saint Henry oc curred in February 1014, amid the ringing of numer ous bells, followed by salvos of artillery. The dying echoes of this religious-military fete were taken up by the naval battle then waging on the eastern coast of Ireland. It is known in history as the battle of Clontarf. The pentarchy of Ireland united all Columban's race in a successful effort to extinguish Norse domination in the Emerald Isle. The King of the Orkney Islands, and the Isle of Man, with 34 THE CRADLE OF THE CO LOME OS. hordes of European mercenaries, on booty bent had rallied to the doomed cause of Denmark. With Norse ascendency within the Kingdom of Ireland fell Brian Borii on Good Friday, 1014 A. D. Just while the Teutonic hierarchy and nobility were bid ding greeting to their newly consecrated dynasts, those of Ireland were assembled in the primatial city of Armagh to mourn the fallen House of Kin- cora. (3). Finally, the first favour which Henry, upon his coronation, solicited at the hands of Benedict VIII. was the elevation of Bobbio to an episcopal See, 1014. The civic honor of urban dignity, with chartered symbol of municipal authority, had al ready been bestowed by this emperor, thus making Bobbio one of the most ancient cities of Europe. About one century later, Genoa was elevated to an Archbishopric, when pope Innocent II. constituted Bobbio, thitherto in the jurisdiction of Milan, one THE CRADLE OF THE COLO ME OS. 35 of the suffragan Sees of the Genoese Metropolitan, reserving to the Papacy the government of the Co- lumban Institute, 1133, A. D. The present popu lation of the city, including the environs, is 15,000. Thus about three hundred and two years before the birth of Columbus at, or near, Genoa, or Cogo- letta, his native diocese had become officially con nected with Columbian Bobbio ; or, more correctly, the Lombard city had been canonically incorporated into the ecclesiastical district of Genoa. It is matter of history that his ancestors came originally from Lombardy. It is agreed among historians that the several Colombo families of Piedmont and the Gen oese Liguria in the fifteenth century had ramified from one common stock, and a single parentage. Other Colombos than those of Lombardy there are in chronological order absolutely none. The aboriginal stem, therefore, alone remains to be accounted for. 36 THE CRADLE OF THE CO LOME OS, It is difficult to resist the conclusion that the primal patronymic is derived from Bobbio. This is in the best sense a question of patronomatology. The father of Christopher, the " Admiral of the Indies," was himself a Colon, and the son of a Colon, or Colombo. The Colombii are notoriously one of the ancient Bobbiese families. That is the recognized cradle of the Lombard stock, whereof all other Italian Colombii are branches. This Columban City, the amplification of the Columban Institute, has no competitor. Ages before its name appears in any other form, or in relation to any house, or clan, or family, this pristine Columban lamp had shone in unborrowed effulgence. It is consenta neous to the laws of etymology, in harmony with analogy, and suitable to the unbroken thread of traditional evidence to identify the bright name of Columbus as the abiding quenchless beam of Bob- blio's noontide brilliancy. There is an acceptable THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. 37 fitness between the radiant morning of the City by the Trebbia, its thousand golden years of sunny fruitfulness, and the grateful apotheosis of its illus trious scion in the mellow eventide of this nineteenth century. It is an Orient not unworthy the perma nent discoverer of the fair Land of the West. Writers on floriculture tell of a plant which flowers in the cottage-gardens of half the world, but is ex clusively known in American Flora as the Even ing Primrose. If the fragrant creature has really come hither in the world's vesper-age, its trem ulous voyage athwart Neptune's Kingdom has been piloted by that beacon-light of the tempest- tossed mariner whose roseate Phcebus is Columban Bobbio. The Spaniards have a family of herbs or shrubs by no means exclusively indigenous to their own country, but which the Hispanic botanists have patriotically designated Pavonia, in honour of their 38 THE CRADLE OF THE COLO MB OS. renowned traveller and botanical student, Don Josef Pavon. This is in strict accordance with the genius of universal nomenclature, whether scientific, geographical, or pharmaceutical. Conversely, there is no lack of surnames, since their first appearance in the eleventh century of our era, which can be naturally traced to the birth place, the aboriginal homestead, or native hamlet of the founder of a given clan or family. Cologne was built by Claudius Agrippa, and named after his wife, Colonia Agrippina 57 B.C. The city could of course have been built by any other magnate ; but would it have come down to us as Cologne, if the builder's wife had not been named Colonia ? As in the British peerage there probably never would have been an earldom of Oxford had not a score of colleges, with domes, towers, and spires, risen upon the Isis and the Cherwell, making Eng- Bancroft THE CRADLE OF THE COLO M BOS. 39 land's Bosphorus an architectural forest, so there probably never had been an Italian named Colum- but if the Irish Columban had not filled the air of upper Italy with the elevating associations of his new Beuchor on the Bobio. It is not any parliament which has created the fame of Oxford, but it is Oxford which has evoked parliamentary homage. It was not any family of Colombos who launched the archaic gymnasium of the Apostle of the Apen nines, but it was the supernal lustre of that scholastic emporium which found patronymic embodiment in the commendable aspirations of self-respecting Ital ians. The home of letters is invested with irresist ible fascinations. The sons of men needs must bow in unquestioning fealty to the Olympian casket of genius. But more winsome still is that baptized Athens springing from ruined Rome, that venerable scriptorium of the tireless palceographist and illu minator which, through a long barbaric night, spans 40 THE CRADLE OF THE COLO MB OS. the gulf between the Theodosian empire and the meteoric dynasty of Bonaparte, and whose palimp sests, and peerless library are still the prized treas ures of the Vatican, Ainbrosian, Turinese, and other European collections. Moreover, the Lombard town, San Colombano, in the vicinity of the City of Lodi, is a busy market- borough in the Apennines of some five thousand inhabitants. This land-mark demonstrates in itself the extent to which the magnetism of the Columban hermitage has impressed itself not merely on the religious and mental character, but even the topog raphy of the Lombard-Venetian province. A par allel and contemporaneous instance is seen in an cient England, unchanged to our own day, where the other Colon, Apostle of the Picts, is perpetuated in the market-town of Saint Colum, in the county of Cornwall. The District of Columbia, U. S., the capital of THE CRADLE OF THE COLO MB OS. 41 Ceylorf, the two places named Colombo in Savoy, those in France, and the numerous other localities of Col'imbian appellation are without exception traceable, through the Genoese Navigator, to the Irish Columban Abbot of Bobbio. Perhaps the most remarkable instance of this is the fitful etymo logy of the tropical capital of the Singhalese. It is the old Taprobaue of Athens and Rome, and the Sevendib of the Arabian Nights. Its earliest name, however, is Kalan-Totto, the Kalany Ferry, from the near by stream, Kalany-Gauga. This became grad ually corrupted into Kalambu, by which it was known in the i4th century of our era. Some two centuries later, upon the arrival of the Portuguese, Kalambu had further modified to Kolamba, or Co- lumbu, which the mariners interpreted, and all Por tugal henceforth wrote Colombo, in honor of Chris topher Columbus. But why ? because at the time under consideration, 1517, Europe was mourning 42 THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. the "Revealer of the Globe," with the absorbing earnestness of posthumous appreciation. Ferdinand had been aroused by public indignation from his comatose lethargy of ingratitude. The crown of Castile had, in 1513, ordered pompous obsequies unto the Grand Admiral of the Ocean, whose remains were solemnly removed from Valladolid to Seville by the Guadalquiver, to repose " in a sepulchre entirely new," at St. Mary of the Grottoes, in a vault under the Chapel of Christ. Like unto the Admiral's tomb is his family " entirely new." His genius, life-work, superb feats, all are new, unrivalled, unique. His stain less integrity, his undeviating fidelity, his patience, longanimity, and trusty confidence in God, in his friends, and in the great purpose of his life bespeak the artless nature of Noah's model nuncio, the gentle dove. Only a Columban famjiy-tree could have borne so distinctively a Columban fruitage. THE CRADLE OF THE COLO MB OS. 43 The reader will perhaps object that this is but conjectural evidence, furnishing an argument at best of verisimilitude. But this plausible difficulty vanishes when confronted with a trustworthy parchment from the Bobbian archives, which gives an alphabetical list of the families, both extant and extinct, of the Abbatial City, down to the date of the Manuscript, namely, 1611, A. D. This list the reader will find transcribed in extenso by Bertacchi, in his interesting Monografia di Bobbio (Penerolo, This muniment contains the names of 134 fam ilies, arranged in alphabetical order, and gives various interesting details as to their advent to Bobbio, whether as refugees from Florentine turbu lence in the angry Guelph-Ghibelline commotions, or during the punic war of the Trebbia, in the day of Hannibal's victory over Scipio, 218 B. C., or, finally, as pilgrim-votaries of letters attracted by the Co- 44 THE CRADLE OF THE COL QMS OS. lumban library and Institute. These families, the author observes, had all been established at Bobbio in 1533, A. D., so long as to have duplicated, the younger branches either migrating to the near by Piedmont and Genoa, or else becoming lease holders of new homes at an annual rent payable to the Columban Abbey. On this authentic roll, stands at number 50 the family of the Colombos, in the Italian plural, thus, " Columbii." This I regard as the parent stem of the patronymic of the Discov erer of the New World. There is given but one entry of " Colombii," clearly suggesting the dispersion to contiguous localities of the second and subsequent generations of descend ants from the primal stock, exclusively shown in the authoritative Columbanian register. In this one recognized fountain-source, and in the implied mi gration of the junior off-shoots, the reader will find the key to two established facts, namely : the con- THE CRADLE OF THE COL OMB OS. 45 sensus of opinion which declares Lombardy to have held the original homestead of the Colombos ; secondly, the diversity of opinion as to the exact birthplace of Christopher Columbus. The scattered kinsfolk would periodically exchange friendly visits, during one of which a child born in the distant home of an uncle or aunt would be taken later to the parental homestead to be baptized in the parent's parish church, and duly enrolled in the parochial record of Baptisms, an earnest of legitimacy, and abiding guide to identification. But such a seeming discrepancy would, however natural, supply ample material to effusive village gossips for various ver sions of the true incident. I trust that this feeble effort to unfold the pedigree of a distinguished name may enlist ulterior investi gation. Meanwhile, if anything could brighten in the American mind the fair image of Columbus it is the religious-literary setting in which it is here present 3d. 46 THE CRADLE OF THE COLOMBUS. The master spirit of Oceanic navagation wings its aboriginal flight from that peaceful Lombard eyrie built by the aquiline priest of Ireland's golden age, and ermined with the quickening unction of the Jordanic Dove. Having carried gladsome tidings to benighted realms, it is in turn borne upon the lumi nous pinions of umblemished integrity and majestic triumph to its own central niche in the Pantheon of the Immortals. THE END.