Such a
one alone stands in a link with the thoughts and interests of his
predecessors, and this relationship will also determine the account he
gives of his search. For which reason the Italians, although their
claim to be the first comers on this or that shore may be disputed,
will yet retain their title to be pre-eminently the nation of
discoverers for the whole latter part of the Middle Ages. The fuller
proof of this assertion belongs to the special history of discoveries.
Yet ever and again we turn with admiration to the august figure of the
great Genoese, by whom a new continent beyond the ocean was demanded,
sought and found; and who was the first to be able to say: 'il mondo e
poco'--the world is not so large as men have thought. At the time when
Spain gave Alexander VI to the Italians, Italy gave Columbus to the
Spaniards. Only a few weeks before the death of that pope Columbus
wrote from Jamaica his noble letter (July 7, 1503) to the thankless
Catholic kings, which the ages to come can never read without profound
emotion. In a codicil to his will, dated Valladolid, May 4, I 506, he
bequeathed to 'his beloved home, the Republic of Genoa, the prayer-book
which Pope Alexander had given him, and which in prison, in conflict,
and in every kind of adversity, had been to him the greatest of
comforts.
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