Note 26 — Selected Letters of Columbus

It is very much to be regretted that Christopher Columbus' intentions in this respect were not carried out because the Protectors would have certainly decreed that a marble statue should be erected to commemorate so great a gift, and we would then possess an authentic portrait of the discoverer of America, which does not exist anywhere. Nor do I believe that the portrait of Columbus ever was drawn, carved, or painted from the life.

There were doubtless painters already in Spain at the close of the fifteenth century, such, for instance, as Juan Sanchez de Castro, Pedro Berruguette, Juan de Borgona, Antonio del Rincon, and the five artists whom Cardinal Ximenes intrusted with the task of adorning the paranymph of the University of Alcala, but they painted only religious subjects. It is at a later period that portrait painting commenced in Spain. One of those artists may have thought of painting a portrait of Columbus, but there is no trace of any such intention in the writings of the time, nor of the existence of an authentic effigy of the great navigator in Spain or any other country.

We must recollect that the enthusiasm created by the news of the discovery of America was far from being as great as people now imagine, and if we may judge from the silence of Spanish poets and historians of the fifteenth century, it produced less effect in Spain than anywhere else. At all events, the popularity of Columbus lasted scarcely six months, as deceptions commenced with the first letters that were sent from Hispaniola, and they never ceased whilst he was living. In fact, it is only between April 20, 1493, which is the date of his arrival in Barcelona, and the 20th of May following, when he left that city to embark for the second expedition (during the short space of six weeks), that his portrait might have been painted; although it was not then a Spanish notion, by any means. Neither Boabdil nor Gonzalvo de Cordova, whose exploits were certainly much more admired by the Spaniards than those of Columbus, were honored in that form during their lifetime. Even the portraits of Ferdinand and Isabella, although attributed to Antonio del Rincon, are only fancy pictures of the close of the sixteenth century.

The popularity of Columbus was short-lived because he led the Spanish nation to believe that gold was plentiful and easily obtained in Cuba and Hispaniola, whilst the Spaniards who, seduced by his enthusiastic descriptions, crossed the Atlantic in search of wealth, found nothing but sufferings and poverty. Those who managed to return home arrived in Spain absolutely destitute. They were noblemen, who clamored at the court and all over the country, charging "the stranger" with having deceived them. (Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, cap. lxxxv, f. 188; Las Casas, lib. i, cap. cxxii, vol. ii, p. 176; Andres Bernaldez, cap. cxxxi, vol. ii, p. 77.) It was not under such circumstances that Spaniards would have caused his portrait to be painted. The oldest effigy of Columbus known (a rough wood-cut in Jovius, illustrium virorum vitæ, Florentiæ, 1549, folio), was made at least forty years after his death, and in Italy, where he never returned after leaving it as a poor and unknown artizan. Let it be enough for us to know that he was above the medium height, robust, with sandy hair, a face elongated, flushed and freckled, vivid light gray eyes, the nose shaped like the beak of an eagle, and that he always was dressed like a monk. (Bernaldez, Oviedo, Las Casas, and the author of the Libretto, all eye-witnesses.)—H. Harrisse's "Columbus, and the Bank of St. George, in Genoa."