Note 106 — Chapter III · 1474-1492.

Fernando Colombo, an illegitimate son of the admiral, was born in Cordova about the year 1487. After his father’s discovery of the New World, he was made page to Prince Juan, the son of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. He accompanied his father in his fourth voyage, in 1502, and after the latter’s death, sailed twice to the West Indies. He was excellently educated, and was the author of several works. His library, it is said, contained more than twenty thousand books and manuscripts, which, after his death, became the property of the cathedral of Seville. The manuscript of his history of the life of his father was lost before the work appeared in Spanish. It is said that Luis Colon, duke of Veragua, a dissipated grandson of the navigator, went to Genoa about the year 1568, taking Fernando’s manuscript with him, and placed it in the hands of Baltano de Fornari, by whom it was transferred to Giorgio Baptista Marini, who had it translated into Italian, after which it was printed in Venice in this language, and also in Latin. Alfonso de Ulloa’s Italian translation of it was published, in Venice, in 1571, entitled Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; nelli quali s’ ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de’ fatti dell’ Ammiraglio D. Cristoforo Colombo, suo padre. There are several English translations of Fernando Colombo’s history. Vide Collection of voyages and travels by [A. & J.] Churchhill. London, 1732. vol. ii. pp. 499-628. Pinkerton’s Collection of voyages and travels. London, 1819. vol. ii. pp. 1-155.