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Nearly five hundred years ago, there lived, in the beautiful old Italian city of Genoa, a poor wool-comber named Dominico Colombo, and about 1446, a son was born to him and to his wife, Susanna, and in due time christened Christoforo. The world into which the child was born was very different to the one in which we live.
The fish was at length eaten, not a fin, nor a morsel of flesh remained, and once more the sailors were forced to seek along the shore for shell-fish, which was now their only food. Christoforo was one day seated in the cottage. He had grown white and thin, and his long lank hair looked dry and rusty, as it hung over his sunken cheeks.
In the Church of S. Christoforo, in Vercelli, Gaudenzio Ferrari, at the full height of his powers, showed what he could do to justify Lomazzi's title chosen for him of the eagle. He has indeed the strong wing and the swiftness of the king of birds.
She was deep enough in the water now, and on her deck lay many an unstowed bale, many a cask of wine, for which the sad-looking Cretan sailors, in their tunics and short cloaks, had not yet been able to find room. Sixty-eight men were now on board, including the patron or owner, Master Piero Quirini, and Christoforo Fioravanti, the sailing-master.
"Christopher Columbus, otherwise Christoforo Colombo, the celebrated discoverer of America, was born of poor but honest parents in the Italian city of Genoa. His mother, Teresa Colombo, seems to have been a woman of great piety and intelligence. Of his father, Bartolomeo Colombo, nothing is recorded.
Of this child, Fulvia is said to have dreamed, long before his birth, that he assumed the form of a white swan, and sang melodiously, and settled in the boughs of an olive-tree, whence afterwards he winged his way to heaven amid a flock of swans as dazzling white as he. The boy was educated in the Dominican Cloister at Siena, under the care of his uncle Christoforo Tolomei.
On Good Friday the friar assembled all the citizens, and preached; and when the moment came for the elevation of the crucifix, 'there issued forth from San Lorenzo Eliseo di Christoforo, a barber of the quarter of Sant Angelo, like a naked Christ with the cross on his shoulder, and the crown of thorns upon his head, and his flesh seemed to be bruised as when Christ was scourged. The people were immensely moved by this sight.
"Now, men," said he, "you shall choose your boat; there stands the notary, Nicolo di Michiel, with his ink-horn and parchment; he shall write down the names of all who would fain sail in the skiff." "Master, there are forty-five for the skiff," said Nicolo, slowly reckoning the long list of written names; "forty-five, and the skiff, saith Christoforo Fioravanti, holds but twenty-one."
"We will make her serve for a shelter at least," said Christoforo, and so, dividing her into two parts, they, with the help of her sails, made two huts, in which the twenty-one sailors, who alone were left, might find some slight shelter from the winter wind.
Every visitor to Florence during the last twenty years must have noticed on the grand piazza before the Ducal Palace, the strange genius known as Monsignore Créso, or, in plain English, Mr. Croesus. He is so called because of his reputed great wealth; but his real name is Christoforo Rischio, which I may again translate, as Christopher Risk. Mrs.
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