File:The library of historic characters and famous events of all nations and all ages; (1902) (14783126365).jpg

Identifier: libraryofhistori02spof (find matches)
Title: The library of historic characters and famous events of all nations and all ages;
Year: 1902 (1900s)
Authors: Spofford, Ainsworth Rand, 1825-1908 Weitenkampf, Frank, 1866-1962 Lamberton, John Porter, 1839-1917
Subjects: Biography History
Publisher: Philadelphia : W. Finley
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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compass and the now-forgotten astro-labe, was able to realize in a certain measure his strange andvisionary project, which the highest reputed wisdom of histime condemned in advance. The discoverer was thenrewarded as all the greatest benefactors of the human racehave been rewarded,—with opposition, neglect and chains.But his noble soul rose superior to this unworthy treatment,and found its supreme satisfaction in the discharge of dutyand submission to the will of God. Christopher Columbus was born in Genoa, about the year1435 or 1436. His son, Fernando, unwilling, from mistakenpride, to reveal the indigence and humble condition fromwhich his father emerged, has left the biography of Columbusvery incomplete. His father followed the trade of a wool-comber, and his ancestors had long occupied a lowly position.The name was Colombo in the Italian; the Eatin form wasgiven to it by himself at an early period, in his letters; andconceiving that Colonus was the Roman original, he changedi34
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& COLUMBUS. 135 the name to Colon when he went to Spain, better to adaptthe word to the Castilian tongue. With the exception of one year spent at Pavia, then thegreat school of learning in Lombardy, Columbus received hiseducation in his native city. It was extended to such studiesas fitted him for the nautical profession, to which he showedan early bent, geometry, geography and astronomy, or, as itwas termed, astrology. He went to sea at the age of fourteen.In addition to the hardy encounters and dangers attendingthe sea-faring life of that age, he was under the rigid disci-pline of an old relation, Colombo, who carried on a predatorywarfare against Mohammedans and Venetians, the bitter ene-mies of the Genoese. But after reaching manhood his voy-ages were no longer confined to the Mediterranean. InFebruary, 1467, in order to ascertain whether Iceland was anisland, he sailed a hundred leagues beyond it, and was aston-ished at not finding the sea frozen; he also visited the Portu-gu

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