Page:The life of Christopher Columbus.djvu/50

26 after, a Genoese, Father Sportorno, an old Barnabite, excited with a keen resentment against the second son of Columbus, Don Fernando, whom he accused of having designedly disseminated some doubts in regard to the origin and the birthplace of his father, welcomed with ardor this imputation of bastardy, which favored his animosity.

Neither the contrary proof, resulting doubly from the assertions and the silence of the Spanish writers, nor the demonstration so logical of the facts, nor the character almost sacerdotal of the messenger of the Cross, could remove his prejudice. This stain of origin, whatever it may cost, was necessary for him, to cast, in his turn, some doubt on the veracity of the historian the nearest in point of time, and the best acquainted with Columbus. In all his writings, Spotorno recurs with a malignant satisfaction to the pretended illicit intimacy of Columbus with Beatrix Enriquez, and renews the charge of illegitimacy against Don Fernando. Not content with having, in 1819, inserted it in his book, "Of the Origin and of the Country of Christopher Columbus," he proudly repeated it in his "Literary History of Liguria," but in giving it as the product of his own sagacity. Thus, as Napione had decked himself with the quibble stolen from a distant Spanish attorney, so, by force of repeating the plagiarism committed on Napione, Spotorno finishes with claiming as his own personal property this miserable calumny, ignorant of its true consequences.

In the eyes of unthinking readers, this pretended discovery of the secret passion of Columbus gained for Spotorno the reputation of being a learned critic; it obtained for him, in 1823, the honor of being charged by the decurional corps of Genoa with the publication of some documents relative to Columbus, the collection of which formed the Codice Colombo Americano. The care of introducing the new volume with a notice of the Genoese hero, was intrusted to him. Spotorno could not fail, in availing himself of so favorable an opportunity, to