[Illustration: COLUMBUS'S LETTER, APRIL 2, 1502, ADDRESSED TO THE BANK OF ST. GEORGE IN GENOA.
[Reduced in size by photographic process.]]
Some manuscript marginalia found in three different books, used by Columbus and preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina at Seville, are also remnants of the autographs of Columbus. These marginal notes are in copies of Æneas Sylvius's _Historia Rerum ubique gestarum_ (Venice, 1477) of a Latin version of Marco Polo (Antwerp, 1485?), and of Pierre d'Ailly's _De Imagine Mundi_ (perhaps 1490), though there is some suspicion that these last-mentioned notes may be those of Bartholomew, and not of Christopher, Columbus. These books have been particularly described in José Silverio Jorrin's _Varios Autografos ineditos de Cristóbal Colon_, published at Havana in 1888. In May, 1860, José Maria Fernandez y Velasco, the librarian of the Biblioteca Colombina, discovered a Latin text of the letter of Toscanelli, written by Columbus in this same copy of Æneas Sylvius. He believed it a Latin version of a letter originally written in Italian; but it was left for Harrisse to discover that the Latin was the original draft. A facsimile of this script is in Harrisse's _Fernando Colon_ (Seville, 1871), and specimens of the marginalia were first given by Harrisse in his _Notes on Columbus_, whence they are reproduced in part in the _Narrative and Critical History of America_ (vol. ii.).
[Sidenote: Harrisse's memorial of Columbus.]
It is understood that, under the auspices of the Italian government, Harrisse is now engaged in collating the texts and preparing a national memorial issue of the writings of Columbus, somewhat in accordance with a proposition which he made to the Minister of Public Instruction at Rome in his _Le Quatrième Centenaire de la Découverte du Nouveau Monde_ (Genoa, 1887).
There are references to printed works of Columbus which I have not seen, as a _Declaracion de Tabla Navigatoria_, annexed to a treatise, _Del Uso de la Carta de Navegar_, by Dr. Grajales: a _Tratado de las Cinco Zonas Habitables_, which Humboldt found it very difficult to find.
[Illustration: ANNOTATIONS BY COLUMBUS ON THE _IMAGO MUNDI_.
Of the manuscripts of Columbus which are lost, there are traces still to be discovered. One letter, which he dated off the Canaries, February 15, 1493, and which must have contained some account of his first voyage, is only known to us from an intimation of Marino Sanuto that it was included in the _Chronica Delphinea_. It is probably from an imperfect copy of this last in the library at Brescia, that the letter in question was given in the book's third part (A. D. 1457-1500), which is now missing. We know also, from a letter still preserved (December 27, 1504), that there must be a letter somewhere, if not destroyed, sent by him respecting his fourth voyage, to Messer Gian Luigi Fieschi, as is supposed, the same who led the famous conspiracy against the house of Doria. Other letters, Columbus tells us, were sent at times to the Signora Madonna Catalina, who was in some way related to Fieschi.