Authentic Letters of Columbus. loi 



The least interesting- of the manuscripts of Columbus, if offered 

 for sale, would doubtless command a higher price than was ever yet 

 paid for an autograph, and the enormous value that attaches to them 

 has caused several clever forgeries of the Genoa document to be made. 

 Some years ago an imitation of the letter to the Governors of the Bank 

 of vSt. George was offered to the late Mr. S. L. M. Barlow, of New 

 York, for the sum of two thousand dollars. He placed the matter in 

 the hands of Mr. Henry Harrisse, the celebrated Columbian scholar 

 of Paris, who very cleverly detected and exposed the forgery. He 

 discovered that it was the work of an Italian rascal, who was after- 

 wards condemned for theft and other crimes and committed to the 

 prison of San Guiliano Persiceto in Genoa in 1885, under sentence of 

 imprisonment for four years. It appears that the forger obtained 

 from a book in the National Librar}'- at Paris blank sheets of vellum 

 nearly of the exact size, age and texture as that upon which the gen- 

 uine letter was written. Next, with a very soft lead pencil he black- 

 ened a sheet of ordinary thin paper on one side. This he tacked to the 

 sheet of vellum, and having procured a photograph of the original 

 pasted it upon the blank side of the paper. Then, with a pointed in- 

 strument he traced every letter and mark, which transferred a fac- 

 simile of the original to the vellum. Having removed the blackened 

 page and the original he renewed the tracing with ink, chemically 

 prepared so as to show age in the color. 



A similar forgery, perhaps the same, is now in the possession of 

 a New York gentleman, who undoubtedly believes in its genuineness; 

 and, in 1892, fac-similes of all three of the Genoa letters, imdoubtedly 

 made in a similar manner, were sold to the President of Guatemala 

 for a large sum of money, having been pronounced genuine by a com- 

 mittee of learned scholars in Spain, 



During his memorable voyage of discovery Columbus kept a 

 minute journal, but it has entirely disappeared. After his death his 

 papers were stored in an iron chest in the Monastery of Las Cuevas, 

 near Seville, where he was buried. The building is now used as a por- 

 celain factory. After his body was removed to Santo Domingo about 

 1540, the chest and its contents remained in the possession of the Car- 

 thusian friars for seventy years or so, when, in 1 609, they were deliv- 

 ered to Nuno de Portugal, who had been declared by the Council of the 

 Indies the heir to his titles, privileges and estates. Meantime Bar- 

 tholemew Las Casas, who was known as "the apostle to the Indies," 

 had access to the documents in the preparation of his histon^ of the 

 Indies, and in that volume included a large portion of the journal, 

 which was afterwards translated into English and published by Samuel 



