COLUMBIAN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION AT MADRID. 



221 



THE FLORENTINE. 

 See page 222. 



Xo. 2. THE GIOVIO PORTRAIT, FROM AX OLD ENGRAVING (plate I). 



Paulus Jovius, or Paolo Giovio, as the name is given in Italian, was the archbishop 



of Nocera. He was a man of wealth, and of literary and artistic tastes. He was 23 



years old when Columbus died. On the banks of 



Lake Como he erected a magnificent palace, which 



is said to have occupied the exact site of Pliny s villa. 



Attached to his palace was a gallery, in which hung 



the most famous private art collection of that age. 



It was particularly rich in portraits, and as Giovio was 



an ardent admircrof Columbus, aportrait of the latter 



hung in a conspicuous place. Fueillet de Conches, 



a learned modern French writer, says there were two 



portraits of Columbus in the collection, but an Italian 



author named Ticozzi, who described it in eight 



large volumes, published in 1546, mentions only one. 



The collection was subsequently described by Vasari 



in his Lives of the Painters, published at Florence in 



1568. He alludes to but one portrait of Columbus, and 



accepts it as genuine, but does not name the artist, 



or give the time when or place where it was painted. 

 It is known that in 1552 Cosmo di Medici and the 



Princess Hippolyti Gonzaga sent Cristofanodell Altis- 



simo and Bernadino Campo, both competent artists, 



to Como, to copy the portrait of Columbus; and that 



in 1550 Ferdinand I of Austria did the same. About 



1613 the collection of Giovio was divided among his descendants, and the pictures 



were widely scattered. It is impossible to trace them at this day, but five of the 



existing portraits of Columbus are 

 claimed to have been the original 

 of the archbishop s gallery. Cir 

 cumstantial evidence is presented 

 in support of each; but if the 

 Giovio portrait was so often copied 

 as above stated, the origin of the 

 several claimants is explained. 



The Giovio portrait was used to 

 illustrate a eulogy upon Columbus 

 originally written by Giovio in 

 1549, under the title of &quot;Elogia 

 Virorum Bellica Virtute Illus- 

 trium,&quot; but the illustration did not 

 appear until the second edition, 

 which was published at Basle, 1575. 

 According to De Conchas, this 

 edition contained some very bad 

 woodcuts by an engraver named 

 Pern a, and Ginguere, in his Bio- 

 graphie Uuiverselle, says they 

 were neither accurate nor Avell 

 executed . The edition of 1578 con 

 tained similar portraits, engraved 

 on wood by Tobias Stimmer, who 

 was born at Schaff hausen in 1534. 

 The same portrait of Columbus was 



described by Theobold Muller in True and Memorable Engravings or Pictures of Well 



Deserved and Famous Warriors, published at Basle, 1577, and also in Michel Beuther s 



Pictures of Famous Emperors, Kings, and Nobles, published at Basle in 1582. 



THE YANEZ. 



See page 223. 



