A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 3 | Page 6

Riviera of Genoa: While others again, who were disposed rather to exalt his origin, say that he was a native of Savona, others of Genoa, and some more vain, make him to have been a native of Placentia, where there are some honourable persons of the name, and several tombs having the arms and inscriptions of the family of Columbus, which was the usual sirname of his predecessors; but he, in compliance with the country where he went to reside, modelled the name in resemblance of the ancients to Colon, thereby distinguishing the direct descent from the collateral lines.
Many names have been given by secret impulse, to denote the effects those persons were to produce; and as most of my fathers affairs were guarded by some special providence, his name and sirname were not without some mysterious significations. Thus, considering the sirname of his ancestors, Columbus or Columba, since he conveyed the grace of the Holy Ghost into that New World which he discovered, shewing the knowledge of the beloved Son of God to those people who knew him not, as was done by the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove at the baptism of St John; and because, like Noahs dove, he carried the olive branch and the oil of baptism across the waters of the ocean, to denote the peace and union of those people with the church, which had long been shut up in the ark of darkness and ignorance. So likewise of the sirname of Colon which he revived, which was appropriate to him as signifying a member; and, in conjunction with his sirname of Christopher, denoted that he was a member of Christ, by whom salvation was to be conveyed to the heathen people whom he discovered. Thus, as St Christopher received that name because he carried Christ over the deep waters with great danger to himself; so the admiral Christopher Colonus, imploring the protection of Christ, safely carried himself and his people over the unknown ocean, that those Indian nations which he discovered might become citizens and inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem. For many souls, whom the Devil expected for his prey, were through his means passed through the water of baptism, and made inhabitants of the eternal glory of heaven.
To return to the quality and persons of his progenitors; however considerable they may once have been, it is certain that they were reduced to poverty and want, through the long wars and factions in Lombardy. I have not been able to discover in what manner they lived; though in one of his letters the admiral asserted that his ancestors and himself had always traded by sea. While passing through Cuguero, I endeavoured to receive some information on this subject from two brothers of the Colombi, who were the richest in those parts, and who were reported to be somewhat related to him; but the youngest of them being above an hundred years old, they could give me no information. Neither do I conceive this any dishonour to us his descendants; as I think it better that all our honour be derived from his own person, without inquiring whether his father were a merchant, or a nobleman who kept hawks and hounds. There have been thousands such in all parts, whose memory was soon lost among their neighbours and kindred, so that no memorials remain of there ever having been such men. I am therefore of opinion, that the nobility of such men would reflect less lustre upon me than the honour I receive from such a father: And, since his honourable exploits made him stand in no need of the wealth of predecessors, who though poor were not destitute of virtue, he ought from his name and worth to have been raised by authors above the rank of mechanics or peasants.
Should any one be disposed to affirm that the predecessors of my father were handicrafts, founding upon the assertion of Justiniani, I shall not engage to prove the contrary; for, as the writing of Justiniani is not to be considered as an article of faith, so I have received the contrary from a thousand persons. Neither shall I endeavour to prove the falsehood of his history from those other authors who have written concerning my father; but shall convict him of falsehood out of his own writings and by his own testimony; thus verifying proverb which says "that liars ought to have good memories," because otherwise they contradict themselves, as Justiniani has done in this case, of which I propose to exhibit sufficient proofs.
In his comparison of the four languages, when commenting upon that passage in the psalms, "In omnem terrarum exivit sonus eorum," he says, "This Christopher Columbus having acquired some rudiments of learning in his tender years, applied himself