Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia Part 31

It was designed by Randolph Rogers, an American, and modeled by him in Rome, in 1858; and was cast by F. Von Muller, at Munich, 1861.

The story the door tells is the history of Columbus and the discovery of America.

The panel containing the earliest event in the life of the discoverer is the lowest one on the south side, and represents "Columbus undergoing an examination before the Council of Salamanca."

The panel above it contains "Columbus' departure from the Convent of Santa Maria de la Rabida," near Palos. He is just setting out to visit the Spanish court.

The one above it is his "audience at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella."

The next panel is the top one of this half of the door, and represents the "starting of Columbus from Palos on his first voyage."

The transom panel occupies the semicircular sweep over the whole door.

The extended picture here is the "first landing of the Spaniards at San Salvador."

The top panel on the other leaf of the door represents the "first encounter of the discoverers with the natives." In it one of the sailors is seen bringing an Indian girl on his shoulders a prisoner. The transaction aroused the stern indignation of Columbus.

The panel next below this one has in it "the triumphal entry of Columbus into Barcelona."

The panel below this represents a very different scene, and is "Columbus in chains."

In the next and last panel is the "death scene." Columbus lies in bed; the last rites of the Catholic church have been administered; friends and attendants are around him; and a priest holds up a crucifix for him to kiss, and upon it bids him fix his dying eyes.

On the door, on the sides and between the panels, are sixteen small statues, set in niches, of eminent contemporaries of Columbus. Their names are marked on the door, and beginning at the bottom, on the side from which we started in numbering the panels, we find the figure in the lowest niche is Juan Perez de la Marchena, prior of La Rabida; then above him is Hernando Cortez; and again, standing over him, is Alonzo de Ojeda.

Amerigo Vespucci occupies the next niche on the door.

Then, opposite in line, across the door, standing in two niches, side by side, are Cardinal Mendoza and Pope Alexander VI.

Then below them stand Ferdinand and Isabella, King and Queen of Spain; beneath them stands the Lady Beatrice Enriquez de Bobadilla; beside her is Charles VIII., King of France.

The first figure of the lowest pair on the door is Henry VII. of England; beside him stands John II., King of Portugal.

Then, in the same line with them, across the panel, is Alonzo Pinzon.

In the niche above Alonzo Pinzon stands Bartolomeo Columbus, the brother of the great navigator.

Then comes Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and in the niche above, again at the top of the door, stands the figure of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru.

Between the panels and at top and bottom of the valves of the door are ten projecting heads. Those between the panels are historians who have written Columbus' voyages from his own time down to the present day, ending with Washington Irving and William Hickling Prescott.

The two heads at the tops of the valves are female heads, while the two next the floor possess Indian characteristics.

Above, over the transom arch, looks down, over all, the serene grand head of Columbus. Beneath it, the American eagle spreads out his widely extended wings.

Mr. Rogers[55] received $8,000 for his models, and Mr. Von Muller was paid $17,000 in gold for casting the door. To a large portion of this latter sum must be added the high premium on exchange which ruled during the war, the cost of storage and transportation, and the expense of the erection of the door in the Capitol after its arrival. These items would, added together, far exceed $30,000 in the then national currency.

SANTA MARIA RaBIDA, THE CONVENT--RaBIDA.

SAMUEL ROGERS, the English banker-poet. Born near London, July 30, 1763; died December, 1855. Translated from a Castilian MS., and printed as an introduction to his poem, "The Voyage of Columbus."

It is stated that he spent $50,000 in the ill.u.s.trations of this volume of his poems.

In Rabida's monastic fane I can not ask, and ask in vain; The language of Castille I speak, 'Mid many an Arab, many a Greek, Old in the days of Charlemagne, When minstrel-music wandered round, And science, waking, blessed the sound.

No earthly thought has here a place, The cowl let down on every face; Yet here, in consecrated dust, Here would I sleep, if sleep I must.

From Genoa, when Columbus came (At once her glory and her shame), 'T was here he caught the holy flame; 'T was here the generous vow he made; His banners on the altar laid.

Here, tempest-worn and desolate, A pilot journeying through the wild Stopped to solicit at the gate A pittance for his child.

'T was here, unknowing and unknown, He stood upon the threshold stone.

But hope was his, a faith sublime, That triumphs over place and time; And here, his mighty labor done, And here, his course of glory run, Awhile as more than man he stood, So large the debt of grat.i.tude.

Who the great secret of the deep possessed, And, issuing through the portals of the West, Fearless, resolved, with every sail unfurled, Planted his standard on the unknown world.

--_Ibid._

GENOA.

Thy brave mariners, They had fought so often by thy side, Staining the mountain billows.

--_Ibid._

LAUNCHED OUT INTO THE DEEP.

WILLIAM RUSSELL, American author and educationist. Born in Scotland, 1798; died, 1873. From his "Modern History."

Transcendent genius and superlative courage experience almost equal difficulty in carrying their designs into execution when they depend on the a.s.sistance of others. Columbus possessed both--he exerted both; and the concurrence of other heads and other hearts was necessary to give success to either; he had indolence and cowardice to encounter, as well as ignorance and prejudice. He had formerly been ridiculed as a visionary, he was now pitied as a desperado. The Portuguese navigators, in accomplishing their first discoveries, had always some reference to the coast; cape had pointed them to cape; but Columbus, with no landmark but the heavens, nor any guide but the compa.s.s, boldly launched into the ocean, without knowing what sh.o.r.e should receive him or where he could find rest for the sole of his foot.

STATUARY AT SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA.

One of the princ.i.p.al features in the State capitol at Sacramento is a beautiful and artistic group of statuary, cut from a solid block of purest white marble. It represents Columbus pleading the cause of his project before Queen Isabella of Spain. The Spanish sovereign is seated; at her left hand kneels the First Admiral, while an attendant page on the right watches with wonder the n.o.bly generous action of the Queen.

Columbus, with a globe in his hand, contends that the world is round, and pleads for a.s.sistance to fit out an expedition to discover the New World. The royal reply is, "I will a.s.sume the undertaking for my own crown of Castille, and am ready to pledge my jewels to defray its expense, if the funds in the treasury shall be found inadequate," The group, which is said to be a masterpiece of work, the only piece of its kind in the United States, was executed in Florence, Italy, by Larkin G.

Mead of Vermont, an American artist of known reputation. Costing $60,000, it was presented to the State of California, in 1883, by Mr. D.

O. Mills.

A MONUMENT NEAR SALAMANCA.

At Valcuebo, a country farm once belonging to the Dominicans of Salamanca, Columbus was entertained by Diego de Deza--prior of the great Dominican convent of San Esteban and professor of theology at Salamanca--while the Junta [committee] of Spanish ecclesiastics considered his prospects. His residence there was a peaceful oasis in the stormy life of the great discoverer. The little grange still stands at a distance of about three miles west of Salamanca, and the country people have a tradition that on the crest of a small hill near the house, now called "Teso de Colon" (i. e., Columbus' Peak), the future discoverer used to pa.s.s long hours conferring with his visitors or reading in solitude. The present owner, Don Martin de Solis, has erected a monument on this hill, consisting of a stone pyramid surmounted by a globe; it commemorates the spot where the storm-tossed hero enjoyed a brief interval of peace and rest.

HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE.