COLUMBUS, Christopher.

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Manuscript poem in Italian, being a long biographical account of Columbus. The only known copy of a long biographical poem on Columbus, and the earliest entirely original epic in the vernacular devoted to him, predating the works of Gambara, Stella, Giorgini, and Castellanos. An exceptional survival, the anonymous poem is written in ottava rima by a highly capable versifier in the Renaissance tradition of Boccaccio, Boiardo, Pulci, and Ariosto.It comprises 712 hendecasyllabic lines in 89 octave stanzas. The first 18 pages (60 stanzas, 480 lines) recount the Italian wars of the early 16th century during the French and Spanish conquests, focusing largely on events of 1500-10. The remaining ten pages (29 stanzas, 232 lines) treat Columbus: his birth, youth, and education; his petition to Ferdinand and patronage by Isabella; his first voyage, triumphant return, and part of his second voyage. The narrative voice is internal, the speaker identifying himself as Emperor Maximilian I. Cro suggested that the abrupt ending may indicate an unfinished work; however, a faint catchword ("Isola grande") in the same hand implies that this manuscript once formed part of a longer text, now lost.The principal literary sources for Columbus at mid-century were Paolo Giovio's Elogia virorum illustrium (1546) and his Vita di Consalvo di Cordova (1547). The poem includes details recorded only by Giovio among early commentators, notably the identification of Abissola (Arbizolo) as Columbus's birthplac

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