325
APPENDIX.
plaints of this action being made to king Ferdinand, he wrote on the sub ject to Louis X I ; his letter is dated the 9th December, 1474.
Ferdinand
terms Christopher Columbus a subject of Louis ; it was because, as is known, Columbus was a Genoese, and Louis was sovereign of Genoa : although that city and Savona were held of him in fief by the duke of Milan." It is highly probable that it was the squadron of this same Colombo of whom the circumstance is related by Bossi, and after him by Spotorno on the authority of a letter found in the archives of Milan, and written in 1476 by two illustrious Milanese gentlemen, on their return from Jerusalem. T h e letter states that in the previous year 1475, as the Venetian fleet was stationed off Cyprus to guard the island, a Genoese squadron, commanded by one Colombo, sailed by them with an air of defiance, shouting " Viva San Giorgia !"
A s the republics were then at peace they were permitted
to pass unmolested. Bossi supposes that the Colombo here mentioned was Christopher Co lumbus the discoverer ; but it appears rather to have been the old Genoese admiral of that name, who according to Zurita was about that time cruis ing in the Mediterranean ; and who, in all probability, was the hero of both the preceding occurrences. T h e nephew of this Colombo, called by the Spaniards Colombo el mozo, commanded a few years afterwards a squadron in the French ser vice, as will appear in a subsequent illustration, and Columbus may at va rious times have held an inferior command under both uncle and nephew, and been present on the above cited occasions.
No. VIII. EXPEDITION
OP
JOHN
OP
ANJOU.
A B O U T the time that Columbus attained his twenty-fourth year, his native city was in a state of great alarm and peril from the threatened invasion of Alphonso V of Aragon, king of Naples.
Finding itself too weak to
contend singly with such a foe, and having in vain looked for assistance from Italy, it placed itself under the protection of Charles the VLTth of France.
That monarch sent to its assistance John of Anjou, son of René