The Columbus gallery : the "discoverer of the New World" as represented in portraits, monuments, statues, medals, and paintings

Front matter

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Introduction

Having, for a period of some years, investigated the subject of the portraits of Columbus, and embodied the results of my inquiries in an address recently delivered before the American Geographical Society, I feel myself better able than many others would be to form an opinion of the value and extent of Mr. Ponce de Leon's labors in this difficult field of inquiry. I have read in manuscript a large part of his work — I think nearly the whole of it, or, at least, sufficiently to ascertain the facts that he has brought together and the conclusions he has based upon them. As respects the facts, his labor has been most exhaustive. He has, in my opinion, ascertained everything that is now within the reach of the most diligent scholar. He is an accomplished linguist and has had the advantage of being able to read the works consulted in the language in which they were written, and has not been compelled, as many investigators are, to depend upon translations. This is of value, for I have found in my own investigation of this subject passages not only translated imperfectly, but, in some cases, so erroneously, as to be misleading. As to his conclusions, I found to my surprise — and I suppose it has been equally so to him — that although our investigations were conducted and our respective productions prepared entirely independent of each other, that we have arrived generally at the same results ; so much so, in fact, as to give the appearance, in different parts, as if the one had been written from the other. During my acquaintance with him of some years, and as fellows of the Geographical Society, we have frequently conversed upon the subject of the portraits of Columbus, and in preparing my address I asked him — as he was especially competent to do so — to give me his opinion of the character of Columbus that I might give it in the address, in connection with that of others, upon this much contested question. In our mode of investigation, however, and in what we have respectively written, we have, as I have said, worked independently, and it was not until our labors were completed and what we had written was ready for publication, that I found how mucli we agreed in the results arrived at.

I make this statement, as my own production is prior in point of time, having been delivered as my annual address before a society of which I am the President, and it is now printed in the Journal of that society. I felt that it was due to Mr. Ponce de Leon that no reader of his book should get an impression that he was in any way indebted to my prior publication, and that he should receive, as he is entitled to, the full benefit of the extensive researches he has made and the conclusions he has founded upon them.

In giving him the high praise which is due to him for his labors, I regret that he did not include in this book what he says in his preface he contemplated in respect to the general subject of Columbus. He is the best informed gentleman with whom I have conversed upon everything relating to the great discoverer, and whatever he may give to the public upon that subject will be reliable and valuable.

CHAS. P. DALY.