me to prove that his ancestors descended from Junius Colomus, who, as Tacitus relates, brought Mithridates a prisoner to Rome, for which service he was raised by the Roman people to the consulate.  They would likewise have induced me to give an account at large of the two illustrious Colomi his predecessors, who gained a great victory over the Venetians, as recorded by Sabellius, and which shall be mentioned in this work.  But considering that my father seemed to have been peculiarly chosen by the Almighty for the great work which he performed, and may be considered in some measure as an apostle of the Lord by carrying the gospel among the heathen; and that the other apostles were called upon from the sea and the rivers, and not from courts and palaces, by him whose progenitors were of the royal blood of the Jews, yet who was pleased that they should be in a low and unknown estate:  And seeing that God had gifted my father with those personal qualities which so well fitted him for so great an undertaking, he was himself inclined that his country and original might remain hidden and obscure.

Some who would throw a cloud upon his fame, have alleged that he was from Nerni, others from Cuguero, and others from Bugiesco, all small towns in the 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