We do not know accurately the date of his birth, though it was probably
1451. Sixteen Italian cities have claimed him as a native; and of these
Genoa in northern Italy offers the best proofs. Papers still exist
showing that his father owned a little house there. Men who have studied
the life of Columbus, and who have written much about him, say that he
was born in the province, not the city, of Genoa; but Columbus himself
says in his diary that he was a native of Genoa city; and present-day
Genoese have even identified the very street where he was born and where
he played as a child--the Vico Dritto di Ponticello. In the wall of the
house in which he is believed to have lived is placed an iron tablet
containing an inscription in Latin. It tells us that "no house is more
to be honored than this, in which Christopher Columbus spent his boyhood
and his early youth."
More important than the exact spot of his birth would be a knowledge of
the sort of childhood he passed and of the forces that molded his
character. To learn this we must look into the condition of
civilization, and particularly of Italian civilization, in the middle
sixteenth century.
Columbus was born in a brilliant period known now as the Renaissance--a
French word meaning re-birth--which marks the beginning of modern
history.
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