Wednesday, June 26, 2024

Nicolò Scillacio (c. 1494): Columbus Instructing Natives to Give Religious Adoration to an Image of Mary

For work, I have been reading the multi-volume Repertorium Columbianum series. The following comes from Nicolò Scillacio (c. 1494) speaking of Columbus gifting an image of the Virgin Mary, instructing them to give the image (not Mary [the heavenly prototype] herself) religious adoration:

 

6.2.19. Once this had been done, the admiral set out to go to see the king, who lived about ten miles from the sea. Accompanied by one hundred of the more distinguished Spaniards, he set out on the third day in the direction where many roofs and the smoke of a village should be see. . . . The admiral, weighed down with so many gifts from Guacanagarí, adorned him with an under-tunic sewn in the African style, reversible and brightly colored. He also presented him with a larger hand-basin made of yellow copper, and several tin rings; finally he reverently unwrapped an image of the blessed Virgin Mother, and taught the king that it must be piously worshipped [postremo beatae Virginis Matris reverenter explicat imaginem, quam religiosius adorandam esse docet]. (Nicolò Scillacio, c. 1494, repr. Italian Reports on America, 1493-1522: Accounts by Contemporary Observers, ed. Geoffrey Symcox, trans. Luciano Formisano [Repertorium Columbianum 12; Turnhout: Brepols, 2002], 43)

 

Further Reading:

 

Answering Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons

 

 

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