hance, but provided for the precise number of
masses to be said, the exact amount of wax to be consumed, and the
kind of mourning liveries to be worn by his servants. He asked that
his body should be borne to its grave by the dean and the canons of
the cathedral, an honour to which his dignity of prior of that chapter
entitled him; but in order to ensure the chapter's participation, as
he quaintly expressed it, "with more goodwill," he set aside a legacy
of three thousand maravedis as compensation. Not only were his wishes
in this and all respects carried out, but the cathedral chapter
erected a tablet to his memory, upon which an epitaph he would not
have disdained was inscribed: _Rerum AEtate Nostra Gestarum--Et
Novi Orbis Ignoti Hactenus--Illustratori Petro Martyri
Mediolanensi--Caesareo Senatori--Qui, Patria Relicta--Bella Granatensi
Miles Interfuit--Mox Urbe Capta, Primum Canonico--Deinde Priori
Hujus Ecclesiae--Decanus Et Capitulum--Carissimo Collegae Posuere
Sepulchrum--Anno MDXXVI_.[10]

[Note 9: His last will was published in the _Documentos Ineditos_,
tom, xxxix., pp. 400-414.]

[Note 10: Harrisse, in his _Christoph Colomb_, fixes upon the 23d
or 24th of September as the date of Martyr's death, believing that his
last will was executed on his deathbed. There is, however, nothing
that absolutely proves that such was the fact. The epitaph gives but
the year. In the _Documentos Ineditos_ the month of September is given
in one place, that of October in another.]

V

Peter Martyr was perhaps the first man in Spain to realise the
importance of the discovery made by Columbus. Where others beheld but
a novel and exciting incident in the history of navigation, he,
with all but prophetic forecast, divined an event of unique and
far-reaching importance. He promptly assumed the functions of
historian of the new epoch whose dawn he presaged, and in the month
of October, 1494, he began the series of letters to be known as the
_Ocean Decades_, continuing his labours, with interruptions, until
1526, the year of his death. The value of his manuscripts obtained
immediate recognition; they were the only source of authentic
information concerning the New World, accessible to men of letters and
politicians outside Spain.

His material was new and original; every arriving caravel brought
him fresh news; ship-captains, cosmographers, conquerors of fabulous
realms in the mysterious west, all reported to him; even the com