The first personage in Rome who received and propagated the historic details of the Discovery, was Cardinal Ascanio Sforza.
Cardinal Bernardin Carvajal corresponded, in relation to Columbus, with the celebrated scholar, Peter Martyr d'Anghierra, professor of Latin at the Court of Spain.
Cardinal Luiz d'Arragon sent one of his secretaries to collect, under the dictation of Peter Martyr, what that elegant scholar had learned from Columbus himself.
The illustrious Cardinal Bembo inserted in his "History of Venice" a whole book on the discovery of Columbus.
Pope Leo X. caused to be read, during the evenings of winter, in the midst of the Pontifical Court, all the discoveries of Columbus, the history of which was written by Peter Martyr d'Anghierra, under the title of Oceanic Decades.
Almost the whole of the Roman cardinalate invited a noble citizen of the city, — Guilio-Cesare Stella, — to write in Latin verse the epopee of the New World.
Cardinal Alexander Farnese particularly gave celebrity to this work, by causing the manuscript to be read at his Villa Farnese, in the presence of purpled togas. He engaged the Jesuit, Father Francesco Benci, to enrich it with a preface.
Cardinal Benedetto Pamphili counselled another Jesuit, Father Ubertino Carrara, to compose a poem on the same subject.
Cardinal Sforza Pallavacino celebrated, himself, the work of Columbus, in his Fasti Sacri.
The Cardinal-Bishop of Verona, the great Agostino Valerio, in his book, De Consolatione Ecclesiæ, eulogizes grandly the work of the Discovery, and its importance to Catholicity; and implicitly glorifies Columbus, in applying to his mission some remarkable texts from the prophecies of Isaias.
It was under the auspices of Pope Innocent IX., and of Cardinal Gabriel Paleotto, that the learned Oratorian,
