john and sebastian cabot - Cristo Raul

JOHN AND SEBASTIAN CABOT 263
1845. After Harford had first obtained possession of it,
it was engraved
by Rawle for Seyer s Memoirs of Bristol (1824).
It has also been copied
for the galleries of the Massachusetts and New York Historical Societies,
and for the Mayor and Corporation of Bristol in 1839.
Long believed to be
a Holbein, 500 was given for it by Biddle. It bears the following in
scriptions : (i) Spes mea in Deo est. (2) Effigies
Sebastiani Caboti
Angli filii Johannis Caboti Veneti militis aurati primi inventoris terrae
nova[e] sub Henrico VII. Angliae rege, which corresponds very closely
with the earliest reference, in Purchas, Pilgrims, of 1625 (iii. 807 iv.
;
1812) Sir Seb. Cabota : his
; picture
in the privy gallery at Whitehall
hath these "
words, Effigies Seb. Cabot, Angli filii Joannis Caboti Veneti
militis aurati." Hence Harford conjectured his find to be the same as,
or a copy of, that possessed by Charles I. The portrait in question does
not appear in the Harleian catalogue of that king s pictures, drawn up
before 1649 (Harleian MSS. 4718), nor in the Ashmolean catalogue of the
same, dating from the middle of the eighteenth century. (Catalogue
and description of King Charles the First s
collect
capital
ion, 1757.)
The Holbein tradition is unreliable (except as referring to the School
of that master), for (i)
The dress and chain Cabot appears to be wearing
is probably that belonging to his office of governor of the Merchant Ad
venturers, or Muscovy Company which office he assumed in 1553. (2)
Holbein died in 1543, before Cabot s second English period begins, and
the former s residence in this country, (a) 152629, (b) is
153243, not
known to coincide with Cabot s visits to our shores at any point.
A portrait of Sebastian Cabot, conjectured to be also a copy of the
*
Harford picture, is said to have been painted in 1763 for the Sala della
Scudo in the Ducal Palace at Venice. The wording of the inscription
leaves it doubtful whether Sebastian or John is intended as the * finder of
the New World. From the position of the words filii . . .
Veneti,
Humboldt argued that the father was meant it 5 may well be that the form
is
intentionally doubtful.
2. This inscription and Purchas s reference, above quoted, have given
rise to the theory that either Sebastian or his father was knighted by the
Crown of England. No conclusive evidence of this is
forthcoming. The
only distinction attached to either Cabot in English records is that of
Armiger, or Esquire, given to Sebastian in documents of 1555 and 1557.
His name does not occur (nor his father s) in the Cotton MS. (Claudius
C III.) list of men raised to knighthood under Henry VII., and his
descendants, to the death of Elizabeth.