The governorship was thus kept in the family during the minority of Bartolomeo, who resumed it later when he came of age.
This Isabel, mother of Philippa, was a very important acquaintance indeed for Columbus.

It must be noted that he left the shop and poor Bartholomew to take care of themselves or each other, and went to live in the house of his mother-in-law.

This was a great social step for the wool-weaver of Genoa; and it was probably the result of a kind of compromise with his wife's horrified relatives at the time of her marriage.

It was doubtless thought impossible for her to go and live over the chart-maker's shop; and as you can make charts in one house as well as another, it was decided that Columbus should live with his mother-in-law, and follow his trade under her roof.

Columbus, in fact, seems to have been fortunate in securing the favour of his female relatives-in-law, and it was probably owing to the championship of Philippa's mother that a marriage so much to his advantage ever took place at all.