Don Bosco had the extraordinary ability of extracting from his followers whatever he desired without resorting to

any coercion or manipulation. Rather, he would rely on his natural instinct and the affection they bore him.
That was also what he did, for instance, with John Cagliero, who was lively, candid, intelligent and

characteristically prompt. These were the characteristics that made him the representative of the Salesian work

in America. That was also how he got around John Baptist Lemoyne, who was a priest with a sensitive heart,

an austere spirituality, a chosen talent for accomplished narration, a poet and playwright. He was the first

to compile the Biographical Memoirs of Don Bosco, a set of volumes that reflect the memories, impressions

and sentiments of some of his illustrious disciples like Michael Rua, Fr. John Bonetti and Fr. Julius Barberis.

An Arbitrary Appointment
By 1871 Don Bosco had already been publishing the “Catholic Readings” (Letture Cattoliche), for 18 years.

It was a monthly periodical of popular religious culture and he wanted to include in it the story of Christopher

Columbus.
For this task, he approached Fr. Lemoyne, who was Genoese by birth. On the 4th March that year, Don Bosco

wrote to him at Lanzo where he was the rector of the Salesian College telling him: "It is only right that a job

that is Genoese and maritime in nature be entrusted to a Genoese. You may execute the task at your

convenience, but with that same mellifluent language, powerful thought and speed that has distinguished you

in your other works (E 896)."

Fr. Lemoyne, lively and refined in his sensitivity for historical affairs, immediately set himself to work and in

less than two years produced a work of 549 pages divided into three parts that appeared in the XXI volume

of the “Catholic Readings” for the year 1873 under the title: Christopher Columbus and the Discovery of America.
The three books were printed at the printing press of the Oratory and they received a wide circulation. There

followed various editions as a single unified volume that was entirely reworked in 1892 for the 4th Centenary of the Discovery of America. At Genoa it was commended at the Exhibition of Christopher Columbus in that year.
Following the directions of Don Bosco, Fr. Lemoyne mainly referred to the Life of Christopher Columbus by A. Sanguinetti, but he wanted equally to quote sources in the footnotes from Ferdinando Colombo’s Historiae, the Historia de los Indios of Bartolomé de Las Casas, the Coleccion de viajes y descubrimientos edited by N. Femandez de Navarrete, etc.

Therefore, he was in no hurry to prepare a hasty compilation without proper historical documentation. He did not treat the subject like a novel or a fictionalized history that we come to know from the reading of a recent publication by the famed Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison’s Christopher Columbus, Man of the Sea (Italian translation by T. Colusso, Milan, Longanesi & C. 1991).
On closer examination of the content of the book it appears that what Fr. Lemoyne substantially wrote about the great Genoese, reveals the true story of the figure of the man who was a deeply religious, intrepid and magnanimous, a true genius in navigation and it was never more exact.
Then, in his book, Fr. Lemoyne did not hide his love for Genoa, a love that Don Bosco knew he could use to induce him to take on the task. In the second chapter he writes of the glorious Christian traditions of his country that made Columbus great, moreover, in the second part of the book, after having described the terrible adversities of his third voyage, he quotes from Christopher Columbus’ Will or “Carta del maggiorasco” that was drawn up in favour of his first born son, Diego.
“I order the same Diego, or whoever will administer the inheritance, to always approach every enterprise for the honour, prosperity and the glory of the City of Genoa and to employ every means and talent to defend and increase the prosperity and glory of this Republic, in all that is not contrary to the Church of God and the dignity of the king of Spain” (G.B, Lemoyne, op. cit., Ed.1892, p. 276).
 

Don Bosco Prepared the Sign
As can be noted, it was Don Bosco who got the idea of entrusting to a Genoese Fr.Lemoyne the charge of writing the

life of Christopher Columbus, the most illustrious son of the soil, a man that Morison did not hesitate to call “one of the

greatest navigators, if not the greatest, of all time” (S. E. Morison, op. cit. nella trad. it. of T. Colusso, p. 8).
The cultural bad faith of certain anti-Colombian positions recently spawned certain controversies about the place of

origin of Christopher Columbus yet without taking nothing away from the significance of this editorial initiative of Don

Bosco and the intent of the research by the author for this purpose.
Fr. G. B. Lemoyne, nevertheless, is not known today for his history of Christopher Columbus but for many other things.

In fact, he, “for his entire long Salesian life was a hard-working and diligent compiler of the Memoirs of our Saint, and

a tireless bard who was inspired his actions. For almost forty years his name resounded around the Congregation”

(E. Ceria).
For Fr. Lemoyne the Oratory was Don Bosco. He was bound to him with affection and immense gratitude as to his own

father. In 1883 Don Bosco wanted him by his side to fill the office of Secretary of the Superior Council of the Congregation. While calling him to that office, Don Bosco told him:
“I won’t keep secrets from you, neither those of my heart nor those of the congregation.”
You can imagine then how much Fr. Lemoyne was able to take advantage of this, more especially during the last years of Don Bosco’s life when he found it impossible to read by the light of the oil or gas lamps and so they spent their evenings in prayer and conversation. For at least an hour every evening, Fr. Lemoyne stood beside Don Bosco while the latter spoke of his youth and the early days of the Oratory.

The saint died and Fr. Lemoyne continued to gather testimonies from those who had known him. That was how 45 volumes of documents served as the first compiled history of the Salesian congregation came into existence and later they came to be called the famous, Biographical Memoirs of Don Bosco.
In the last years of his life he had to suffer serious physical discomfort, and even personal penances. He used to repeat: “There was a time in the Oratory when we ate polenta but there was Don Bosco!”
He died in 1916 at the age of 77.

His name will always be a blessing to the Salesian Family.