Origin theories of Christopher Columbus

The exact ethnic or national origin of Christopher Columbus has been a source of speculation since the 19th century.[1] However, it is generally agreed upon by historians that Columbus' family was from Liguria, that he spent his boyhood and early youth in Genoa, in Vico Diritto, and that he subsequently lived in Savona, where his father Domenico moved in 1470. Much of this evidence derives from data concerning Columbus' immediate family connections in Genoa and opinions voiced by contemporaries concerning his Genoese origins, which few dispute.

Contents

Genoese origin

Documents

In a 1498 deed of primogeniture, Columbus writes:

Siendo yo nacido en Genova... de ella salí y en ella naci...[2][nb 1]
— As I was born in Genoa... came from it and was born there...

Many historians, including a distinguished Spanish scholar, Altolaguirre, affirm the document's authenticity; others believe it apocryphal.[nb 2] The fact that it was produced in court, during a lawsuit among the heirs of Columbus, in 1578, does not strengthen the case for its being genuine.[4]

A letter from Columbus, dated 2 April 1502, to the Bank of Saint George, the oldest and most reputable of Genoa's financial institutions, begins with the words:

Bien que el coerpo ande aca el coracon esta ali de continuo...[5]
— Though my body is here, my heart is constantly there...

Although a few people consider this letter suspect, the vast majority of scholars believe it genuine. The most scrupulous examination by graphologists testifies in favour of authenticity. The letter is one of a group of documents entrusted by Columbus to a Genoese friend, after the bitter experiences of his third voyage, before setting out on his fourth.

In the spring of 1502, the Admiral collected notarized copies of all the writings concerned with his rights to the discovery of new lands. He sent these documents to Nicolo Oderico, ambassador of the Republic of Genoa. To this same Oderico he handed over the letter to the Bank of Saint George, in which he announced that he was leaving the bank one-tenth of his income, with a recommendation for his son Diego. Oderico returned to Genoa and delivered the letter to the bank, which replied, on 8 December 1502 lauding the gesture of their "renowned fellow-citizen" towards his "native land" (hardly surprising in view of the bequest). The reply, unfortunately, never reached its destination; the Admiral, back in Castile after his fourth voyage, complained about this in another letter to Ambassador Oderico, dated 27 December 1504, and promptly annulled the bequest.

So we have four documents: the first preserved in the archives of the Bank of Saint George until, when it was taken over by the municipality of Genoa, the other three in the Oderico family archives until 1670, then donated to the Republic of Genoa. After the fall of the Republic, they passed to the library of one of its last senators, Michele Cambiaso, and in they were finally acquired by the city of Genoa. The documents are so obviously linked that it is absurd to suppose they are faked. In any case, as mentioned, handwriting experts have contradicted this theory.

Even more important and definitive are the public and notarial acts (more than a hundred) — original copies of which are conserved in the archives of Genoa and Savona — regarding Columbus's father, Columbus himself, his grandfather, and his relatives.[nb 3]

Another doubt remains to be settled: can we be sure that all of the documents cited concern the Christopher Columbus who was later to become Cristóbal Colón, admiral of the Ocean Sea in Spanish territory? The list of contemporary ambassadors and historians unanimous in the belief that Columbus was Genoese could suffice as proof, but there is something more. The documents reveal this other information. One of them has been: the document dated 22 September 1470 in which the criminal judge convicts Domenico Colombo. The conviction is tied to the debt of Domenico — together with his son Christopher (explicitly stated in the document) — toward a certain Girolamo del Porto. In the will dictated by Admiral Christopher Columbus in Valladolid before he died, the authentic and indisputable document of which we have today, the dying navigator remembers this old debt, which had evidently not been paid. There is, in addition, the act drawn in Genoa on 25 August 1479 by a notary, Girolamo Ventimiglia.[6] This act is known as the assereto document, after the scholar who found it in the State Archives in Genoa in 1904. It involves a lawsuit over a sugar transaction on the Atlantic island of Madeira. In it young Christopher swore that he was a 27-year-old Genoese citizen resident in Portugal and had been hired to represent the Genoese merchants in that transaction. Here was proof that he had relocated to Portugal. It is important to bear in mind that at the time when Assereto traced the document, it would have been impossible to make an acceptable facsimile. Nowadays, with modern chemical processes, a document can be "manufactured", made to look centuries old if need be, with such skill that it is hard to prove it is a fake. Fifty years ago this was still impossible.[4][nb 4]

In addition to the two documents cited, there are others that confirm the identification of the Genoese Christopher Columbus, son of Domenico, with the admiral of Spain. An act dated 11 October 1496 says:[7]

Giovanni Colombo of Quinto, Matteo Colombo and Amighetto Colombo, brothers of the late Antonio, in full understanding and knowledge that said Giovanni must go to Spain to see M. Christopher Columbus, Admiral of the King of Spain, and that any expenses that said Giovanni must make in order to see said M. Christopher must be paid by all three of the aforementioned brothers, each one to pay a third ... and to this they hereby agree.

In a fourth notarial act, drawn in Savona on 8 April 1500, Sebastiano Cuneo, heir by half to his father Corrado, requested that Christopher and Giacomo (called Diego), the sons and heirs of Domenico Colombo, be summoned to court and sentenced to pay the price for two lands located in Legine. This document confirms Christoforo and Diego's absence from the Republic of Genoa with these exact words: "dicti conventi sunt absentes ultra Pisas et Niciam."[nb 5]

A fifth notarial act, drawn in Savona on 26 January 1501, is more explicit. A group of Genoese citizens, under oath, said and say, together and separately and in every more valid manner and guise, that the Christopher, Bartholomew and Giacomo Columbus, sons and heirs of the aforementioned Domenico, their father, have for a long time been absent from the city and the jurisdiction of Savona, as well as Pisa and Nice in Provence, and that they reside in the area of Spain, as was and is well known.

Finally, there is a very important sixth document from the notary of Bartolomeo Oddino, drawn in Savona on 30 March 1515. With this notarial act, Leon Pancaldo, the well-known Savonese who would become one of the pilots for Magellan's voyage, sends his own father-in-law in his place as procurator for Diego Columbus, son of Admiral Christopher Columbus. The document demonstrates how the ties, in part economic, of the discoverer's family with Savona survived even his death.

The Life of Admiral Christopher Columbus by his son Ferdinand

A biography written by Columbus's son Ferdinand (in Spanish and translated to Italian), Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; nelle quali s'ha particolare, et vera relatione della vita, et de' fatti dell'Ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, suo padre; Et dello scoprimento, ch'egli fece delle Indie Occidentali, dette Nuovo Mondo ("The life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his son Ferdinand"), exists.[8][9][nb 6] In it Ferdinand claimed that his father was of Italian aristocracy. He describes Columbus to be a descendant of a Count Columbo of the Castle Cuccaro (Montferrat). Columbo was in turn said to be descended from a legendary Roman General Colonius. It is now widely believed that Christopher Columbus used this persona to ingratiate himself to the good graces of the aristocracy, an elaborate illusion to mask a humble merchant background.[11] Ferdinand dismissed the fanciful story that the Admiral descended from the Colonus mentioned by Tacitus. However, he refers to "those two illustrious Coloni, his relatives."[nb 7] According to Note 1, on page 287, these two "were corsairs not related to each other or to Christopher Columbus, one being Guillame de Casenove, nicknamed Colombo, Admiral of France in the reign of Louis XI". At the top of page 4, Ferdinand listed Nervi, Cogoleto, Bogliasco, Savona, Genoa and Piacenza (all inside the former Republic of Genoa)[nb 8] as possible places of origin. He also stated:

Colombo ... was really the name of his ancestors. But he changed it in order to make it conform to the language of the country in which he came to reside and raise a new estate ...

In chapter ii, Ferdinand accuses Agostino Giustiniani of telling lies about the discoverer:

Thus this Giustiniani proves himself to be an inaccurate historian and exposes himself as an inconsiderate or prejudiced and malicious compatriot, because in writing about an exceptional person who brought so much honor to the country ...

In chapter v, writes:

And because it was not far from Lisbon, where he knew there were many Genoese his countrymen, he went away thither as fast as he could ...

He also says (chapter xi), that his father, before he was declared admiral, used to sign himself "Columbus de Terra rubra," that is to say, Columbus of Terrarossa, a village or hamlet near Genoa. In another passage Ferdinand says, that his father went to Lisbon, and taught his brother Bartholomew to construct sea charts, globes, and nautical instruments; and sent this brother to England to Henry VII to make proposals to make proposals to this king, of his desired voyage. Finally, incidentally (chapter lxxii), Ferdinand says that Christopher's brother, Bartholomew Columbus named the new settlement Santo Domingo in memory of their father, Domenico.

The publication of Historie has been used by historians as providing indirect evidence about the Genoese origin of Columbus.

The testimony of the ambassadors

It is significant that no one protested at the court of Spain when in April 1501, in the feverish atmosphere of the great discovery, Nicolò Oderico, ambassador of the Genoese Republic, after praising the Catholic Sovereigns, went on to say that they "discovered with great expenditure hidden and inaccessible places under the command of Columbus, our fellow-citizen, and having tamed wild barbarians and unknown peoples, they educated them in religion, manners and laws". Furthermore, two diplomats from Venice — no great friend of Genoa, indeed, a jealous rival — added the appellation "Genoese" to Columbus's name: the first, Angelo Trevisan, in 1501,[nb 9] the second, Gasparo Contarini, in 1525.[nb 10] In 1498, Pedro de Ayala, Spanish ambassador to the English court, mentioned John Cabot, "the discoverer, another Genoese, like Columbus".[12] All these references were published, along with reproductions of some of the original documents, in the City of Genoa volume of 1931.

Confirmation of the Genoese origin from contemporary European writers

The historian Bartolomé de las Casas, whose father traveled with Columbus on his second journey and who personally knew Columbus' sons,[nb 11] writes in chapter 2 of his Historia de las Indias:[14]

This distinguished man was from the Genoese nation, from some place in the province of Genoa; who he was, where he was born or what name he had in that place we do not know in truth, except that before he reached the Nation in which he arrived, he used to call himself Cristóbal Colombo de Terrarubia.

The historian Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés, writes that Domenico Colombo was the Admiral's father;[15] and in chapter 2, book 3 of his Historia general y natural de las Indias:[16]

Christopher Columbus, according to what I have learned from men of his nation, was originally from the province of Liguria, which is in Italy, where the city and the Seignory of Genoa stands: some say that he was from Savona, others that he was from a small place or village called Nervi, which is on the eastern seashore two leagues from the self same city of Genoa; but it is held to be more certain that he may have been originally from Cugurreo (Cogoleto) near the city of Genoa.

Every other contemporary writer, without exception, agrees that the discoverer was Genoese:[4][3]

Columbus's Genoese birth is also confirmed by the works of the English Hakluyt (1601), of the Spaniard Antonio de Herrera (1612), the great Spanish dramatist Lope de Vega (1614), a paper manuscript dated 1626, conserved in Madrid's National Library, the works of the German Filioop Cluwer (1677), the German Giovanni Enrico Alsted (1649), the French Dionisio Petau (1724), and the Spaniard Luigi de Marmol (1667). This list represents the early writings of non-Italians. There were sixty-two Italian testimonies between 1502 and 1600. Of these fourteen are from Ligurian writers.[nb 16] It may be obvious, but not useless, to underline that the Venetians' (e.g. Trevisan's and Ramusio's) recognition of Columbus's Genoese birth constitutes a testimony as impartial as that of the Spaniards, French, and Portuguese.

Conformable to the testament in Seville (3 July 1539) is the evidence of Ferdinand Columbus, who states that his father was conterraneo (of the same country) with Mons. Agostino Giustiniani, who was, beyond all doubt,[39][40] born at Genoa:

Hijo de don Cristóbal Colón, genovés, primero almirante que descubrió las Indias ...[41]
— Son of Christopher Columbus, Genoese, admiral who first discovered the Indies ...

Other information

Other testimony of contemporary or succeeding authors include:

Historians

Scholars from all over the world agree that Columbus was Genoese.[nb 24]

Samuel Eliot Morison, in his book Christopher Columbus: Admiral of the Ocean Sea, notes that many existing legal documents demonstrate the Genoese origin of Columbus, his father Domenico, and his brothers Bartolomeo and Giacomo (Diego). These documents, written in Latin by notaries, were legally valid in Genoese courts. The documents, uncovered in the 19th century when Italian historians examined the Genoese archives, form part of the Raccolta Colombiana. On page 14, Morison writes:

Besides these documents from which we may glean facts about Christopher's early life, there are others which identify the Discoverer as the son of Domenico the wool weaver, beyond the possibility of doubt. For instance, Domenico had a brother Antonio, like him a respectable member of the lower middle class in Genoa. Antonio had three sons: Matteo, Amigeto and Giovanni, who was generally known as Giannetto (the Genoese equivalent of "Johnny"). Giannetto, like Christopher, gave up a humdrum occupation to follow the sea. In 1496 the three brothers met in a notary's office at Genoa and agreed that Johnny should go to Spain and seek out his first cousin "Don Cristoforo de Colombo, Admiral of the King of Spain," each contributing one third of the traveling expenses. This quest for a job was highly successful. The Admiral gave Johnny command of a caravel on the Third Voyage to America, and entrusted him with confidential matters as well.

On the topic of Columbus' being born somewhere besides Genoa, Morison states "Every contemporary Spaniard or Portuguese who wrote about Columbus and his discoveries calls him Genoese. Three contemporary Genoese chroniclers claim him as a compatriot. Every early map on which his nationality is recorded describes him as Genoese. Nobody in the Admiral's lifetime, or for three centuries after, had any doubt about his birthplace" and that "There is no more reason to doubt that Christopher Columbus was a Genoese-born Catholic Christian, steadfast in his faith and proud of his native city, than to doubt that George Washington was a Virginia-born Anglican of English race, proud of being an American."

Paolo Emilio Taviani, in his book Cristoforo Colombo: Genius of the Sea discusses "the public and notarial acts - original copies of which are conserved in the archives of Genoa and Savona - regarding Columbus's father, Columbus himself, his grandfather, and his relatives." In Columbus the Great Adventure he further claims that Columbus named the small island of Saona "to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona."[61]

The evidence supporting the Genoese origin of Columbus is also discussed by Miles H. Davidson. In his book Columbus Then and Now: A Life Reexamined, he writes:[46]

Diego Méndez, one of his captains, in testimony given in the Pleitos, he said that Columbus was "Genoese, a native of Savona which is a town near Genoa." Those who reject this and the more than ample other contemporary evidence, given by both Italian and Spanish sources as well as by witnesses at these court hearings, are simply flying in the face of overwhelming evidence. [...] What is the reason behind so much futile speculation? It can be mostly attributed to parochialism. Each of the nations and cities mentioned wants to claim him for its own. Since no effort was made to locate the supporting data until the early nineteenth century, and since at that time not all of the archives had been adequately researched, there was, initially, justification for those early efforts to establish who he was and where he came from. To do so today is to fulfill Montaigne's maxim, "No one is exempt from talking non-sense; the misfortune is to do it solemnly."

Language

Although Columbus wrote almost exclusively in Spanish,[nb 25] there is a small handwritten Genoese gloss in an 1498 Italian (from Venice) edition of Pliny's Natural History that he read after his second voyage to America: this shows Columbus was able to write in Italian and understand it.[62] There is also a note in Italian in his own Book of Prophecies exhibiting, according to historian August Kling, "characteristics of northern Italian humanism in its calligraphy, syntax, and spelling".[nb 26] Phillips and Phillips point out that 500 years ago, the Latinate languages had not distanced themselves to the degree they have today. Bartolomé de las Casas in his Historia de las Indias claimed that Columbus did not know Spanish well and that he was not born in Castile.[63]

Valiant scholars have dedicated themselves to the subject of Christopher Columbus's language.[nb 27] They have conducted in-depth research both on the ship's log and on other of his writings that have come down to us. They have analyzed the words, the terms, and the vocabulary, as well as rather frequent variations often bizarre in style, handwriting, grammar, and syntax. Christopher Columbus's language is Castilian punctuated by noteworthy and frequent Lusitanian, Italian, and Genoese influences and elements.[3]

Catalan hypothesis

Since the early 20th century, researchers have attempted to connect Columbus to the Catalan-speaking areas of Europe, usually based on linguistic evidence. The first of them was Luis Ulloa, a historian from Peru who wrote a book in 1927, originally in French, defending the Catalan origin of Columbus.[64][nb 28] Some more recent studies also state Columbus had Catalan origins,[66] based on his handwriting, though these have been disputed.[67]

Throughout Columbus's life, he referred to himself as Christobal Colom; his contemporaries and family also referred to him as such. It is possible that Colom is the shortened form of Columbus used for the Italian surname Colombo (which means "dove"). Colom can also be a Portuguese, French, or Catalan name. There was a wealthy mercenary and merchant noble named Joan Colom i Bertran living in Barcelona in the 15th century, who has been proposed as the real Christopher Columbus.

According to Charles J. Merrill, a Doctor in medieval literature and associate professor of foreign languages, the analysis of Columbus's handwriting indicates that it is typical of someone who would be a native Catalan, and Columbus's phonetic mistakes in Castilian are "most likely" those of a Catalan, with examples such as "a todo arreo" (a tot arreu), "todo de un golpe" (tot d'un cop), "setcentas" (set-centes), "nombre" (instead of número), "al sol puesto" (el sol post).[68] Merrill states that the Genoese Cristoforo Colombo was a modest wool carder and cheese merchant with no maritime training and whose age does not match the one of Columbus.[68] Merrill's book Colom of Catalonia was published in 2008.[69]

Also, that he married a Portuguese noblewoman can be presented as evidence that his origin was of nobility rather than the Italian merchant class, since it was uncommon during his time for nobility to marry outside their class.[70] This same theory suggests he was the illegitimate son of a prominent Catalan sea-faring family, which had served as mercenaries in a sea battle against Castilian forces.[70] Fighting against Ferdinand and being illegitimate were two reasons for hiding his origins.[70] Furthermore, the disinterment of his brother's body shows him to be a different age, by nearly 10 years, than the "Bartolome Colombo" of the Genoese family.[70]

However, Samuel Eliot Morison has cast no doubts regarding Columbus's marriage to the Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Perestrello.[25]

Greek hypothesis

The theory that Columbus was a Byzantine Greek nobleman was proposed in scholarly fashion, for the first time, by the Greek Seraphim G. Canoutas, a lawyer and independent scholar, in 1943.[71] The hypothesis rested mainly (but by no means exclusively) on statements attributed to the Admiral by his first biographer (son Ferdinand), particularly that the Admiral had sailed for many years with Colombo the Younger, a famous seaman “of his name and family.”[72] Canoutas pointed out that other scholars (particularly Harrisse, Salvagnini, Vignaud, and Gonzales de la Rosa[73]) had convincingly identified Colombo the Younger as Georges Paléologue de Bissipat (also known as Georges le Grec), an exiled Byzantine nobleman who by 1460 was living in France and rendering valuable service to the French king. But these scholars rejected Columbus’s claim of kinship with de Bissipat.

Accepting the kinship claim as true, Canoutas established (through references in works by Du Cange[74] and Renet[75]) that Georges de Bissipat was in fact Georgios Palaiologos Dishypatos, scion of an ancient and illustrious Byzantine noble family,[76] who fled to France sometime after the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and, until his death in 1496, rendered important service to French kings Louis XI (1423-1483) and Charles VIII (1470-1498), including as vice-admiral. According to Canoutas, accepting that Dishypatos and Columbus were noble kinsmen and longtime sailing companions helped explain the many anomalies that either had to be ignored or attributed at best to error and at worst to imposture in order to square Cristoforo Colombo the wool-worker with Cristóbal Colón the Admiral.

Canoutas did not identify Columbus’s parents or place of birth. Nor did he explicate Columbus’s claimed kinship bond with Dishypatos. But Canoutas observed that the Byzantine imperial house of Palaiologos, to which Dishypatos was related on his mother’s side, was closely connected by blood or marriage to the ruling families of Italy, including those of Genoa and Montferrat, such as the Doria, Spinola, Centurione, and Gattelusio families.[77] This connection, he argued, might explain why Columbus’s contemporaries and others considered him to be Genoese or Ligurian.[78]

Spanish-Jewish hypothesis

Some researchers have postulated that Columbus was of Iberian Jewish origins. The linguist Estelle Irizarry, in addition to arguing that Columbus was Catalan, also claims that Columbus tried to conceal a Jewish heritage.[79] In "Three Sources of Textual Evidence of Columbus, Crypto Jew,"[80] Irizarry notes that Columbus always wrote in Spanish, and occasionally included Hebrew in his writing, and referenced the Jewish High Holidays in his journal during the first voyage.

Simon Wiesenthal postulates that Columbus was a Sephardi (Spanish Jew), careful to conceal his Judaism yet also eager to locate a place of refuge for his persecuted fellow countrymen. Wiesenthal argues that Columbus' concept of sailing west to reach the Indies was less the result of geographical theories than of his faith in certain Biblical texts—specifically the Book of Isaiah. He repeatedly cited two verses from that book: "Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them," (60:9); and "For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth" (65:17). Wiesenthal claimed that Columbus felt that his voyages had confirmed these prophecies.[81]

Jane Francis Amler argued that Columbus was a converso (a Sephardi Jew who publicly converted to Christianity). In Spain, even some converted Jews were forced to leave Spain after much persecution; it is known that many conversos were still practicing Judaism in secret.

Portuguese hypothesis

The first author who claimed Portuguese nationality for Christopher Columbus was Patrocínio Ribeiro in 1916.[82] The same text with some additions was again published in 1927, after his death, with a complementary study by the medical doctor Barbosa Soeiro relating Columbus' signature with the Kabbalah.

In 1988 José Mascarenhas Barreto published a book[83] which claims that Columbus was a Portuguese national and spy who hatched up an elaborate diversion to keep the Spanish from the lucrative trade routes that were opening up around Africa to the Indies. Barreto, through his interpretation of the Kabbalah and other research, suggested Columbus was born in Cuba, Portugal, the son of a nobleman and related to other Portuguese navigators. According to this claim, his real name was concealed, Christopher Columbus being a pseudonym, meaning Bearer of Christ and the Holy Spirit. His real name was supposedly Salvador Fernandes Zarco and he was the son of Dom Fernando, Duke of Beja, Alentejo and maternal grandson of João Gonçalves Zarco, discoverer of Madeira. Mascarenhas Barreto, however, has been discredited by Portuguese genealogist Luís Paulo Manuel de Meneses de Melo Vaz de São Paio in his works Carta Aberta a um Agente Secreto, Primeira Carta Aberta a Mascarenhas Barreto[84] and Carta Aberta a um "Curioso" da Genealogia.[85][nb 29]

Other argument used by proponents of the Portuguese hypothesis is that in a court a document mentioning Columbus's nationality, they called him "portuguese".[nb 30][86] Furthermore, the language Columbus utilized to write his letters was a Portuguese-based Castlian[87][88] and he could not write Italian.[89][90][91][nb 31] Another important fact is that the majority of the toponyms Columbus gave in the New World, more than 80 of them, were Portuguese places, including Caxias, Lapa, Vale do Paraiso, Formigas, Cabo Talhado, Cabo Agulhas and Natividade but he didn't use one name from Genoa.[92][93]

Polish hypothesis

There is also a theory that Columbus was son to the king of Poland Władysław III, who survived the battle of Warna in 1444 and later lived on Madera.[94] The hypothesis of the Polish origins of Columbus was first published in "COLÓN: La Historia Nunca Contada,"[95] published by Manuel da Silva Rosa, an information technology analyst and amateur historian.[96] In that book he claims that Columbus was the son of the exiled Polish King Władysław III, resident in the island of Madeira, and a Portuguese noblewoman. The author believes Columbus would not have been able to marry Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, a Portuguese noblewoman, if he were not of noble birth himself. The book also suggests Columbus was a Portuguese secret agent working covertly in Spain and claims similarities exist between Columbus' coat of arms and that of the Polish king.[97][98]

Other hypotheses

Norwegian Tor Borch Sannes has speculated that Columbus was Norwegian, comparing his coat of arms to that of the Bonde family who fled Norway for Italy in the 15th century.[99]

On 10 March 2009, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that Spanish engineer and amateur historian[100] Alfonso Ensenat de Villalonga claimed that Christopher Columbus was "the son of shopkeepers not weavers and he was baptised Pedro not Christopher" and "his family name was Scotto, and was not Italian but of Scottish origin".[101]

Footnotes

  1. ^ A copy of this document, which dates back to the early seventeenth century and had been officially sent from Crown of Castile to the Republic of Genoa, is conserved in the State Archives of Genoa. The supposed original is in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville.
  2. ^ De Lollis observes that "the history of this important document is so clear that there is no doubt about its authenticity." Caddeo considers it authentic. Harrisse instead considers it a forgery from a later period. Madariaga states that the majorat "cannot be considered authentic," but adds, however, that it cannot be a complete invention and must have been edited on the basis of the 1502 testament, which has disappeared without a trace. Ballesteros refutes that thesis that it is a forgery; the authenticity of the document is proven by the rediscovery of a certificate, dated 28 September 1501, relative to the royal confirmation of the majorat in the archive of Simancas: "After this discovery the authenticity of the institution of the Columbus majorat has been clearly demonstrated and the historical clauses of the document have increased in value, as have Columbus's declarations regarding his Geonese birthplace."[3]
  3. ^ In May 2006, the Dr. Aldo Agosto, a noted Columbus scholar and state archivist at Genoa, has collected — for be officially presented to the conference of studies in Valladolid — one hundred and ten notarial documents, largely unpublished; the result of many years hard work, where reconstructs with precision, the family tree of Christopher Columbus, going back as far as seven generations.
  4. ^ In light of the two acts cited, the tendency to compare, or worse, to confuse or replace the true "Genoese" Columbus family with other similarly named Ligurian, Lombard or foreign families collapses, as does the main argument of the dilettantes who oppose the Genoese documentation and try to maintain that there was indeed a Genoese Christopher Columbus, woolen-weaver, but who was not the discoverer of America.
  5. ^ "The summoned parties are absent and beyond Pisa and Nice."
  6. ^ The first nineteen of this book's fifty chapters were published in 1535, the first full version in 1851. This biography of Columbus was translated into Italian by Alfonso de Ulloa and printed for the first time in Venice in 1571.
    Alfonso de Ulloa was a Spaniard born in Caceres in 1529. His father, Francisco, fought for the emperor Charles V and in 1552 came to Venice as a secretary of the Spanish ambassador Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. Ulloa knew Italian so well that he rendered Spanish and Portuguese works into that language. His most famous translation is the Vita dell'Ammiraglio, 1571, "Ferdinand Columbus's life of his father," a book now of priceless value, because the original does not survive. The eminent American historian Washington Irving described the Vita as "an invaluable document, entitled to great faith, and is the corner-stone of the history of the American continent."[10]
  7. ^ In this regard, the eminent Spanish historian Antonio Ballesteros Beretta has written: "One person is responsible for the polemics about the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, and that person is his own son Ferdinand, who, in his biography of his father, displayed ignorance and doubts on a subject which, on the contrary, he should have known well. We must unhesitatingly point out that Don Ferdinand's work is rather tendentious and must be used with great caution. The problem of the Admiral's origin would not exist if Ferdinand had told the truth, which, instead, he deliberately concealed." "His dubious attitude" continues Ballesteros, "about the Discoverer's origins has given rise to an endless series of hypotheses, some of which are farfetched and fantastic. It is true that Ferdinand, in his father's biography, never ventures away from the Italian thesis, but he creates a great confusion. He tries to condition his readers, speaking of a noble family, from which his progenitor was presumably descended. He seeks it in Italy, and his attempts are aimed at creating a kind of nebula in which the splendour of an uncertain birth shines, and at the same time of a definite noble background. What is behind the father's silence and the confusion originated by the son?" Ballesteros has no hesitation in explaining: "We cannot blame Christopher or Ferdinand for having wanted to hide their origins. It was natural and human that Columbus,having reached great heights, at the side of the most powerful sovereigns of the earth, should conceal, with a claim of noble ancestry, his humble origins. Let us try to understand these human weaknesses and let us have compassion on his memory."[4]
  8. ^ The city of Piacenza was part of the Duchy of Milan; the Republic of Genoa was the latter's satellite.
  9. ^ Angelo Trevisan, chancellor and secretary to Domenico Pisano, the Venetian Republic's envoy to Spain, writing to Domenico Malipiero, member of Venice's Council of Predagi, notes that "I have succeeded in becoming a great friend of Columbus," and goes on to say: "Christoforo Colombo, Genoese, a tall, well-built man, ruddy, or great creative talent and with a long face."[4]
  10. ^ Gasparo Contarini, Venice's ambassador to the courts of Spain and Portugal, reporting to the Senate of the Venetian Republic on 16 November 1525 on the whereabouts of the island of Hispaniola (Haiti), spoke of the Admiral who was living there. The Admiral was Diego, Christopher's eldest son. Ambassador Contarini describes him thus: "This Admiral is son of the Genoese Columbus and has very great powers, granted to his father."[4]
  11. ^ Though he never appears to have had much to do with Columbus personally, Las Casas knew his son Diego, who provided some information on the early life of Columbus, and also was well acquainted with his natural son, Ferdinand. Las Casas knew both brothers of Columbus, Diego and Bartholomew, "rather well" and gave a succinct description of Bartholomew's person, temperament, and abilities, which demonstrated that he could both observe and describe with economy and distinction. Pedro de Arana, captain of one of the ships Columbus had on his third voyage and brother of Ferdinand Columbus' mother, was another member of the Columbus family group whom Las Casas knew well. He also "held frequent conversations" with Juan Antonio Colombo, a Genoese relative of Columbus, master of a ship on the third voyage.[13] Thus Las Casas enjoyed such an intimate and, at the same time, so extensive a knowledge of the Columbus family circle and of both printed and manuscript material on the subject, that he was able to write of the Admiral of the Ocean Sea with unequaled familiarity and authority.
  12. ^ This map was drawn by Piri Reis, a Turkish cartographer and geographer, known as the nephew of Kemal Reis, in Gelibolu, in the month of muharrem of the year 919 (that is, between the 9th of March and the 7th of April of the year 1513). A large fragment of the map was found in 1929 during work to transform the Topkapı Palace. In 1501 the Turkish seamen engaged in a violent naval battle in the western Mediterranean. They captured a few Spanish cargo ships, in one of which they found various objects and products from America. Piri Reis writes thus in his Bahriye: "On the enemy ships which was captured in the Mediterranean, we found a stone similar to jasper." It was on this occasion that the Turks came into possession of the map that Piri Reis used to trace the coastlines of America. According to the notes made on it, the map was constructed using several other maps as source material. There is no doubt as to its authenticity. In note 5 of the map, here is what Piri Reis tells us, in Ottoman Turkish language: « ... Amma şöyle rivayet ederler kim Cinevizden [from Genoa] bir kâfir [an infidel] adına Qolōnbō [named Columbus] derler imiş, bu yerleri ol bulmuştur ... »[18] The note goes on to tell how Columbus proposed the enterprise "to the great men of Genoa" and how, on being rejected by them, he turned "to the king of Spain." It continues: "The deceased Gazi Kemal had a Spanish slave who told Kemal Reis he had been three times to that Land along with Columbus." The importance of the testimony on this Turkish map from a time close to that of the discovery lies in the source of the news it carries: a Spanish ship captured by the Turks in 1501. The document is wholly unconnected with contemporary Christian culture and completely autonomous from the above mentioned references.
  13. ^ Also in K. Kretschmer's Die Entdeckung Amerikas, plate XII.
  14. ^ Décadas da Ásia, begun in 1539 and first published in 1552.[25]
  15. ^ In 1540, Damião de Góis, writes in his Fides, religio, moresque Aethiopum: "In his life [he refers to D. João II] the Genoese Columbus ... offered him his services."[30]
  16. ^ The other authors being Lombards, Venetians, Tuscans, Neapolitans, Sicilians and one Maltese.[4]
  17. ^ "Christophorus Colonus quidam ligur vir" or "a certain Christopher Columbus, man of Liguria"
  18. ^ Peter Martyr d'Anghiera uses the two words, "Ligurian" and "Genoese", interchangeably. In the first Decade of his De Orbe Novo, book I: "homo ligur". In the second Decade, book I: "Christophorum Colonum ligurem" and book VII: "Christophoro Colono Genuensi" (NRC, VI, 1988).
  19. ^ Testimony of Rodrigo Barreda: "oyo decir que hera de la senioria de Genova de la cibdad de Saona."[46]
  20. ^ Father Antonio de Aspa mentions that three Genoese merchants helped to finance the venture: Jacopo Di Negro, from Seville, Zapatal, from Jerez, and Luis Doria, from Cadiz. To these names we can add the Genoese merchants Rivarolo, Doria, Castagno and Gaspare Spinola, mentioned by Nuncibay in his Genealogia de la Casa de Portugal, and in Columbus's correspondence with his son Diego. Ballesteros remarks that the only certain thing is that the Italian families of Pinello, Berardi, Centurione, Doria, Spinola, Cattaneo, Di Negro and Rivarolo appear continually in the presence of the great Genoese.[4]
  21. ^ Pedro was close enough to Columbus to have commanded a vessel on his third voyage across the Atlantic.[46]
  22. ^ "Duce Christophoro Colono Ligure."[30]
  23. ^ "Christophorus ergo Columbus, prouincia Ligur, vrbe, vt aiunt, genuensis, qui Maderam inhabitabit."[30]
  24. ^ They include the two greatest Columbians in Spain, Antonio Ballesteros Beretta, professor at the University of Madrid, and Juan Manzano Manzano, professor of Seville University; the leading North American authority, Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison; and the Argentinian Diego Luis Molinari, professor at the University of Buenos Aires. Obviously there are many more — admirers and detractors alike — who accept Genoa as his birthplace, including Robertson, Navarrete, Milhou, Irving, Boorstin, Demetrio Ramos, Carpentier, D'Avezac, Manuel Alvar, Nunez Jimenez, Munoz, Peschel, Duro, Mollat, Harrisse, Perez de Tudela, Aynashiya, Morales Padron, Magidovic, Roselly de Lorgues, Asensio, Braudel, Winsor, Fiske, Ciroanescu, Ruge, Markham, Serrano y Sanz, Obregon, Laguarda Trias, Thacher, de Gandia, Emiliano Jos, Aurelio Tio, Goldemberg, Vignaud, Ramirez Corria, Alvarez Pedroso, Marta Sanguinetti, Altolaguirre, Breuer, Leithaus, Alegria, Arciniegas, Davey, Nunn, Johnson, Juan Gil, Sumien, Charcot, Ballesteros Gaibrois, Levillier, Dickey, Parry, Young, Streicher, de La Ronciere, Muro Orejon, Pedroso, Brebner, Houben, Rumeu de Armas, de Madariaga, Stefansson, Martinez Hidalgo, Taylor, Mahn Lot, Consuelo Varela, Verlinden, Bradford and Heers. Among the leading Italian authorities on Columbus, who also concur, are Spotorno, Sanguineti, Tarducci, Peragallo, Desimoni, De Lollis, Salvagnini, Uzielli, Assereto, Pessagno, Caddeo, Magnaghi, Almagia, Revelli and Bignardelli. Among the famous historians and geographers who have written general works that make reference to Columbus's Genoese birth, we will mention only Humboldt, the great 19th-century German geographer; Burckhardt, author of the prestigious Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy; Fisher, the distinguished English historian; Pirenne, the eminent Belgian historian; Merzbacher, professor of History of Law at the University of Innsbruck; and Konetzke, professor of Iberian and Latin-American History at Cologne University.[4]
    The eminent Italian historian, Paolo Emilio Taviani, devoted his time to the study of Christopher Columbus, becoming "one of the world's leading authorities on the subject. He retraced the voyages of the Genoese navigator and wrote numerous books about his life and times. Taviani, who was made a life senator in 1991, donated his collection of 2,500 volumes on Columbus to a council-owned library in his native Genoa."[60]
  25. ^ The oldest fragment of writing certainly attributable to Columbus is a marginal note in one of his books. De Lollis dates it around 1481. It is written in bad Spanish, mixed with Portuguese. All Columbus's letters, even those addressed to Genoese friends and to the Bank of Saint George, are written in Castilian.[4]
  26. ^ De Lollis claims that Columbus wrote these notes in Italian because of his deep bitterness, at that time, against the Spanish court. Ballesteros advances a more logical theory, suggesting that this is the psychological reaction of an elderly man, nostalgic for his homeland. Surely Columbus would never have written in Italian if he had not been in such close touch with many compatriots, first in Portugal, then in Spain and finally during his voyages of discovery. It is generally accepted that he was on friendly terms with Genoese, Tuscans, Corsicans, Venetians and Neapolitans, and the point has been especially underlined by historians.[4]
  27. ^ Chief among them are Menéndez Pidal, Arce, Caraci, Chiareno, Juan Gil, Milano, Consuelo Varela.[3]
  28. ^ The greatest of all Spanish historians Antonio Ballesteros Beretta,[40][65] Professor of the University of Madrid and director of the monumental series of publications on the Historia de America y de los pueblos americanos, engaged in an deeper scrutiny of the Catalan thesis. He writes: "[Ulloa] penetrates the great labyrinth of Columbus court documents to gather arguments in favor of his preconceived theory. It is not possible to follow him in all of his lucubrations. His fiery imagination pushes him into a continuous hermeneutics." "But what document, what proof," Ballesteros continues, "can be exhibited which affirms that Columbus was Catalonian? Absolutely none" and concludes that "with the Catalonian thesis we are faced by a system of clues based essentially on a negative approach, which declares that anything which can prove that the discoverer was Genoese is false."[3]
  29. ^ In this regard, the eminent American historian Samuel Eliot Morison writes: "If, however, you suppose that these facts would settle the matter, you fortunately know little of the so-called "literature" on the "Columbus Question." By presenting farfetched hypotheses and sly innuendos as facts, by attacking documents of proven authenticity as false, by fabricating others (such as the famous Pontevedra documents), and drawing unwarranted deductions from things that Columbus said or did, he has been presented as Castilian, Catalan, Corsican, Majorcan, Portuguese, French, German, English, Greek, and Armenian."[25]
  30. ^ The document describes the person as Portuguese twice but his name is empty. However, Antonio Rumeo De Armas in his book identifies the person, whose name is omitted, as Christopher Columbus by matching it with the payment receipt in Alonso de Quintanilla's ledgers.
  31. ^ This is not a paradox: the fact that Columbus used portuguese based Castilian instead of Italian as the basic language of his writings stand to prove rather than to disprove his Genoese origins. Genoese was the commonly used language, as we can see in the fact that speeches at the senate of the republic were given and transcribed by the chancellors in Genoese. Different letters in Genoese by fifteenth century merchants can be consulted today in the archives. Italian, or the vulgate, as it was then called, was a literary language. A Genoese child from the lower classes could not have known it. The child spoke Genoese; in the guild's primary schools Genoese was the language of instruction, while Latin was not only the language of scientific literature, but the language of public and private documents, notarized writings, and contracts as well.

References

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  67. ^ "Scholar casts doubt on claims that Columbus was a Catalan." Medieval News, 2009. Retrieved 2009-10-26.
  68. ^ a b (Spanish) "Colón era un barcelonés que camufló su origen." La Hemeroteca de La Vanguardia, 2009. Retrieved 2010-03-15.
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  71. ^ Canoutas, Seraphim G., Christopher Columbus: A Greek Nobleman, privately published (St. Marks Press, New York 1943). See also Durlacher-Wolper, Ruth G., The Identity of Christopher Columbus, privately published (New World Museum, San Salvador 1982), which relied on Canoutas’s work.
  72. ^ “The first cause of the Admiral’s coming to Spain and devoting himself to the sea was a renowned man of his name and family, called Colombo, who won great fame on the sea because he warred so fiercely against infidels and the enemies of his country that his name was used to frighten children in their cradles. . . . He was called Colombo the Younger to distinguish him from another Colombo who in his time also won fame on the sea. . . . I return to my main theme. While the Admiral was sailing in the company of the said Colombo the Younger (which he did for a long time) . . ..” Keen, Benjamin (trans.), The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his Son Ferdinand (Rutgers Univ. Press, New Brunswick 1959), pp. 12-13. Ferdinando's biography is found at: Historie del S.D. Fernando Colombo(Italian)
  73. ^ Canoutas cited: Harrisse, Henry, Les Colombo de France et d’Italie (Paris 1872); Salvagnini, Alberto, “Cristoforo Colombo e i corsari Colombo,” Commissione Colombiana: Raccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati dalla R. Commissione Colombiana (Rome 1892-1896), Pt. II, vol. III; Vignaud, Henry, Études critiques sur la vie de Christophe Colomb avant ses découvertes (Paris 1905), pp. 129-189; and Gonzales de la Rosa, Manuel, La solution de tous les problèmes relatifs à l’origine et la vie de C. Colomb (Paris 1902), p. 19 (also in Proceedings of the International Congress of Americanists, Sess. 12 (1900), pp. 43-62).
  74. ^ Du Cange, Charles du Fresne, Historia Byzantina duplici commentario illustrata (Paris 1680), Vol. 1 Familiae Byzantinae, Ch. XLII Familia Palaeologorum Bissipatorum, pp. 256-257. Found at: Historia Byzantina
  75. ^ Renet, Pierre-Rieul-César, “Les Bissipat du Beauvaisis,” Mémoires de la Société Académique d’Archéologie, Sciences & Arts du Départment de L’Oise, Tome XIV, Première Partie (Beauvais 1889), pp. 31-98. Found at: Les Bissipat du Beauvaisis(French)
  76. ^ Cf. Entries for “Dishypatos,” The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Vol. 1 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York & Oxford 1991), pp. 638-639.
  77. ^ Cf. Entry for “Palaiologos,” The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Vol. 3 (Oxford Univ. Press, New York & Oxford 1991), pp. 1557-1560.
  78. ^ Canoutas, op cit. pp. 68, 123.
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  80. ^ "Three Sources of Textual Evidence of Columbus, Crypto Jew." Tbspr.org. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
  81. ^ Wiesenthal, Simon. "Sails of Hope: The Secret Mission of Christopher Columbus." Macmillan, 1973. Retrieved 2010-09-07.
  82. ^ (Portuguese) Ribeiro, Patrocínio. "O Carácter Misterioso de Colombo e o Problema da sua Nacionalidade." Coimbra, 1916. Retrieved 2011-11-22.
  83. ^ Barreto, Mascarenhas. "The Portuguese Columbus: secret agent of King John II." Macmillan, 1992. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
  84. ^ (Portuguese) "Armas e Troféus." Revista de História, Heráldica, Genealogia e Arte. 1994 - VI serie — Tomo VI — pp. 5-52. Retrieved 2011-11-21.
  85. ^ (Portuguese) "Armas e Troféus." Revista de História, Heráldica, Genealogia e Arte. 1999 - IX serie — Tomo I — pp. 181-248. Retrieved 2008-05-16.
  86. ^ (Spanish) Rumeu de Armas, Antonio. "El «portugués» Cristóbal Colón en Castilla." Ediciones Cultura Hispánica del Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana, 1982. p. 29. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
  87. ^ Ramón Menéndez Pidal, La Lengua de Cristóbal Colón, Espasa-Calpe, S.A., Madrid, 1958.
  88. ^ Consuelo Varela y Juan Gil, Cristóbal Colón, Textos y documentos completos, Edición de Consuelo Varela, Nuevas Cartas: Edición de Juan Gil, Alianza Universidad, Madrid, 1997.
  89. ^ "Su única nota escrita en italiano –de apenas 57 palabras– lo está en un italiano macarrónico trufado de castellano y portugués" (His only note written in Italian - of merely 57 words - is in a macaronic Italian embellished with Castilian and Portuguese)- CONSUELO VARELA in Cristóbal Colón y la construcción de un mundo nuevo, Estudios, 1983-2008, ARCHIVO GENERAL DE LA NACIÓN, Santo Domingo, República Dominicana, 2010
  90. ^ About Colón's language much has been written. A good summary is done by J. Gil, «La lingua dei documenti colombiani», L. Gallinari (ed.), Studi americanistici, Cagliari, 2000, pp. 93-140.
  91. ^ En su castellano se encuentran portuguesismos claros... En definitiva, el Almirante se sirve de una norma más portuguesa que italiana (In his Castilian is found clear Portuguese... Definitely, the Admiral used a norm that was more Portuguese than Italian). - Consuelo Varela y Juan Gil, Cristóbal Colón, Textos y documentos completos, Edición de Consuelo Varela, Nuevas Cartas: Edición de Juan Gil, Alianza Universidad, Madrid, 1997.
  92. ^ "nombres claramente africanos: Cabo do Monte, Cabo Verde, Cabo Roxo, Cabo das Palmas, Río do Ouro, Porto Santo, etc., entre otros tan portugueses como Valle del Paraíso." (Names clearly from the Portuguese African conquests Cabo do Monte, Cabo Verde, Cabo Roxo, Cabo das Palmas, Río do Ouro, Porto Santo, etc. amongst many others so clearly Portuguese like Valle del Paraíso.) Cristóbal Colón, Textos y documentos completos, Edición de Consuelo Varela, Nuevas Cartas: Edición de Juan Gil, Alianza Universidad, Madrid, 1997.
  93. ^ He aquí un punto de la vida de Colón no suficientemente aclarado, porque no es creíble que un marino, por muchos aires de cortesano que se diese, aprendiera a hablar y a escribir castellano en Portugal (Here is a point not sufficiently explained, because it is NOT CREDIBLE that a mariner, not matter how much he pretended to be a noble, wuld learn to read and write Castilian in Portugal [that was a fad between the Portuguese elite]). - Consuelo Varela y Juan Gil, Cristóbal Colón, Textos y documentos completos, Edición de Con - suelo Varela, Nuevas Cartas: Edición de Juan Gil, Alianza Universidad, Madrid, 1997.
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