"Christopher Columbus: His Birthplace and His Parents" Chapters II and III of Paolo Emilio Taviani's Christopher Columbus: The Grand Design, Orbis Publishing Ltd., London, 1985, reprinted by permission of the author. by: Paolo Emilio Taviani in: Five Hundred Magazine, Volume 1/No. 2; Oct/Nov 1989, Coral Gables, FL 33146 U.S. Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission Paolo Emilio Taviani is considered to be one of the greatest living scholars on Christopher Columbus and his times. Born in Genoa in 1912, he graduated in Law, Letters and Social Sciences at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa. From 1945, after fighting with the partisans against the Nazi occupation of northern Italy, until 1982, he taught Economic History at the University of Genoa. He has also had a distinguished political career, serving as a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 1946 to 1976, during which time he held government appointments as Minister of Defence, Minister of Finance and Minister of the Interior. In 1976 he was elected Senator and he is presently Chairman of the Commission for Foreign Affairs. Senator Taviani has written many books on political and economic subjects. His books, on Columbus include the present work, various essays and the books Terre di Liguria, an histor- ical and geographical analysis of the discoverer's native region, and La Caravella (in collaboration with Paolo Revelli and Samuel E. Morison). An exhaustive commentary on Columbus' diary. I viaggi di Colombo, la grande scoperta was published in 1984. The Established Facts What, then can be said with certainty about the origins of Christopher Columbus? He came from a Ligurian family. His grandfather Giovanni was born at Mocnesi. His father Domenico was born in Quinto. He lived for a long time in Genoa, then in Savona. Today Quinto has been absorbed into the urban complex of Genoa, but then it was a village, not far from the city. Christopher spent his boyhood and the first years of his adolescence in Vico Diritto, a street below the gate of Sant'Andrea. These are historically verified facts. When and where was Christopher Columbus born? Two unquestionably authentic documents are the basis for assuming that his birth-date is between 25 August and 31 October 1451. In one dated 31 October 1470, Columbus declares himself "major annis decemnovem" ("nineteen years old"); in the other, dated 25 August 1479, which we have already referred to, he says he is "annorum vigintiseptem vel circa" ("about twenty-seven"). Between 25 August and 31 October 1451, Domenico Colombo, Christopher's father, was warder of the Porta dell'Olivella, Genoa's eastern gate, and therefore lived near the gate itself. So it was there that Christopher would have been born. The reasoning is sound, but can we be sure the two declara- tions are exact? Anyone can make an occasional slip about his own age. And how did Columbus count the years? If he was born in October 1451, he could have said he was twenty-eight in August 1479, that being his twenty-eighth year; but he could equally have said, correctly, that he was twenty-seven, having not yet reached his twenty-eighth birthday. Then, too, there are the words "vel circa" in the second document, indicating that he was about twenty-seven, on 25 August 1479. All this leads us to believe that Christopher Columbus was born around 1451, but it would be risky to tie down the precise date within the narrow space of two months. It is historically certain that Columbus was of Ligurian stock, 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. Genoa ia verified as his native city; but it is less certain that he was specifically born in Via dell'Olivella. He could have been born, for example, in Quinto, where his father still owned a house and where his mother, Susanna Fontanarossa, might well have gone to bear her son in cool, serene surroundings, assisted by the women of her husband's family. Until the beginning of the present century, it was the custom, in families that had migrated to Genoa from the surround- ing countryside, to send expectant mothers back to their families at home to have their children. The problem, anyhow, is not worthwhile. Via dell'Olivella or Quinto, it is always Genoa. Apart from the documents, there is the testimony of contem- poraries. Not until the 18th and 19th centuries, did anyone begin disputing Columbus' Genoese origins. At the time of the dis- coveries, everyone considered him Italian, Genoese, a foreigner in Spain. Judging from contemporary writings, nobody even thought it was worth discussing the subject. Historians and geographers from many nations--Spain, Portugal, Germany, England, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France and Turkey--all speak of the Genoese Columbus, who discovered the Americas. Nor did their books and atlases gather dust in libraries. Some went through several editions. The reports contained and repeated in them were never denied. There are at least twenty such publications in the 16th century and nine in the 17th century. In addition, there were sixty-two by Italian writers. Of this last group, only fourteen are by Ligurians, the other authors being Lombards, Venetians, Tuscans, Neapolitans, Sicilians and one Maltese. Regional rivalries were still alive in the 16th century, so that the forty-eight confirmations of Columbus' Genoese origin, by non- Ligurian writers, take on virtually the same significance as those of the twenty-nine non-Italians. Some of these regions, moreover, were governed by the Spanish, so that it might have been tempting, for purposes of flattery, to attribute Spain as his birthplace, even though others might contest it. Yet not one of them did. Still more significant is the testimony of ambassadors of the period. Pedro de Ayala, Spanish ambassador to the English Court, writing, on 25 July 1498, to their Catholic Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella about the discoveries of John Cabot, affirms Columbus' Genoese birth. Nicolo Oderico, ambassador of the Republic of Genoa to the court of Spain, made an address to the Spanish monarchs in April 1501, praising them for having discovered hidden and inaccessible places under the command of Columbus, "our fellow citizen, illustrious cosmographer and steadfast leader." 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." Gaspare 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." These are the establish facts. Further confirmation comes from the nine folio volumes of the Raccolta Colombiana, published by the Italian government in 1892, and the folio volume of the city of Genoa, published in 1931, both containing such an abundance of documents that there can no longer be any disputing them. Scholars from all over the world agree that Columbus was Genoese. The fact was fully accepted by Harrisse, the illustrious late 19th-century American historian. Even Vignaud-- a relentless detractor of Columbus--does not question his Genoese birth. The greatest of all Spanish historians, that same Ballesteros as was mentioned previously, Professor of the University of Madrid and director of the monumental series of publications on the Historia de America y de los pueblos ameri- canos, devotes eighty pages to the question of Columbus' native land, and concludes that "no one can cast the least shadow of doubt" on his being from Genoa. The position of Caddeo, an energetic and wholehearted supporter of Columbus' Italian and Genoese origins, is adopted by the Argentine historian Diego Luis Molinari, who wrote a succinct and impressive biography in the 1930s, at a time when the last of the absurd hypotheses and comical fantasies were still circulating. Ligurian, Genoese, foreigner--these are the terms repeatedly used by Manzano Manzano, Rector of Seville University, author of a vast work, precise and detailed, on the seven years Columbus spent in Spain, before setting out on his great voyage of discovery. Samuel Eliot Morison, the greatest of contemporary American biographers, writes: "The story starts in Genoa with Discoverer's parents." Salvador de Madariaga, on the other hand, has created a novel, based not on evidence of documents, but on hints and deductions, many without foundation. Yet even he does not deny that Columbus was born in Genoa, his exact words being: "Christopher Columbus was a Genoese of Spanish-Jewish origin." In short, we can say that the question of the Discoverer's homeland has been positively resolved. He is Genoese. It was from Genoa that he first set sail. In Genoa, from earliest childhood, he acquired that feeling for the sea that made him one of the greatest navigators who ever lived. In Genoa he inherited the tradition of the Vivaldi brothers, the instinct to challenge the unknown, which made him the greatest explorer of all time. His Parents A contract dated 21 February 1429, drawn up in the Santo Stefano district of Genoa by the notary Quirico of Albenga, mentions Giovanni Colombo, born in Moc"nesi--a village in the upper Fontanabuona valley--and now resident in Quinto. By its terms, Giovanni apprentices his son Domenico, aged about eleven, to one Guglielmo of Brabant, a cloth weaver ("textor pannorum lane"), for a period of six years. According to a document of 6 September 1440, Giovanni was still living, but another, dated 21 January 1444, indicates that by then he was dead. Ten years after entering Guglielmo's shop as "famulus et discipulus," Domenico, the Discoverer's father, was already a master weaver, plying his craft in Genoa until 1447. He became involved in the bitter factional quarrels of the city, taking the side of the Fregosos against the Adorno faction. Concerning this dispute, Giustiniani, an almost contemporary historian, writes that in the year 1447 "on 4 January, Barnaba Adorno was elected Doge, and it was all a plot of the Adorno faction. But Barnaba's rule was very brief, because on 30 January Giano da Campo Fregoso, who had already resisted the Adorno faction doggedly for four years, made his bid. The Doge Barnaba Adorno had a great number of soldiers, including six hundred select fighting men, sent to him by King Alfonso of Arag"n. Giano, with a single galley, came by night, entered the city, and with eighty-five stout comrades attacked the Doge's palace. Strong resistance was offered and there was a cruel battle in which all Giano's men were wounded, yet still Giano's bravery and determination were such that he proved victorious and won the Doge's throne." It is unlikely that Domenico, the weaver, was one of the eighty-five stout comrades. But he was certainly a staunch supporter of the Fregoso faction within the city. Furthermore, he seems to have been fairly influential, even if in the lower ranks of the party, as a "militant," judging by the fact that, on 4 February, five days later, the new Doge appointed him warder of the Porta dell'Olivella, "ad custodiam turris et porte Olivelle dilectum suum Dominicum de Columbo." The position of warder was customarily held for thirteen months. On 5 November 1448, the Olivella Tower and Gate was no longer in Domenico's charge; indeed, a document dated 20 April of that year mentions him and his brother Antonio as residents of Quinto, "habitatores ville Quinti potestacie Bisannis." In December 1448 Doge Giano died. Historians praised his brief government. This could not be said of his brother and successor, Ludovico, who was deposed by the Senate in the summer of 1450 and replaced by his nephew, Pietro Fregoso. The latter had been named Captain-General of the city on 3 February 1447, and it is probable that he suggested Domenico Colombo's appointment to the Doge Giano. Now that he was himself Doge, Pietro once more assigned the care of the Porta dell'Olivella to Domenico. It was 1 October 1450. By then, apparently, Domenico was quite comfortably off, because ha had money to invest ("librarum quinquaginta Janue") in the purchase of a property at Quarto, which, on that same day, he leased to its former owner. By 1451, the probable year of Christopher's birth, Domenico must have been married, although there is no documented record of the event. The first mention of his wife, Susanna Fontanarossa, is in an act dated 15 May 1471. From 1452 to 1455 Domenico was living permanently in Genoa, probably in his house in Vico Olivella, which he had not yet sold or rented. He may also have spent some time in Quinto with his elder brother Antonio. In 1455 Domenico moved into a house in Vico Diritto, and here he also set up as "textor pannorum lane." Eleven years later, on 17 January 1466, a deed of sale to which Domenico was witness was certified: "Janue extra portam S. Andree, in apotheca dicti Dominici de Columbo." In February 1470 he is mentioned for the first time as living in Savona, working there as a weaver and also as a tavern keeper. But six months later he was back in Genoa with his son Christopher, according to a contract dated 22 September 1470, the oldest document in which the Navigator himself is mentioned. On that day Domenico was arrested, then set free a few hours later by the "giudice dei malefici" ("judge of crimes"), who found him not guilty. The reason for the arrest, which brought father and son to Genoa in the first place, was a legal dispute with one Gerolamo del Porto, resolved by the judge imposing a thirty-five lire fine on Domenico. To raise this sum he sold some lands "in Ginestreto, potestacie Bisannis" to a family named Caprile. They had been the dowry of his wife Susanna and so her brother, Guagnino, claimed preferential right to them. Susanna, however, ratified their sale by her husband, who was by now a resident of Savona ("habitator Saone"). In an act of the wool weavers of Savona, dated 12 March 1473, Domenico's name reappears. On 24 September of that year he sold the Genoa house in the Via dell'Olivella. At the beginning of 1447, having already bought some land with a house in the Legino district, he likewise disposed of the house in Vico Diritto, in the Sant'Andrea quarter. On 17 August 1481, he rented out the Legino house and returned to Genoa. In a document of 27 January 1483 he is referred to as "olim textor pannorum," a former weaver. He was by now sixty-five and his wife was probably dead. None of his sons was living with him. Giovanni Pellegrino, his second born, must have died young. Christopher and Bartholomew were in Lisbon. Giacomo was also away from home. His daughter Bianchinetta was about to marry a certain Giacomo Bavarello, son of a cheese merchant, and Giacomo was to succeed his father-in- law as owner of the house in Vico Diritto, outside Port Sant'Andrea. On 17 November 1491 Domenico was in Savona, where he received money from a debtor. On 30 September 1494 he witnessed a notarial deed drawn up in Genoa. By the beginning of the new century he was dead, since another deed, relating to his sons now refers to him as the late Domenico ("quondam Dominici"). Christopher Columbus' father had a long and busy life. His name occurs in seventy-seven surviving notarial documents, where that of his brother Antonio appears in only nine. The reason is that Domenico moved around a lot and had a number of trades and occupations. He was warder of a city tower, a weaver and a tavern keeper and he was active in politics, a dangerous game in 15th-century Genoa. Clearly he was an energetic and very adap- table man. In 15th-century Italy sons of the poorer classes began to receive the rudiments of education comparatively late. Since Domenico was apprenticed to a weaver at the early age of eleven, he is unlikely to have been given much in the way of regular or intensive schooling. This is not to imply that he was unable to write or read. As a master weaver, he surely did not need to call in outside help to understand the deeds and other documents in which he appeared either as protagonist or witness. Even so, although he undoubtedly had an alert mind, capable of dealing with varied everyday problems, he was a man of limited education. Domenico Columbus, as we have said, was much involved with notaries and legal matters--litigations, sales of houses and lands and the like. In such dealings he showed he had a keen business brain. If he had spare money, he invested in property. When he needed cash, he sold. There is nothing to suggest, either, that he was in any way dishonest or unscrupulous. Only occasionally was he behind with payments. The fact that he was once arrested cannot really be held against him. In those days, commerce and the law were so organized that even the most upright tradesmen were forced to run risks which sometimes led to bankruptcy and, with it, arrest. Yet this was not the cause of Domenico's brief stay in prison, and in any event he was immediately freed and declared innocent. Such a judgment speaks in his favor, inasmuch as it cannot have been the result of any financial pressure (Domenico was then without means) or political persuasion (the Fregoso hold on the city then being over). To what extent did Domenico's political activities interfere with his professional responsibilities and his economic and family affairs? We have seen that he was twice warder of a city gate, a position of some importance. He also belonged to the Fregoso party at a time of violent and bloody conflict. Even within the party itself there was plenty of dissension and jockeying for power. It is unlikely that Domenico, so active politically between 1447 and 1450, should thereafter have abandoned politics without a trace. His continual moves, from Quinto to Genoa, from Genoa to Quinto, again from Quinto to Genoa, from there to Savona and once more back to Genoa, cannot have been solely for economic reasons. They are certainly linked with the turbulent events of the Republic, to which we shall revert shortly. What is indisputable is that Domenico was an active member of the Fregoso faction, which drew support from France and the Angevins, whereas its enemies, the Adornos (and, later, all other rivals of the Fregosos), were backed by the Aragonese in Spain. On three occasions in Christopher's life, some evidence of his father's political activities is to be found. The fact that the young son of a weaver managed so quickly to become sea captain and business agent for some of the Republic's leading shipowners (the Spinola, Di Negro and Centurione families) must, in addition to personal merit, have been partly due to paternal influence. Political motivation can clearly be traced in the corsair enterprise in which Christopher engaged at Tunis against the Aragonese, under the orders of Ren d'Anjou, protector of the Fregoso party. Finally, the fact that his family had sided with the faction opposed to Aragon is one reason for the Discoverer's reluctance to speak about his origins, his homeland and his activities in Genoa. Furthermore, it explains his failure--which we shall discuss in due course--to summon his father to Spain, along with his brother. In the light of the various documents, Domenico proves a man of many talents, perhaps too enterprising but not dishonest. He died a poor man, although he had once been prosperous enough to own two houses and some land. A few years before his death, he got rid of the house in Vico Diritto, ceding it to his daughter's husband. Thus, old and perhaps unable to work, he was compelled to live as a guest of his son-in-law, far from his illustrious first-born son and other children. Nothing precise can be said about the relationship between Domenico and his wife Susanna. In the three notarized deeds that mention her, she is always in legal agreement with her husband's wishes. There was, at least on the surface, a sufficiently har- monious relationship between husband and wife to ensure that family affairs ran smoothly. We know the names of five children, but it is possible that others were born and died young. Then, as for many centuries to come, the infant mortality rate was high everywhere, and there was hardly a family that did not lose one or more children in the earliest years of life. Permission to reprint this article was given by Five Hundred magazine. TAVIANI2.ART