Vol. II "Christopher Columbus: Genius of the Sea" by Paolo Emilio
Taviani
in Italian Journal (1991, Vol. V, No. 5/6, pp. 5-37)
 
Chapter I: The Myth of Columbus
     If the life of Christopher Columbus reads like a novel, an
even stranger and more complicated novel has been spun from the
debates surrounding his birth.  It is understandable that certain
Spanish historians would seek to bestow full credit for the great
discovery on Spain by arguing that Columbus was a Spanish
citizen.  It is equally understandable that the Castilians and
Catalonians---two populations that have been linguistically and
culturally divided for centuries--have fought over which of the
two had the honor of being the birthplace of Christopher
Columbus.
     But what wild imaginings could have generated a Greek
Columbus, an English Columbus, three French Columbuses, and, as
if that were not enough, a Corsican Columbus, a Swiss Columbus,
and three Portuguese Columbuses?  For an explanation, we can look
only to the immeasurable greatness of Columbus's achievement and
to its profound consequences on the course of human history; only
to the mythic figure of the Navigator, the first man to unveil
the mystery of the New World to the inhabitants of the Old World,
only to the amazing story of his life and his voyages.  The
glorious myth of Columbus has prompted some minds to hallucinate
and some dilettantes to try to appropriate the myth for
themselves.
     Shakespeare has been treated in much the same fashion.  As
with Columbus, his unquestionable greatness, together with his
unequaled fame, have generated absurd imaginings about him.  The
"mythic" characters in his plays seem raised above their author,
who was apparently a simply country gentleman, and instead would
seem to be the creations of either a man more elevated and noble
in life and thought, or--depending on the case--a person with a
more complex psychology: someone like Bacon, the Earl of Oxford,
the Earl of Derby or even a woman.
     However, no document, no historical data, authorize or even
partially justify the tales spun around the birth of Columbus. 
There is an absurd story of a Greek Columbus, concocted by an
English writer toward the end of the last century.  Two hundred
years earlier, in 1682, another Englishman came out with the
extravagant statement that Columbus had been born in London.  The
claim for a Portuguese Columbus emerges every now and then from
that country's dilettante historians, and it reappeared during
the 1930s with the fantastic thesis that Zarco--the rediscoverer
of Porto Santo and Madeira--and Cristobal Colon were one and the
same.
     And then there are the namesakes, which have given rise to
tales and legends wherever one finds the surname Columbus. 
Claims based on namesakes soon appeared in Liguria and in the
areas of Piacenza and of Monferrato starting in the sixteenth
century.  They appeared outside of Italy in the late seventeenth
century, the eighteenth century, and even as late as the
nineteenth century.  Thus, in Digne in 1697, a lawyer by the name
of Jean Colomb proclaimed himself a descendant of the Navigator
     Two centuries later, in honor of the fourth centennial of
the discovery of the Americas, some heraldic scholars labored
hard to trace the origins of the Coullons or of the Colombs of
Bordeaux, Bourgogne, and Savoy.  A certain M. Colomb who
generously gave refuge to one of the Ruffini exiles in Helvetic
territory in 1834 believed with an almost naive sincerity that he
himself was a descendant of the great Columbus.
     Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the citizens of
Calvi also made their claims on the basis of namesakes.  Calvi
was built by the Genoese on the northwestern coast of Corsica in
1268 and populated by Genoese families.  For centuries it served
Genoa as a loyal fortress, loyal against foreigners and against
the Corsicans themselves: even today "civitas Calvi semper
fidelis" is written on the gates of the citadel.  It was loyal to
the point that when Pasquale Paoli built another town--Ile
Rousse--not far away, he is reported to have exclaimed, "I have
built the gallows from which Calvi will hang!"
     In Calvi the families were all, or almost all, Genoese. 
Obviously there were some Columbuses, and nothing forbids the
idea that some close or distant relations of the discoverer might
have lived there.  But respect for history and for documents
should have forbidden the inscription that can still be read
today on the plaque of a ruined house: "Ici est ne, en 1441,
Christophe Colomb, immortalise par la decouverte du Nouveau
Monde, alors que Calvi etait sous la domination genoise: mort A
Vallodolid le 20 mai 1500."
     If we backtrack a little, we find the first mistake:
Columbus died in 1506 not in 1500.  Second mistake: Calvi was not
under Genoese domination it was entirely Genoese, as much as were
and are Genoa's own districts, such as Pre and Molo, and even
more so than Savona and Cogoleto.  Third mistake: Columbus was
born around 1451, not in 1441.  Fourth and final mistake: he was
not born in Calvi.  Nor does the fact that during the second and
third voyages of discovery some of the sailors were from Calvi
suffice to give credit to this legend: "Lu dolce lidu s'annanno
Colombo dentr'u so nido" [The sweet beaches that cradled Columbus
in his nest] (editor's translation).
     Not even the Corsicans believe in the legend anymore, nor do
the French tourists.  The plaque is broken into three pieces, the
walls are in ruins, and the corner of the citadel where the old
house stood is visited less and less, except by the lizards, who
crawl amidst oily tufts of weeds, dust, and crumbling rock.  This
absurd legend merits no further discussion.
     However, the thesis that Columbus was Spanish deserves
careful criticism.  Some individuals, whose theories have been
refuted by the greatest Spanish historians, have attempted to
prove that in Genoa during the second half of the fifteenth
century, there was indeed a Christoforus Columbus, son of
Domenico, a woolen weaver, and grandson of Giovanni da Moconesi,
and that this Christoforus Columbus was indeed a seaman.  But
this man is not the same as the Cristobal Colon who discovered
America.  And where was this Spanish Cristobal Colon born?  In
Plasencia, in Estremadura, says one historian; in Tortosa, in
Catalonia, says another; and in Pontevedra, in Galicia, says yet
another.
     Ballesteros Beretta analyzes all of the hypotheses regarding
the great navigator's presumed Hispanicism and disproves them
with precise arguments in his chapter on Columbus's native land. 
Most supporters of this thesis are not experts: many are even
complete outsiders to the field of history.  For the sake of
vanity, or an easy notoriety, or a misguided nationalism, they
have voiced risky opinions without bothering to seriously verify
their statements.  The various Estremadura hypotheses--in
particular, the one proposed by Vicente Paredes--are pure
fiction, unworthy of attention except to illustrate the
imaginations of their inventors.  Regarding the idea of a
Galitian Columbus, Ballesteros notes that once there were plenty
of books which adopted this thesis, but today the ardor of its
supporters has abated.  The best-known proponent of this thesis
is Celso Garcia de la Riega, who in 1892, in honor of the fourth
centenary of the discovery, began to produce a series of studies
meant to proclaim the admiral's Hispanic, not to mention
Galitian, origins.  De la Riega based his argument on documents
from Pontevedra, which Manuel Serrano y Sanz and Eladio Oviedo y
Arce immediately stated were worthless.
     But the "production" of Pontevedra documents continued,
igniting a debate on both sides of the Atlantic.  Finally the
bishop of Madrid, Leopoldo Eijo y Garay, was called in to settle
the dispute.  He was considered a person beyond reproach, partly
because he himself was of Galitian origin.  A special committee
conducted an accurate scientific and paleographic examination of
the documents, resulting in evidence that they had been altered
and falsified.  The committee's report stated: "The documents
examined were the object of a systematic manipulation, and have
no value whatsoever, and they cannot be accepted as the basis or
the proof for a serious historical study."  Ballesteros exclaims,
"The most solid basis for the Galitian thesis was the documents;
when these fell, so did everything else!"
     This episode deserved extended coverage not only for the
sake of destroying a fiction, but also to duly recognize the
seriousness of Spanish historiography, which is that of a great
nation whose glories are such and so many, including some
concerning the discovery of America, that it need not display
false vanities.
     Ballesteros engaged in an even deeper scrutiny of the
Catalan thesis.  He writes, "If the Galitian thesis was spread by
supporters who were foreign to the historical disciplines, the
theory of a Catalonian Columbus, by contrast, was maintained by a
respectable person, who had great familiarity with historical
research, and who had resided in Spain for a number of years: the
librarian of the National Library of Lima, Luis Ulloa."  Ulloa
began with the assumption that all the Genoese documentation
referring to Christopher Columbus has nothing to do with Colon. 
He found hints of Catalan origins in the admiral's name, in his
coat of arms, and in his symbols and signature.  To Ulloa, even
the navigator's reminiscences on geography were proof of his
Hispano-Catalonian origins.  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.  He searches and researches, and
from a tenuous watermark, which appears through an old map, he
constructs a building solid only in appearance for his Juan
Colom."
     "But what document, what proof," Ballesteros continues, "can
be exhibited which affirms that Columbus was Catalonian? 
Absolutely none.  The Galitian hypothesis at least had the
appearance of truth in the beginning, until the manipulation of
the Pontevedra documents had been demonstrated.  But 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."
     As a last decisive blow to Ulloa's imaginative and arbitrary
construction, I quote Ballesteros's severe concluding judgement:
 
          In the course of the Conference on American
     Studies held in Hamburg, the pertinacious Peruvian
     presented his thesis on the discovery of America
     relying, as always, on suppositions and interpretations
     of texts.  On that occasion, without entering into the
     merits of the question, his system of historical
     elaboration and his method of work were immediately
     invalidated.  The historian's mission is essentially
     that of making the past come to life, of resuscitating
     the fact which has been forgotten in time; but to
     construct studies, which are only scientific in
     appearance, based on second-hand third-hand hypotheses,
     leads not to history but rather to a more or less
     gratuitous fiction.  This is what Ulloa has done!
     (editor's translation)
 
     Spanish historians have since abandoned the thesis that
Columbus was Spanish, and they all recognize that the discoverer
was Genoese.  Like Ballesteros, Manzano continuously calls
Columbus genoves, ligur, and extranjero in his works.
     Today all Columbus scholars, both his admirers and his
detractors, recognize that he was Genoese.  The reader may find a
long list at his or her disposal in the bibliography at the end
of this article.  Here, I anticipate some of the best-known
names.
     In addition to Ballesteros Beretta and Manzano, the
following historians have recognized that Columbus was Genoese:
the Spanish Navarrete, Munoz, Duro, Asensio, Serrano y Sanz,
Altolaguirre, Perez de Tudela, Morales Padron, Manuel Alvar,
Ciroanescu, Rumeu de Armas, Muro Orejon, Martinez Hidalgo,
Emiliano Jos, Demetrio Ramos, Consuelo Varela, Juan Gil,
Ballesteros Gaibrois, and Milhou; the French D'Avezac, Roselly de
Lorgues, Vignaud, Sumien, Charcot, Houben, de la Ronciere, Mahn
Lot, Heers, Mollat, and Braudel; the English Robertson, Johnson,
Markham, Brebner, and Bradford; the Belgians Pirenne and
Verlinden; the Germans Humboldt, Peschel, Ruge, Streicher,
Leithaus, and Breuer; the Swiss Burckhardt; the Russian
Magidovic; the Rumanian Goldemberg; the North Americans Irving,
Harrisee, Winsor, Dickey, Thacher, Nunn, Morison, Parry, and
Boorstin; the Cubans Alvarez Pedroso, Ramirez Corria, Carpentier,
and Nunez Jimenez; the Puerto Ricans Aurelio Tio and Alegria; the
Colombians Arciniegas and Obregon; the Argentinians Molinari,
Levillier,a nd de Gandia; the Uruguayans Laguarda Trias and Marta
Sanguinetti; and the Japanese Aynashiya.
     Outside of specialized studies, many authoritative figures
in science and in letters have had the occasion to express their
convictions regarding a Genoese Columbus: Leibniz, Voltaire,
Nietzsche, Paul Claudel, Churchill.
     Among Italian Columbus scholars, only a few dilettantes have
interpreted the Genoese question in a broad sense (Cogoleto,
Bettola, Cuccaro).  All of the serious scholars, some of whom are
deservedly well known and widely quoted abroad, use unequivocal
documents, of which I shall soon speak, to point to Genoa as the
birthplace of the great discoverer.
 
Chapter II: The Documents
     From what has been said till now, it can be seen without a
shadow of a doubt that the discoverer of America was Genoese. 
However, up until this point "Genoese" could be interpreted very
loosely.  In the fifteenth century, even someone who was born in
Cogoleto, Calvi, Corsica or Chios was considered Genoese.  A
person born in Bettola could also say that he or she was Genoese,
as could one who, though born in Genoa, was the child or
grandchild of a Sephardic Jew, an immigrant from Catalonia.  The
last is the reason behind the wholly undocumented thesis of
Wassermann and of Madariaga.
     Therefore I must now demonstrate that Christopher Columbus
was born in Genoa and not in Cogoleto or Corsica, and that he was
not only born there (as in the case of Sephards), but that his
cultural origins were Genoese and Italian.  This can be
scientifically proven on the basis of the documents.  The
document in which admiral Cristobal Colon sets out the terms of
the act of majorat (i.e., the entail, which designates the direct
heir to his titles and privileges) played an important part in
the two centuries of succession proceedings begun by the
claimants to the admiral's estate.  In the majorat, Columbus
declares explicitly and solemnly that he was born in Genoa:
 
          [And for being just that it please them, and they
     not consent nor he consent that my obligation of
     majorat be modified, rather that it remain [intact] and
     be thus, and in the manner and form that I ordained
     forever, so that it be in the service of God
     omnipotent, and root and foot of my lineage and memory
     of the services that I have rendered to their
     Highnesses, that, having been born in Genoa.  I came to
     serve them here in Castille, and discovered for them
     the Indies and the aforesaid islands to the west of
     terra firma.] (editor's translation)
 
     A copy of the document, which dates back to the early
seventeenth century and had been officially sent from Spain to
the Republic of Genoa, is conserved in the Archivio di Stato of
Genoa.  The supposed original is in the Archivio General de
Indias in Seville.
     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.  Altolaguirre also
maintains that it is 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.
     To my mind, even it the document is on the whole authentic,
the suspicion of interpolation cannot be excluded.  This
suspicion, which I report for the sake of scientific objectivity,
has no effect on the basic fact of the Genoese birth and cultural
background of Christopher Columbus.  This fact is guaranteed by
many other documents, by testimony, and by positive and
indisputable proof, examples of which are reported below.
     Here is the letter from Columbus to the patrons of the Banco
de San Giorgio in Genoa:
[start speller here]
     [Illustrious Gentlemen:
     
          Although my body may be here, my heart is there
     constantly.  Our Lord has granted me the greatest mercy
     that He has granted anyone after David.  The
     achievements of my enterprise already shine and would
     yield great light if they were not covered by darkness
     of government.  I am going again to the Indies in the
     name of the Holy Trinity to return later.  And because
     I am mortal, I leave for don Diego my son that all the
     income there be, that he come to you there with the
     tithe of the sum total every year forever in rebatement
     of the income of wheat and wine amd other edible foods. 
     If this tithe were something, receive it, and if not
     receive [at least] the good will I have.  I ask you
     please to receive this son of mine with my
     recommendation.  Messer Nicolo de Oderigo knows more of
     my deeds than I myself, and I have sent to him the
     transferral of my privileges and papers for him to
     place them in good custody .  I would be pleased for
     you to see them.  The King and Queen, my Lord and Lady,
     wish to honor me more than ever.  May the Holy Trinity
     protect your noble persons and enrich the Magnificent
     Office.  Dated in Seville the second day of 1502.]
     (editor's translation)
     
     And here is the text of two letters addressed to Nicolo
Oderico, ambassador of the Republic of Genoa to the Court of
Spain:
 
     [Sir:
 
          The solitude in which you have left us cannot be
     expressed.  I gave the book of my writings to M.
     Francesco Rivarolo so that he may send it to you with
     another copy of the letters.  Please write to Don Diego
     about the address or the place you will receive it. 
     Another such copy will be finished and will be sent to
     you in the same manner and by the same M. Francesco. 
     In them you will find new writing.  Their Royal
     Highnesses have promised me to give me everything which
     belongs to me and place Don Diego in possession of
     everything, as you will see.  I am writing to my lord
     M. Gianluigi and to the lady Madonna Catarina.  The
     letter accompanies this one.  I am ready to set sail
     with many provisions in name of the Holy Trinity with
     the first good weather.  If Gerolamo di Santo Stefano
     comes, he must await me and have no dealings with
     anyone for they will take from him all they can and
     afterwards they will leave him empty-handed.  Let him
     come here and the King and Queen will receive him until
     I arrive.  May our Lord keep you in His holy
     protection.  Dated XXI March in Seville 1502.]
     (editor's translation)
 
     [Virtuous Sir:
 
          When I departed on the voyage from whence I have come I
     spoke to you at length.  I thought that you had (committed)
     all of this well to you memory.  I thought that upon
     arriving I would find your letters as well as a person
     carrying word from you.  Also, at that time, I left for
     Francesco Rivarolo a book of copies of letters and another
     with my privileges in a coffer of red cordovan leather with
     a silver clasp and two letters for the office of San
     Giorgio, to which I assigned the tithe of my income against
     the taxes on wheat and other victuals.  I have had no news
     of any of this.  M. Francisco says that everything arrived
     there safely.  If this is so. it was a discourtesy of those
     gentlemen at San Giorgio not to have given a reply; nor by
     so doing have they enhanced the firm, and this is why they
     say that he who serves city, serves no one.  Another book of
     my privileges, like the aforementioned, I delivered in Cadiz
     to Francesco Catanio, the bearer of the present letter, so
     that he might likewise send it to you.  Both one and another
     were addressed well, to where it most pleased you.  I
     received a letter from the King and Queen my Lords at the
     time of my departure.  It is written therein.  Take a look
     at it, for it has arrived most opportunely.  Moreover, Don
     Diego was not given possession of it, contrary to the
     promise.  When I was in the Indies, I wrote to their
     Highnesses of my voyage by three or four ways.  One returned
     to my hands, and this I sent to you, sealed with the present
     letter, and the rest of the trip in another letter so that
     you may give it to M. Gian Luigi, to whom I write that you
     are to act as reader and interpreter.  He wants letters that
     can be shown and that speak prudently of the matter that we
     are dealing with.  I arrived here very sick.  At that time
     the Queen, my Lady, died without me seeing her, and rests
     with God.  So far I cannot say what will become of my
     affairs.  I believe that her Highness has provided well in
     her testament, and the King my Lord fulfills very well. 
     Franco Catanio will tell you the rest at length.
 
          May our Lord keep you in his protection.  From Seville
     December, 27 1504.] (editor's translation)
 
     Even more important and definitive are 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.  There are
many such documents--more than a hundred--but it will suffice to
mention only the most important ones.
     An act dated 21 February 1429 talks about a Giovanni
Colombo, originally from Moconesi, a village in upper
Fontanabuona, who lives in Quinto.  It is a contract in which
Giovanni Colombo apprentices his son Domenico, who was about
eleven years old at the time, to Guglielmo di Brabante, a cloth
weaver, for six years.  The act was drawn up in Santo Stefano in
Genoa by the notary Quirico di Albenga.
     From an act dated 6 September 1440, we can see that Giovanni
is still living; from one dated 21 January 1444, we can that he
is already dead.
     We know much more about the life of his father, Domenico. 
We have seen how at the age of eleven, he entered as a "famulus
et discipulus" into a shop of a certain Guglielmo de Brabante, a
German "textori pannorum lane," in Genoa.  Ten years later, in
1439, he was already a master craftsman.  From 1439 to 1447,
Domenico practiced his trade in Genoa and took part in the
disputes between the factions.  The feud between the Adorno and
Fregoso parties was sharp in those years.  A contemporary
historian, the famous Giustiniani, writes that in 1447,
 
          On the fourth of January Barnaba Adorno was elected
     Doge, and it was all a plot by the Adorno faction.  But the
     Barnaba Signory was very short-lived, because on January 30
     Giano da Campo Fregoso, who had already given great
     annoyance to the Adorno faction for four years in a row,
     tried his chances.  Doge Barnaba Adorno had a great number
     of soldiers, including six-hundred special fighters, who had
     been sent to him by King Alphonse of Aragon.  Giano came by
     night with a single galley, entered the city and assaulted
     the ducal palace with eighty-five strong companions.  There
     was a hearty resistance to him, a cruel battle, such that
     all of Giano's men were wounded, and nonetheless the ability
     and constance of Giano was such that he emerged the victor
     and conquered the Doge's position. (editor's translation)
 
     It is improbable that Domenico Colombo, the woolen-weaver,
was one of the eighty-five strong companions.  However, he was
one of the many who from within the city walls took the part of
the Fregosos.  And he must have been rather influential, even if
he was just a party member; he must have been, as we would say in
modern terms, an activist.  He was certainly loyal, steadfast,
and of proven faith, because on 4 February, five days later, the
new doge named him ad custodiam turris et porte Olivelle dilectum
suum Dominicum de Colombo.
     According to custom, the job of warden of the gate lasted
thirteen months.  On 5 November 1448 the Olivella tower was no
longer entrusted to Domenico Colombo.  Before that, on 20 April
of the same year, he and his brother Antonio were cited in a
document as habitatores ville Quinti potestacie Bisannis.  In the
meantime, in December, Gianio died.  Historians testify that he
was a good government, while the same cannot be said about his
successor, Gianio's brother Ludovico, who was deposed by the
senate in the summer of 1450 and replaced by his nephew Pietro
Fregoso.
     Pietro Fregoso had been named general captain of the city on
3 February 1447, the day before Domenico Colombo's appointment. 
In all probability the latter appointment had been suggested to
Doge Giano by Pietro. Now that Pietro was doge, he once again
entrusted custody of the Olivello gate to Domenico on 1 October
1450.  It would seem that Domenico now lived comfortably, since
he was investing money--librarum quinquaginta Janue--in the
purchase of land in Quarto, which he leased back to the seller
the same day.
     We have reached 1451, Columbus's probable year of birth. 
Domenico was evidently already married.  The first certificate in
which the name of his wife, Susanna Fontanarossa, appears is
dated 15 May 1471.  From 1452 to 1455, Domenico Colombo had
always resided in Genoa, and with all probability, in his house
on Vico Olivella, which he still had neither sold nor leased.  He
might have spent some time in Quinto, where his brother Antonio
is supposed to have resided; Antonio, older than Domenico and
also born Moconesi, was less entrepreneurial.
     In 1455 Domenico went to live in a house in Vico Diritto. 
The same building contained both his dwelling and his shop textor
pannorum lane.  Eleven years later, on 17 January 1466, a bill of
sale, to which Domenico was witness, was drawn up:  Janue extra
portam S. Andree, in apotheca dicti Dominici de Columbo.
 
     In February 1470 he was no longer in Genoa.  For the first
time we find him in Savona, where he practiced the trades of
weaver and tavern-keeper.  Six months later he was back in Genoa
with his son Christopher to appear in court, as attested to by a
document; this is the oldest document (22 September 1470) naming
the navigator.  On that same day, Domenico was arrested, only to
be released a hours later by a criminal judge who declared that
he did not find him culpabilem.  The reasons for the arrest and
for the trip to Genoa were the same: a legal question of a debt
that Domenico and his son Christopher owed to certain Girolamo
del Porto.  With a document dated 28 September 1470, the judge
imposed a fine of 35 lira on Domenico.  In order to raise that
sum, he sold to a Caprile family some lands "in Ginesttreto,
potestacie Bisannis."  These were the dowry of his wife, Susanna
Fontanarossa, and at the point of sale her brother, Guagnino,
claimed his right of preemption over the same lands.  But Susanna
ratified her husbands sale: Domenico was now habitator Saone.
     In a document of the Savona wooliers guild dated 12 March
1473, we find the name Domenico Colombo once more.  On 24
September of the same year, he sold his house on via
dell'Olivella in Genoa.  At the beginning of 1477, when he had
already bought land with a house in Legino, near Savona, he also
sold his house in Vico Diritti, in the Sant'Andrea district.
     On 17 August 1481 he leased his house in Legino in order to
return to Genoa.  In a document dated 27 January 1483, he is
cited as an olim textor pannorum.  He was sixty-five.  His wife
was probably dead.  Of his sons, none had remained by his side. 
Giovanni Pellegrino, his second son, must have died young. 
Christopher and Bartolomeo were in Lisbon.  Giacomo was also far
from home.  His daughter Bianchinetta was about to get married to
a certain Giacomo Bavarello, son of a cheese-maker, who would
take his father-in-law's place at the house in Vico Diritto,
outside of Porta Sant-Andrea.  On 17 November 1491, Domenico was
in Savona, where he received a sum of money from a debtor.  In
1494, on 30 September, he acted as a witness for a notarized
document drawn in Genoa.  At the beginning of the new century he
was already dead, it having been written in a notarized document
that his sons were "quondam Dominci."
     A long life, that of Christopher Columbus's father.  A good
seventy-seven notarial acts name Domenico Colombo.  His brother,
who lived in Quinto, appears in only nine.  This difference
highlights just how eventful the life of Christopher's father
was.  He was the warden of a city gate, a weaver and tavern-
keeper, and an active participant in politics; A territory that
has always been dangerous, and was particularly so in fifteenth-
century Genoa.
     Therefore, Christopher Columbus was definitely from a
Ligurian family.  His great-grandfather lived in Moconesi.  His
grandfather, Giovanni, was definitely born in Moconesi.  His
father, Domenico, was born in Quinto.  He lived for a long period
in Genoa, and then Savona.  Today, Quinto is part of Genoa's
urban complex, but then it was a village a short way from the
city. Christopher Columbus spent his childhood and the first
years of his youth in Vico Diritti, under the gate of
Sant'Andrea.  These are historically certain facts.
     When amd more precisely where, was Columbus born?  Based on
the documents which are certainly authentic, the date of his
birth is usually set between 25 August and 31 October 1451.  In a
document dated 31 October 1470, Columbus declares himself maior
annis decemnovem; in the other, dated 25 August 1479, which will
be discussed in detail below, he declares himself  annorum
vigintiseptum vel circa.  Between 25 August and 31 October 1451,
Domenico Colombo, Christopher's father, was the keeper of the
Olivella gate, and thus lived next to the gate itself.  This,
therefore, is where Christopher would have been born.
     The reasoning is flawless.  However, how can we be sure that
Columbus's declarations were exact?  Any one of us might make a
mistake when asked our age.  And how do you count the years?  If
he was born in 1451, Columbus could have said that he was twenty-
eight in August 1479, because he was in the twenty-eight year of
his life.  He could just as correctly have said twenty-seven,
because he still had not celebrated his twenty-eighth birthday. 
Then, add the vel circa in the second document: i.e. 25 August
1479 he was about twenty-seven years old.  All this would induce
one to think that Columbus was born around 1451, but it is risky
to fix the date exactly within the space of two months.
     Around 1451: thus, a date included in the three-year period
1450-1452.  In these three years Domenico was either in the
center of Genoa, the warden of the Olivella gate in the Portoria
neighborhood, or in Quinto.  Domenico Colombo moved to Savona
twenty years later, in 1470.  Thus there are only two
alternatives for his son's birthplace: Genoa (Porta
dell'Olivella) or Quinto.  Without a doubt, we can exclude other
claims for his birthplace being in the Genoa area, but far from
the city itself: claims from places such as Cogoleto, Bettola,
Savona, and Calvi di Corcica.
     Although many historians tend toward the Olivella gate, one
cannot exclude Quinto, where Columbus's father, Domenico, had his
home and where his mother, Susanna Fontanarossa, could have given
birth amidst fresh and tranquil surroundings, with the assistance
of the women from her husband's family.  Until the beginning of
the present century, it was customary among families who had
immigrated to Genoa from the countryside for pregnant women to
return to their relatives in the country to give birth.
     The Quinto hypothesis could also solve the mystery of the
epithet "da Terrarubia" which the admiral and his brother
Bartolomea gave themselves at times.  Quinto is, in effect, a
place that was called Terrarosa until the beginning of the
century.  Moreover, a Terrarossa still exists today in the
township of Moconesi, a birthplace of the grandfather, Giovanni.
     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 Cristobal Colon, admiral of the Ocean Sea in
Spanish territory?  The list of contemporary historians and
ambassadors 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 already
been cited: the document dated September in which the criminal
judge convicts Domenico Columbus.  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 Cristobal Colon 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.  Still more
important is the act drawn in Genoa on 25 August 1479 by a
notary, Girolamo Ventimiglia (series 2a, 1474-1504, n. 266). 
This act is known as the assereto document, after the scholar who
found it in the State Archives in Genoa in 1904.  Following is
the part in which Columbus is cited:
 
          Lodovico Centurione appearing by law and in the
     presence of the venerable Office of Merchandise, says and
     states that which he will or hopes or doubts to have with
     Paola Di Negro, son of the late Luca, he himself or his
     brother Cazona with the aforementioned Paola, and since he
     has some witnesses who are informed of the rights of said
     Lodovico, who must shortly leave this city of Genoa and
     depart on a long journey, thus requests that said witnesses,
     in eternal memory of the fact and for as long as the belief
     in truth does not perish, be received and examined.
 
          First he intends to prove and to attest to the
     truth of the fact that was and is that other times in
     the past year, during the time in which the
     witnesses...will say, Paola Di Negro, commissioned by
     him Lodovico and by the aforementioned Cazano or one of
     them to the island of Madeira in order to purchase a
     certain quantity of sugar, and Lodovico having sent
     1,290 ducats therefore, that is to say 1,290 'grosatti'
     or their value to said Paola , who was supposed to
     purchase 2,400 and more rubbi of sugar, Christopher
     Columbus, on the order of said Paola, was sent to the
     island of Maderia and here he secured and purchased the
     aforementioned amount of sugar.1
 
          Witnesses in favor of Lodovico Centurione.
 
          In nomine Domini amen.  May all who see the
     present public testimonial document know that, having
     appeared in the presence of myself, the notary, and the
     undersigned witness, summoned and requested for the
     express purpose, Christopher Columbus, citizen of
     Genoa, summoned here as a witness, must be received and
     examined as such.
 
                                   NOTES
 
     1. The "grosato" is a coin equal to one tenth of a
Castillian "escudo."
 
 
     When asked if he has to depart soon, he answers: yes,
tomorrow morning for Lisbon.  When asked how old he is, he
answered that he was about twenty-seven years of age. (editors
translation)
     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, Italian 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.
     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:
     
     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.
 
     (editor's translation)
 
     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 [the summoned parties are absent and beyond Pisa
and Nice] (editor's translation).
     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 Colombo, 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.
 
     (editor's translation)
     Finally, there is a very important sixth document from the
notary of Bartholomeo 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 Colon,
son of Admiral Cristobal Colon.  The document demonstrates how
the ties, in part economic, of the Discoverer's family with
Savona survived even his death.
     These documents irrefutably demolish the dilettantish claims
that would make Cristobal Colon, the discoverer of America, a
different person than Cristoforus Columbus, son of Domenico,
despite reference to Columbus in more than seventy Genoese and
Savonese documents.  Regarding the first, second, and third
documents, I would emphasize that the authentic originals are
conserved and on public display in the Columbian Room of the
Archivio di Stato of Genoa.  The sixth document can be seen in
the original authentic version in the State Archives in Savona.
 
Chapter III:  Columbus's Genoese Birth 
     Columbus scholars have always recognized that the
fundamental texts on the explorer's life and discoveries are the
works of Pietro Martire d'Anghiera, D. Fernando, Bartolomea de
Las Casa, and Fernandez do Oviedo.  The son of D. fernando Colon,
or whoever compiled the Historie di Cristoforo Colombo in either
use or abuse of the family name, states without a shadow of a
doubt that his father was born in Italy to a family that came
from Lombardy, a name that he attributed to norther Italy and not
just to the area marked by the region's actual borders.  In
Decades de Orbe novo Pietro Martire begins his account of the
great discovery as follows:  "A certain (quidam) Christopher
Columbus, native of Liguria."
     Bartolomeo de Las Casas writes in chapter 2 of his Historia
de las Indias:  "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 Cristobal Colombo de
Terrarubia."
     Fernandez de Oviedo writes in chapter 2, book 3 of his
Historia general de las Indias:  "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
selfsame 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.  In addition to the four main
writers given above here are the others:
     5) The Portuguese Rui de Pina wrote two works, Chronica d'El
Rey, don Alfonso and Chronica d'El Rey, don Juan II.  It has been
ascertained that the manuscripts had been completed before 1504,
although they were published in the Eighteenth century.  Chapter
66 in the second manuscript, "Descubrimiento das Ilhas de
Castella per Collombo," explicitly states, "Christovan Colombo
italiano."
     6) In the 1513 edition of Carta della Terra Nuova from
Ptollemy, the following is written:  " =This land with its
adjacent islands was discovered by Columbus of Genoa on the
mandate of the king of Castillia." (cf. K. Kretschmer, Die
Entdeckung Amerikas, atlas, Berlin, 1892, pl. XII).
     7) The Turkish geographer Piri Haji Mehmet, known by the
name of Piri Reis, writes on his map, "These coats are called the
coasts of the Antilles They were discovered in the year 896 of
the Arabic calendar.  It is said that an infidel Genoese, by the
name of Columbus, discovered the place."
     8) Hernando Alonso de Herrera wrote an anti-Aristotelian
dissertation, completed in Salamanca in 1516, and published in
Latin and Spanish, in which he mentions "Xristoval Colon
ginoves."
     9) In a Portuguese map dated 1520, one reads, "Land of the
antipodes of the King of Castiglia discovered by Christopher
Columbus the Genoese" (K. Kretschmer, pl. XII).
     10) In 1520 the German Pietro von Bennewitz writes in Tipo
dell' Orbe Universale:  "In the year 1497 (sic) this land
[America] with its adjacent islands was discovered by Christopher
Columbus the Genoese by mandate of the King of Castiglia" (cf.
A.E. Nordenskiold, Facsimile Atlas, Stockholm 1889, pi. XXXVIII).
     11) The German Johannis Schoner indicates in his 1520 Globo: 
"This [island] produces gold, mastic, aloe, porcelain, etc. and
ginger--Latitude of the island 440 miles Longitude 800--
discovered by Christopher Columbus the Genoese, Captain of the
King of Castillia in the year of our Lord 1492" (Kretschmer, pl.
XIIX).
     12) The Spaniard Francisco Lopez de Gomara, in his Historia
general de las Indias of 1533, wrote under the fourteenth title
in part I: "Christopher Columbus was originally from Cogurreo or
Nervi, a village of Genoa, a very famous Italian city."
     13) The Portuguese Garcia de Resende writes the Cronic de
don Joao II between 1530 and 1533, and it was published in 1544. 
In chapter 165, "De como se descubriram per Colombo as Antilhas
de Castella," he writes, "Christouao Colombo, italiano."
     14) The Swiss Henry Glareanus (Loriti) writes: "To the west
there is a land that they call America.  Two islands, Spagnola
and Isabella; the coastlines of which were travelled by the
Hispanics, by Columbus of Genoa, and by Amerigo Vespucci" (Della
Geographia, Libri uno, Venice, 1534, p. 45)
     15) The Spaniard Geronimo Girava, who lived in the first
half of the sixteenth century, writes, "Christoval Colon of
Genoa, a great seaman and a mediocre cosmographer" (Dos Libros de
Cosmografia, Milan, 1556, p. 6).
     16) The Portuguese Joao de Barros writes, "How into this
reign came Christopher Columbus of Genoa who came from his
discovery of the western islands that are now called the
Antilles" (Da Asia, trans, Alfonso Ulloa, Venice, 1562, p. 55).
     17) The German Joan Boemo Aubano, form the first half of the
sixteenth century, writes: "Christopher Palombo the Genoese, in
the year 1492" (I costumi, le leggi et I'usanze di tutte le
genti, Venice, 1564,p.193).
     18) The flemish Abram Oertel writes: "It seems to surpass
the limits of human amazement that this whole hemisphere (that is
called America today as well as the New World due to its
immensity) remained unknown to the ancients until the year of our
Lord 1492, in which it was discovered by Christopher Columbus the
Genoese." (Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, Antwerp, 1570, foglio 11).
     19) The Portuguese Damiano De Goes writes, "Columbus of
Genoa, a man expert in the nautical arts,") and in his index,
"Columbi genuensis, alias Coloni commendatio" (De Rebus
Aethiopicis in De Rebus Oceanicis et Novo Orbe, Cologne, 1574, p.
455).
     20) The Spaniard Nicolo Monardes writes: "In the year 1492
our Spaniards were guided to discover the west Indies by don
Christoval Colon, a native of Genoa" (Primera y segunda y tercera
partes de la Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de,
nuestras Indias Occidentales que sirven en Medicina, Seville,
1574, p. 1).
     21) The German L. Surius writes: "In the Court of the King
of Spain there was a certain Christopher Columbus of Genoese
birth" (Commentarius Brevis Rerum in Orbe Gestarum ab Anno
Samutis M.S. usque in annum MDLXXIIII, Cologne, 1574, p. 6).
     22) In 1579, for the Cristoph Pantin's edition, the
yearbooks of the Genoese Senate were published, in Antwerp,
edited by Petro Bizaro: Senatus Populique Genuensis rerum domi
forisque gestarum historiae atque annales.  Among what is written
to celebrate many industrious Genoese men, you can read that: 
"cum Christophoro Columbo navalis scientiae absolutissima peritia
apud omnem venturam posteritatem, juro optima aliqua ex parte
conferri vel comparari possit."
     23) The Portuguese Vaz Dourado notes in his 1580 atlas,
"Land of the antipodes of the King of Castillia discovered by
Christopher Columbus the Genoese" (Kretschmer, pl. XVIII).
     24) The Spaniard Alvaro Gomez writes: "Thanks to the
painstaking industry of Christopher Columbus of Genoa the King
received news of an unknown world" (De Rebus Gestis a Francisco
Ximenio Cisnerio, Archiepiscopo Toletano, vol. 111, Frankfurt,
1581, p. 38).
     25) The French Gilbert Genebrard writes: "Ferdinand, due to
the exhortations of his wife Isabella, the Queen of Castillia,
sent Christopher Columbus the Genoese to search for new lands"
(Chronographiae Libri Quattuor, Paris, 1580, p. 339).
     26) Swiss Teodoro Zwinger, who died in 1588, is the author
of Theatrum Humanae Vitae, Basel, 1604.  In the index one reads,
"Christopher Colono or Columbus the Genoese."
     27) On an unspecified date, certainly prior to 1591, the
Turk Basmagi Ibrahim published a book, writte by a Turkish author
who has remained anonymous, entitled Turich-i-Hin-i garbi iachod
hadis-i-nev(History of the West ndies, in other words the New
Story).  The third chapter of this book dedicated to the
discoverer of the "New World or New Land," states : "From the
village of Nervi, which is among the Genoese possessions, a man
who was born who had the name Christopher and the surname
Columbus.  Since he had completed journeys by land and by sea
[...] he stayed on an island by the name of Madeira [...] under
the domain of the wretched [sic] Portugal."
     28) The Flemish Theodore De Bry published the  Historiae
Americanae Secunda Pars conscripta a Jacobo Le Moyne dicto De
Morgues in Frankfurt in 1591.  In it is written, "Christopher
Columbus the Italian Genoese (p. 4)," and in another later work,
"From what can be known with certainty the first to discover it
[the new land] was Christopher Columbus of Genoa."
     29) The Portuguese Gasper Fructuoso, in a sixteenth century
manuscript entitled As saudades da terra, printed by Alvaro
Rodriguez Azevedo in 1873 in Funchal (Madeira), writes in the
Anales of Porto Santo: "On this island the great Christovao
Colombo, the Genoese, resided for some time."
     30) The Lutheran theologian David Chytreus, from Rostock in
Saxony, in his book Saxonia at anno Christi 1550 usque MDXCIV
published by the printer Henning Gros, in Leipzig, in 1599,
writes that "Primum Novum Orbem in occidente, omnibus antea
ignotum et inaccessam...pervestigare et aperire...Christophorus
Columbus Genesis, admirand ad omnen posteritatem ausu et
industria coeperat".
     31) The volume on the city of Genoa cites the testimony of
the historian Andres Bernaldez, who died in 1513, the author of a
Historia de los Reyes Catolicos don Fernando y dona Isabel.  In
this work, not published until 1869 in Seville, one reads: "In
the name of the Omnipotent God, a man from the land of genoa, a
seller of printed books who was called Christobal Colon)(vol. 1,
p. 35).  Bernaldez's original text reads "the land of Milan." 
This is not, however, a different indication, but rather an
imprecision.  In the fourteenth century, the republic of Genoa
alternated between periods of full and legal dependance on the
Duchy of Milan and periods of being a satellite of the Duchy. 
The publisher justly interpreted the Genoese reference hinted at
by "land of Milan."
     Columbus's Genoese birth is als confirmed by the works of
the english Hakluyt (1601), of the Spaniard Antonio de Herrera
(1612), the great Spanish dramatist Lope de Vega (El Nuevo Mundo
descubierto por Cristobol Colon, Madrid 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).
     We have selected the old testimony of foreign writers. 
there were sixtytwo Italian testimonies between 1502 and 1600. 
Of these fourteen are from Ligurian writers.  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.  The testimony given under point 7
deserves special mention, also because we have only learned of it
recently, after the publication of the ponderous and prestigious
volume on the city of Genoa.
     The Turk Piri Reis was a cartographer and geographer of
exceptional quality.  In the spring of 1513 he drew the map that
we mention in Gallipoli on the Dardanelles.  A large fragment or
it was discovered in 1929, during the works of transformation at
the palace of the Topkapi.  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.  After having stated that these coasts were discovered
by an infidel Genoese by the name of Columbus, as already
mentioned, note 5 on the map tells of how Columbus proposed the
undertaking to "the greats of Genoa," and how once he had been
refused, he turned to "the King of Spain." "The late Gazi Kemel,"
the note continues, "had a Spanish slave who told Kemal Reis that
he had been to that country three times together 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. 
This document is outside of Christian culture of that time, and
its testimony is independent of the many other literary and
textual testimonies that we have reported above.
     Then there is the eloquent 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,
Nicolo Oderico, the ambassador of the Republic of Genoa, praised
the Catholic King and Queen, to whom he addressed himself in a
speech, but added at once that they "had discovered with great
expense hidden and inaccessible places, under the guidance of
Columbus our fellow-citizen, a most enlightened cosmographer, a
most faithful leader, and having subdued uncultured barbarians
and unknown peoples, instructed them in religion, in customs, and
in laws."
     The testimony of other ambassadors from this period is even
more significant.  Pedro de Ayala, the ambassador of Spain to the
court of England, wrote to the Catholic monarchs, Ferdinand and
Isabella, on 25 July 1498 about John Cabot's discoveries and
affirmed Colubus's Genoese birth.  Angelo Trevisan, the
chancellor and secretary of Domenico Pisani, the Republic of
Venice's envoy to Spain, wrote to Domenico Malipiero of the
Council of Pregadi in 1501.  After having said, "io ho tenuto
tanto mezo che ho preso partica et grandissima amicitia cum el
Columbo," he affirms, "Christoforo Colombo zenovese, homo de alta
et procera statur, rossa, de grands ingegno et faza longa." 
Gaspare Contarini, ambassador of Venice to the courts of Spain
and Portugal on 16 November 1525 reported on the situation on the
Isola Spagnuola (Haiti), and spoke about an admiral who resided
there.  the admiral was Diego, Christopher's first son.  the
ambassador Contarini defined him as follows:  "This Admiral is
the son of Columbus the Genoese and he has the great
jurisdictions which had been bestowed on his father."
 
 
 
Chapter IV:  The Family
     Only one document talks directly about Christopher
Columbus's grandfather.  From another four documents we learn
that his grandfather, Giovanni, had a brother, Luca, whose two
children we know the names of: Giovanni and Benedetto.  We also
know the name of Luca's father, Giovanni da Moconesi.  from this
we can deduce that Christopher Columbus's great-grandfather was a
certain Antonio Columbus, born and residing in Moconesi.
     It is not possible to know anything further about the great
discoverer's ancestors.  Having settled the question of
Columbus's homeland--for everyone recognizes that it is Genoa--
the question of Columbus's family has been raised by an engaging
book--which however, lacks a documented foundation--by Salvador
Madariaga.  At this point, I should say that one person can be
held responsible for the whole fiction about the origins of
Christopher Columbus and his family, whose plot continues to be
spun today.  The person responsible is his son, Fernando, or
whoever used or abused that name.  In the Historie, Fernando left
in doubt and uncertainty many things that in actuality he must
have known.  He left no doubts about only one matter: his father
was born in Italy and descended from a northern Italian family. 
Therefore, he explicitly excluded the Sephardic hypothesis, which
so far seems to be a mere fantasy which is not supported by any
documentation.  Moreover, the exact location of Columbus's birth
has remained uncertain; Don Fernando mentions Nervi, mistaking it
for Quinto, which is one of the two documented alternatives, and
then Cogoleto, Bogliasco, Savona, and Piacenza.
     Under the influence of don Fernando's Historie, neither Las
Casas nor Oviedo indicates the exact place where Columbus was
born, yet they explicitly allege that he was from the "nacion
genovese" (Las Casas), or from the "provincia de Liguria
(Oviedo).  And why was the outright historiographical crime
committed, a crime which ended up involving both Las Casas and
Oviedo?--to suggest that Columbus was of noble birth!  Don
Fernando states:
     
     My father was from a noble Italian family which had
     fallen on economic hardship due to the wars which
     tormented Italy.  However this does not matter. 
     Because the family of Christopher Columbus begins with
     Christopher Columbus who was sent to discover the New
     World by Providence.
 
     Although there is no positive documentation, one hundred
clues lead us to believe that not only his son Fernando, but
Christopher himself believe this.  Columbus's pride was
proverbial.  Many of his contemporaries viewed it as conceit, but
posterity--in light of the colossal importance of his
undertaking--may judge it to be, with some indulgence, a
consciousness of his own true value.  However, in light of what
happened subsequently, are these pretensions truly an expression
of megalomania, or are they rather a mysterious mixture of myth
and reality?  Is it not true that the undertaking of the great
Genoese expanded the world and changed the face of human history? 
Is it not perhaps true that culture and science, politics and the
economy, customs, even hygiene and gastronomy, in short, the
entire life of Europe and of the ancient world--gained a new
appearance?  Is it not true that to Greco-Roman and Christian
civilization, which Islam opposed and refuted, assailed and
siege, new spaces were opened, and that progress--though possibly
made through errors and unspeakable atrocities--found areas with
new fecundity and explosive invigoration, in which and with which
the Modern Age began and developed?  All this is true and is thus
a part of history.
     However, even if myth can influence history, it never is
history.  And we cannot entrust to myth our response to the
origins of the Columbus family.  We cannot do this partly
because, as we have already seen, once the question of Columbus'
birthplace had been established, the fictions about the origins
of the Columbus family begin.
     The first document about the family concerns the
grandfather, Giovanni, who was from Moconesi.  Moconesi is a
village in the Fontanabuona valley, which is located on the so-
called "via del pane," the bread road.  From the Po Valley, wheat
was carried by mule alongside the Trebbia river as far as
Marsaglia, or alongside the Aveto river as far as Stefano
d'Aveto.  Then crossing the slopes of the Ramaceto or Caucaso, it
reached the Fontanabuono region: to Orero, to Cicagna, to
Moconesi, to Neirone.  The wheat was ground at the mills in the
Cicagna area, and then the sacks of flour were carried from the
mills to Genoa through the villages of Usico, Montefascie,
Apparizione, and Quinto.  These were the medieval roads form the
Piacenza region to the Fontanabuono region, and from there to
Genoa.  These roads were trafficked by mules carrying sacks of
wheat as far as Fontanabuono, and with sacks of flour from this
valley to the city.  These roads were trafficked by mules, but
also by families, because families moved even then, contrary to
the opinion that settlements were exclusively static.
     It is therefore probable that the Columbus family was
originally from the Piacenza area.  Since Christopher's
grandfather was born in Moconesi, and his father in Quinto, the
Columbus family may have reached Genoa along the bread road. 
]    But we cannot neglect to mention that there were also
Columbuses in Liguria.  In 1180 a certain Guglielmo Columbus from
Genoa was the owner of a ship; in maritime transportation there
was a Vassalo Columbus, the son of Rolando, a Genoese, in 1259,
and a Domenico Columbus, the son of Oberto form Rapallo, in 1335;
in 1390 a Columbus of Genoa commanded a ship which did trade
between spain and the Levant; in 1393 Antonio Columbus of Rapolla
was the owner of a galleon and in 1492, the year of the great
discovery, Vincenzo Columbus from Godano (today in the province
of La Spezia) was executed for piracy on the Genoese wharf.
     Therefore, ever since the twelfth century the surname
Columbus had been found in Liguria, as it had been here and there
in other Italian regions.  It was born spontaneously from the
Italian word for "dove" (colombo), as were other similar
surnames: Gallo (rooster), Canessa (from cane, dog), Corvo
(Crow), Falco (hawk), Falcone (falcon), Gatto (cat), Leone
(lion), etc.  In the fourteenth centuries, the surname Columbus
was also given to foundlings in Lombardy and Emilia.  This led to
an increase in the frequency of this surname in Liguria, where
many Columbus families lived when the discoverer was born, and
the great majority of these families were Christians.  The
Columbuses of Jewish origin (Jona, which in Hebrew means "dove"
colomba) were a small minority.
     The legend of a Jewish Columbus was born in the sixteenth
century in Jewish circles, where anyone who was named Columbus
boasted that he or she was a relative of the discoverer.  It was
the same phenomenon, which we have already discussed, which was
observed among the Christian Columbus of Coulomb families, more
than one of whom, scattered about Italy and Europe, claimed to be
a relative.
     This legend of a Jewish Columbus was revived toward the end
of the last century by the Galican forgers.  The same Garcia de
la Riego whom we have already encountered as a forger of
documents, in order to maintain that Columbus had been born in
Pontevedra in Galicia, had contrived the idea that Columbus was
of Jewish origin.  If true, this idea would have explained
Columbus's anxiety not to reveal his origins.  The persecutions
that took place in Galicia in the mid-fifteenth century would
have forced Columbus to immigrate to Genoa, the two older
brothers, Christopher and Bartholomew, would have been born on
Pontevedra, while the other brothers would have been born in
Genoa and in Savona, where they would have settled under the
archbishop of Pisa (although who knows how someone could have
possibly obtained protection from Pisa in the Republic of
Genoa!), who was the canonico sine cura of the church of Santa
Maria La Grande of Pontevedra.
     In order to support the idea that Columbus was born in
Pontevedra, the Galician forgers emphasized certain of Columbus's
features: the profile of his aquiline nose, his profound
knowledge of the Old Testament, his mystical or fanatical
character, which at the same time was partial to Gold and money. 
They interpreted all of these traits as indications that he was
Jewish.
     Profound knowledge of the Old Testament was not exclusive to
the Jews in the fifteenth century or before the Council of Trent. 
Only after the seventeenth century did many (not all) Catholics
abandon the custom of reading, consulting, and quoting the Old
Testament, distinguishing themselves from the Protestants.  But
in the fifteenth century, this custom was still living and
widespread.
     Fanaticism is one of the faces of obstinacy.  Obstinacy and
stubbornness are typical characteristics of the Genoese
temperament.  As far as partiality to gold and money is
concerned, the Genoese themselves have quite a reputation.
     Once the fable that Columbus was a converted Galitian had
fallen into disrepute, the hypothesis of a Jewish Columbus was
adopted by Wassermann and then by the great Madariaga, who in his
magnificent literary work, does not deny that Columbus was
Genoese, but alleges that he was Genoese of Sephardic-Catalan
origin.  The main clue lies, according to Madariaga, in
Columbus's constant use of Castillian, in the Spanish-type errors
he made when he wrote Latin, and above all, in the absence of
Italian from Columbus's writings.  His letters, even those that
were addressed to friends in Genoa and at the Banco di San
Giorgio, were written in Castillian.  Of the annotations which he
made in the margins of an Italian translation of Pliny's Natural
History when he was older, all except two are Castillian
translations of the Italian text.
     However, there are two notes in Italian which are definitely
in Columbus's handwriting: both came long after the discovery.
The first is a gloss to the Libro de las profecias, and the other
is in the margin of an Italian translation of Pliny.  DeLollis
contends that Columbus wrote them in Italian because of the sharp
resentment he nursed in those years toward the court of Spain. 
The hypothesis of Ballesteros is different; it is based on the
psychological reaction of old people who think about their
homeland with deep feeling.  I find neither one nor the other
hypothesis very convincing.  The only thing definite is that
Columbus would not have written anything in Italian if he had not
been intimate with many Italians, first in Portugal, then in
Spain, and finally, in the voyages of the discovery.  The Italian
language, i.e. Tuscan or Roman, was then a sort of lingua franca
among the Genoese, Tuscans, Corsicans, Venetians, Neapolitans,
Umbrians, Romans, and Sicilians who met outside of their common
homeland, which already had a well-defined traditional and
literary identity, but no political unity.
     Valiant scholars have dedicated themselves to the subject of
Christopher Columbus's language; chief among them are Menendez
Pidal, Arce, Caraci, Chiareno, Juan Gil, Milano, Consuelo Varela. 
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.  Their findings are often contrasting:
however, in our opinion an overall judgement can be attempted. 
Christopher Columbus's language is Castilian punctuated by
noteworthy and frequent Lusitanian, Italian, and Genoese
influences and elements.
     This is not a paradox: the fact that Columbus used
castillian 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.
     Christopher left Liguria with a good naval and religious
background, but with neither scientific nor literary preparation. 
When he began to read and write more frequently, he used
Castillian.  something similar happened with thousands and
thousands of Italian immigrants.  When they arrived in the New
World, the language they began to write, depending on where they
were, was English, Spanish, Portuguese, etc.; but they remembered
the dialect which was the only language they spoke in their
homeland, which they transmitted to their children.
     Even today, the Genoese dialect is very different from the
Italian language.  The differences cannot be compared to the
lesser differences between Tuscan and Veneto, Roman, Neapolitan. 
In Rome a play performed entirely in Genoese would be less
understood than a play performed in Castilian.  Gilberto Govi, a
popular Genoese comedian during the 1940s and 50s, translated
almost of his Genoese texts to Italian, when he was not
performing in Liguria or Buenos Aires.
     In the fifteenth century the differences between Genoese and
Italian were even more obvious.  It is up for discussion then,
whether Genoese is a "dialect" of Italian in the proper sense of
the word, or whether it is not instead a mixture of Italian and
Provencal components with other originally and exclusively
Ligurian elements, with the intrusion of some clearly Arabic
terms.  The linguistic argument is therefore not only inadequate,
but mistaken at its roots.
     Finally, there is an additional argument against Madariaga's
hypothesis.  In the pleitos--civil suits that took place over a
period of twenty-five years (1511-1536) in Spain and in America
between the heirs of Columbus, the heirs of Pinzon, and the Crown
(represented by the Fiscal real, the royal treasurer)--every type
of accusation was made against the great navigator: that the
discovery might not belong to him, but to others; that he wanted
to turn around during the first voyage; that he had stolen the
pearls; that he had abused his rights and his privileges, etc.
     For that matter, while he was still alive Christopher
Columbus had been the object of violent criticism and attacks--
saying that he was cruel, weak with the Indians, disrespectful
toward the rights of the Church--from Fathers Boil and Margarite
ever since the second voyage; and the Columbus brothers were
similarly criticized by hundreds of colonists on the island of
Hispaniola during the third voyage.
     In none of these circumstances does one encounter the
accusation that Columbus was Jewish or of Jewish origin.  Given
the climate of dreadful persecution that prevailed in sixteenth
century Spain against whoever deviated from orthodoxy, and in
particular against whoever secretly practiced the rites or
customs of their Jewish ancestors, then, if the hypothesis that
Columbus was Sephardic was true, the Genoese would certainly not
have remained exempt.  It is truly strange that such an important
point escaped Madariaga.  In this regard, he makes an equally
strange mistake when, in chapter 28 of his book, with its many
clever and brilliant lines, he comments on Father Trasierra's
words, "Neither he, nor anyone else from his nation."  Madariaga
asks, "What does Father Trasierra mean by nation?" and answers,
"Genoa was not a nation then.  Italy was even less so.  But in
the language of those times there was a Jewish nation, and the
word nation was often used in this sense, together with the word
origin when one referred to the Jews."  How can Madariaga write
that Genoa was not a nation, at a time in which the term "nation"
was confused the word "state"?  Madariaga forgets or has not read
Las Casas who refers to Colombo, in chapter 2, Book 1, of the
Historia de las indias as: este varon excogido de nacion ginoves. 
And Madariaga did not notice that the Portuguese Joao de Barros
states in his famous book Da Asia (decas 1, ch. XI), that
Columbus was genoves de nacao.  This confusion between the words
"nation" and "state," common in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, remained until the beginning of the nineteenth
century, when in Lord Bentinck, who occupied Genoa after the
Napoleonic period, sent out an appeal: "Considering that the
general desire of the Genoese nation seems to be to return to the
old government under which it had enjoyed liberty, prosperity,
and independence[...]"
     In conclusion, the father and grandfather of Christopher
Columbus did not arrive in Genoa from Spain.  Christopher's
great-grandfather was a country man from Moconesi, and moved to
Quinto.  Jews in the Middle Ages were not farmers, and they did
not live in the countryside.  Christopher's father, Domenico
Columbus, took part in the activities of the party of the
Fregosos, and was twice appointed keeper of the Olivella gate:
such activities and titles were unavailable to a Jew in those
times, or even to the son or grandson of converted Jews. 
Domenico bought and sold houses and lands: Jews were not allowed
to own real estate.  Even Domenico's wife, Susanna Fontanarossa,
born in Quezzi in the Bisagno Valley, and her father, Jacobo,
were owners of houses and lands.  The fact that she was named
Susanna and her father Jacobo has led some to wonder if they were
of Jewish origin.  However, both these names could be found then
and can still be found today in Christian families.1
     It is obvious that the problem being dealt with concerns the
origins and not religious beliefs.  There can be no doubt that
Columbus's religious beliefs were inspired mainly by the
Franciscans and by Gioacchino da Flore.  Concerning his origins,
throughout time there have been so many Jewish geniuses and
eminent intelligences, protagonists in the great event of the
expansion of the world (from Vizinho to Zacuto to Santangel, that
a disquisition on whether Christopher Columbus's blood was one
sixteenth of one thirty-second Jewish seems unimportant.  In any
event that part would not have come from Spain, but from
Paicenza.
     Christopher Columbus was not just Genoese by birth, but by
culture.  The roots of his genius and of his extraordinary
enterprise lie in the flowering of the Italian Renaissance and in
the cultural, naval and cartographic traditions of Genoa.
 
                                   NOTES
 
     (1) For some superficial historians this doubt has become
certainty, and I have mentioned this in the first edition of my
two volume work, Genesi della grande scoperta (The Genesis of the
Great Discovery).  A more in-depth, hagiographic study proved
that unlike the name Sara, the name Susanna was not, in the
Middle Ages, exclusively Jewish.  The Christian cult of Saint
Susanna the martyr (the Diocletian persecutions) was so alive
among Christian particularly in Liguria, that in 1475 a Ligurian
pope, Sixtus IV, remade the church which had been built in Rome,
of an uncertain date, but at any rate much older than the
sixteenth century, near the Diocletian Baths, on the ruins of the
house of Gabirio, Susanna's father. 
 
 
 
                                 Chapter V
 
        Genoa: The roots of the Character and the Faith of
Columbus
 
It is not insignificant, someone dared to write, that Columbus
was born in Genoa.  As a child Columbus had fallen in love with
the sea in Genoa.  From his house on Vico Diritto di Ponticello
he often came down the alleyways, which still exist, to the port
where he saw ships and mariners from every country speaking
different languages.  They came from every part of the
Mediterranean, from the east to the west, and even from Portugal,
Flanders and England.
     When his family went to see his grandfather, Christopher
spent hours and hours staring at the sea from the cliffs of
Quinto.  He studied at the elementary school of the woolweavers
guild.  He learned in Genoese - religion, arithmetic, geography,
and his first notion of the nautical arts.  He wrote in the Latin
of that period, greatly altered from the Latin of Julius Caesar
and Cicero, but the official language of the Church and of the
documents of the Republic of Genoa.
     While he was still a boy, Christopher began to go out to sea
as ship's boy on vessels that sailed from one part of the
Ligurian coast to the other, as far west as Nice, as far east as
Portovenere, and as far south as Corsica.  Between 1467 and 1470,
probably as a result of the political decline of the Fregoso
party in which he was a fervent activist, Domenico Colombo moved
to Savona, where he opened a tavern and at the same time
partially continued his work as a woolenweaver.  It was there
that Christopher, who could not stand being cooped up inside a
low tavern, definitely decided to become a seaman.  After
numerous coastal trips, the first long voyage that Christopher
Columbus took was to the island of Chios in the Agean Sea.  This
enchanting island was one of the gateways to the East , and it
was under the domination of the Republic of Genoa.  Various goods
arrived in Chios from Genoa, and precious goods from the East
were shipped from Chios to Genoa: silks, perfumes, pepper,
cinnamon, and nutmeg.  The Greeks and the Armenians lived there
with the Genoese, and various Oriental peoples, including Syrians
and Persians, landed there.  The countryside was, and still is in
some parts today, full of lentiscus, sage, oregano, and thyme
plants; thus the air was always sweet, perfumed with these
intoxicating fragrances.  On Chios the young Columbus began to
dream about going to the Orient one day.
     Once he had returned from Savona, Christopher left on
another voyage, this time toward the West.  He left from Noll on
the ship Bechella, which was heading toward Flanders and London. 
The convoy in which the Bechella sailed was attacked off the
coast of Portugal.  Columbus barely managed to save himself, and
fortuitously he was able to reach Lisbon.  This is where, in
1476, Columbus first began his vast naval experiences in the
Atlantic.  He undertook long voyages to the Canary Islands, to
the Azores, as far as the African coasts of Guinea, and
especially to Madeira and to Porto Santo.  In this period he
married, in Lisbon, the daughter of the late governor of Porto
Santo, an island where he then spent some time.
     In navigating the Atlantic from south to north, and from
east to west, various signs convinced Columbus that a continent
existed not far away on the other side of the ocean.  There were
numerous indications: carved wood, boats unknown to the Old
World, giant bamboo canes, corpses of persons of a race other
than white or black, unknown kinds of wood.  All of these were
pushed by currents or storms from the west toward the Atlantic
beaches of the known, insular, and continental world.
 
Besides these indications, there was genuine proof of the
existence of another continent.  The height of the tides (14m. at
the mouth of the Severn in Bristol during Easter) guaranteed that
the sea water, rather than falling into the abyss, subsided on
the European beaches only to rise on beaches of the other side of
the ocean, and then went down in the west and rose in the east. 
The existence of Greenland to the west of Iceland proved, at
least for the North, that no abyss plunged downward past Ultima
Thule.
                                   Note
Thule was first named by Pytheas, the Greek geographer who lived
toward the end of the 4th century BC. In Greek and Roman culture
name was reserved for an undetermined land, variously interpreted
as northern Scotland, the Orkneys, the Isle of Man, or central-
northern Norway.  After the Norse discovery of the 9th century
AD, Ultima Thule became generally identified with Iceland.
 
     And if there was not an abyss in the North Atlantic, how and
why should there have been one in the South?  The existence of
plant, animal, and human life in Guinea, equatorial and
subequatorial Africa strongly disproved the principle of
classical Aristotelian and Ptolemaic geography regarding the
uninhabitability of the Southern Hemisphere.  But if this
principle could collapse, how could the corollary theory survive
that the antipodes were uninhabitable?
     We have quickly traced the essential reasons that induced
Christopher Columbus to conceive of the great plan to "buscar el
Levant por el Ponient" (we have demonstrated this more amply and
analytically in our work, Christopher Columbus, the Grand Design. 
His plan can therefore be dated as having been conceptualized
between 1476 and 1485 outside of the Ligurian and Mediterranean
areas, which Columbus had left in August 1475 and to which he
made brief return three years later.  But it is also conceived
outside of Spain, where Columbus arrived between winter and
spring of 1485, and where through discussions, disputes, and
studies he perfected a project which was already defined,
precise, and concrete: to reach Cipango, Cataio,and the Indies by
crossing a sea that had been obscure, but was no longer so for
him.
     The birthplace of the great plan to reach the East by
sailing west was therefore on the Atlantic, and not in Genoa or
Liguria.  But the genius who conceived and carried out the plan
grew up and was born in Genoa.  And his almost superhuman
character - with its obsessive tenacity, its pertinacious
stubbornness, and its unflagging certainty - was formed in Genoa. 
His faith, free from superstitious superstructures, always
addressed to the mystery of the Transcendent, of the Word made
Flesh, often addressed to the two most noble cults which best
respond to the needs of the human soul - the cults of the Madonna
and Saint Francis: this faith came from Genoa.
     Samuel Eliot Morison, an admiral in the United States Navy,
and a great Columbus scholar, writes: "The land of Genoa is more
than any other suitable to infuse the spirit of the enterprising
young man with the passion for adventures at sea."  And the
Englishman Bradford, an expert seaman, adds, "It is more than
natural that one of the greatest seamen in the world should have
come from Genoa."
     What is Genoa, and along with Genoa, Liguria?  A strip of
narrow land between the mountains and the sea; a seashore, a
continuous succession of cliffs, bays, coves, creeks, landing
places, ports, beaches covered with stones or bleached with sand,
all of which are small - and dotted with promontories that are at
times craggy and at others mantled by splendid pines.  Liguria is
what it is solely due to the Ligurian Sea. Over the centuries,
traffic developed there entirely and solely on the sea; from
Lerici to Nice, there was a continuous coming and going of people
and goods on board ships.  All or almost all trade was managed by
ships, as were all economic, cultural, and sentimental
relationships between families from different towns.  This
situation allowed for marriages with some degree of demographic
exchange, keeping the Ligurian people united over the centuries
without their having to resort to endogamy, a practice limited to
remote inland villages.  Their busy financial relations, their
scarce political ties deriving from the bare structures of the
Republic, were also "via mare."  Genoa was and is the natural
home of the Archdiocese of Liguria.  Finally , their religious
activities were also connected with the sea.
     What the sea represented to the Ligurian people is told to
us by the histories of every century, the chronicles of every
year, of every season.  We can see this in the characteristics of
the Ligurians, which are influenced by the limited land area and
by its projecting onto the open ocean.  Their introverted
temperament, and their oft-cited close-fistedness, which, for
that matter, is also an honest thriftiness, can be related to the
restrictions of the land.  And the sea?  It often has no beaches, 
and deep waters, always opening onto a vast horizon, which helps
to make the Ligurian people's intelligence more profound, their
character more serious, and their commitment to morals more
unwavering.
     The two influences fuse admirably in the economy, finance
and trade, where their loyalties inspire trust, and their
suspiciousness prevents the deceptions of others; in
craftsmanship, where constancy, the child of seriousness, is just
as indispensable as intelligence; and in religion, where
profundity inspires reverence for God, and commitment to morals
guarantees a rectitude in life unpolluted by hypocrisy or
compromise.
 
The consequences of these influences on social and political
relations are different.  A lack of trust and a strong reluctance
to get involved in politics derive from both the ability of the
seaman and the insufficiency of agrarian resources.  On the sea,
as long as sailing ships lasted, and even in the age of
steamship, at least until the beginning of our century, the
commander's skills earned the esteem, respect and devotion of his
seamen.  To set the course; to avoid the thousand hazards of the
sky, the log, the currents, and the shoals; to overcome squalls;
to enter unharmed into the mouth of rivers and canals; to moor
onto piers: these are arduous undertakings.  Anyone who has ever
been sailing knows this, and knows that a shipwreck lies in wait
every day and every night, almost every hour.  What does it
matter if a commander is severe, rigid, closed, if he complains
and is never content, if he never speaks a word of praise?  By
bringing the ship to safety, he safeguards life.  The leader of
seamen did not need political virtues.
     In this summary of the character, the attitudes, the
defects, and the brilliant depths of intelligence in the Ligurian
people lies the summary of the greatest Ligurian of all:
Christopher Columbus.
 
                                Chapter VI
                    Columbus's Cultural Roots In Genoa
 
Up until this point, we have talked about the geography of Genoa
and Liguria.  Now let us move on to history, to the mid-fifteenth
century Genoa in which Columbus was born.  This was the time when
the city was about to become, as the great Braudel has put it, a
"metropolis of European capitalism."  A first factor deserves
attention: for centuries Genoa was one of the maritime capitals
of the Mediterranean.  Armies and fleets of the First Crusade
embarked from Genoa.  Windowed with a perfect natural harbor, and
overlooking a deep bay almost in the center of the Mediterranean,
it had successfully fought for the control of the Tyrrhenian Sea
against the Saracens, against Pisa, against Provence, and against
Catalonia.  Freedom of movement and control over the sea routes
to the Ligurian Sea was indispensable for men and ships.  The
Genoese needed to move about the Mediterranean in search of
supports and strongholds from which they could travel further
inland in search of goods and markets.  Since the dawn of the
second millennium, the Genoese had been in Sardinia and in
Corsica, and then along the coastlines of Tunis and of Spain;
they were thus established in the West before the East, where
they only arrived with the First Crusade.
     In this way an actual Genoese colonial empire was formed. 
It was an economic and not a political empire because it was
individual citizens - Zaccaria, Vignoso, Ghisolfi, Adorno,
Lomellini, and Centurione - who sent capital, ships, men, and
commercial ventures to this or that part of the Mediterranean,
going so far as to act against the directives and political
alliances of their mother country.  The Genoese settled in Spain,
on the islands, in North Africa, in the Agean, and in the Black
Sea, with a teeming network of interests that faced both West,
toward Portugal, England and Flanders, and East toward Persia,
India and China.
     From this Mediterranean perspective, the West and the East
did not appear so much to be antithetical worlds as potential
markets in the vast Genoese commercial circuit, and subject to
the Republic's vigilant attention.  It is not at all strange,
then, that even before he landed in Spain, Columbus had made a
voyage to Chios, the island of the archipelago that was one of
the pillars of the Genoese colonial empire.
 
By the fifteenth century, Genoa had an economic regime that could
well be defined as capitalistic, or, if one prefers, mercantile. 
It was already out of the feudal Middle Ages, which knew nothing
of free enterprise except occasionally or surreptitiously.  The
young Christopher Columbus grew up in this mercantile world: The
seventy-seven notarial acts of which his father was the
protagonist, or one of the protagonists, constitute unequivocal
proof thereof.  Purchases, sales, interests, percentages,
commissions, profits: these are the terms of a language unknown
to the Middle Ages.  Columbus thus left Genoa with this kind of
economic background and then, having travelled the British seas,
would do commerce with the Portuguese and Spanish islands in the
Atlantic and off the coast of Africa, and he would live in
Portugal, where he would enter into negotiations with the king,
until he went to Seville and Cordova.
     Here Columbus found the most conspicuous Genoese settlement:
Adorno, Doria, Centurione Grimaldi, Pinelli, Spinola, De Mari,
and Di Negro, the best names of the rich class of merchants from
the richest of cities, Genoa.  The political and economic power
that the Genoese had accumulated in Seville and Cordova was
nothing short of incredible: they lent money to the court and to
the municipal administrators, and they allocated local taxes. 
There were so many Genoese nationals that in 1473 Genoa dared to
solicit the Pope to appoint a Genoese bishop to Seville in order
to better safeguard the Republic's interests.  Some Genoese took
advantage of the law granting citizenship after ten years of
residence in the kingdom, and became citizens of Seville or
Cordova.  Others, in exchange for services rendered to the crown,
hoisted their ship's flags with the royal coat of arms.  A
Genoese company obtain a monopoly over the mercury trade from the
sovereigns.  Francesco Pinelli excelled over everyone else; he
was an advisor and confidant to the Catholic King and Queen, the
financier to the sovereigns for the Granada venture, the director
of the Treasury of Santa Hermandad., and a friend of Christopher
Columbus and the Catalonian minister Santangel, whom he would
supply with part of the capital necessary to finance the great
trip of discovery.
 
Thus an extraordinary paradox emerges.  Christopher Columbus,
whom we shall come to see as a progressive who looked forward to
the Renaissance, turns out to be a reactionary looking back to
the Middle Ages in matters of the economy and its laws.  In
Genoa, Portugal, Seville and Cordova, Columbus was the typical
man of mercantilism, or, if we prefer, of incipient capitalism. 
He dealt in percentages, commissions, interests and profits with
the King of Spain and his ministers, with his Genoese
compatriots, with the Florentines and with converted Jews.  But
when in 1499-1500, in Santo Domingo he had to choose a political
and social system that could be implemented in the newly
discovered lands, himself trapped in the struggles between the
Indians and the colonists as well as the first Castilian
conquistadores, he had to resort to establishing the encomienda. 
The encomienda is an institution inherited from the Castilian
Middle Ages: " the medieval inheritance," as the great Mexican
historian Weckman Munoz would call it.  The encomendero - the
colonist or landowner - had, and would have for several centuries
in the Spanish Empire of the Americas, the same rights over
Indian workers that the medieval feudal vassals had had over
their serfs.  These workers were not marketable slaves, unlike
those in the colonies of Portugal, England and Holland, which
were already capitalistic and mercantile, but they were servants
bound to the land.  You could say that morally this system
represented a lesser evil.  But one must still recognize that it
represented a return to the past, and not a step toward the
modern age and the demolition of the ignoble institution of
slavery.  The encomienda derives from the Castilian economic
customs.  Moreover, even in economics Columbus's roots can be
clearly and unequivocally traced to Genoa, just as they can for a
different, but not entirely different field - geography.
     In the fifteenth century Genoa was one of the - perhaps the
most important - capitals of nautical cartography, in competition
with Venice, Marjorca, and the Arabian schools.  When the young
Christopher Columbus attended the school of the woolweavers
guild, he learned the basics of geography and the nautical arts
in that area of Christendom with the greatest sensitivity toward
and knowledge of those subjects.  Genoa, then, was not just the
birthplace of the discoverer of the Americas; it was his cultural
homeland.  Columbus owed to Genoa the roots of his character and
his faith, his genius for the sea, his scientific curiosity, and
his economic entrepreneurship.
 
                                Chapter VII
 
                Columbus As Protagonist of the Great Event
 
There are no portraits of Christopher Columbus from life.  More
than eighty effigies or portraits are known, and they are very
different from each other because the artists were inspired by
their own imaginations, keeping in mind at times - but not always
- the few but essential accounts that were left of Columbus's
physical person by individuals who knew him. 
     There are four such accounts:
     The first is from his son, don Fernando, who was born when
his father was thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old.  In the
Historie della vita e dei fatti di Cristoforo Colombo, he wrote:
"The Admiral was a well-built man of more than average height,
with a long face, and slightly high cheeks who had neither a
tendency toward fat nor towards emaciation.  He had an aquiline
nose, and light-colored eyes, and white skin lit up by a lively
coloring.  In his youth he had blond hair, although by the time
he turned thirty it had all turned white."
     The second account is from Fra Bartolomeo de Las Casas, who
had the occasion to see Christopher Columbus in person in Santo
Domingo in 1500, when the navigator was about fifty years old. 
In chapter 2 of his Historia de la Indias, Las Casas wrote: "As
far as his outward appearance is concerned, he is of tall body,
more so than average; an elongated and authoritarian face; an
aquiline nose; blue eyes, and a light complexion which tended
towards a lively red; when he was young his beard and hair were
blond, but they quickly turned white due to his travails."
     Let us move on to Gonzales Fernandez de Oviedo who in the
Historia general y natural de las Indias describes Christopher
Columbus, who was forty when they met: "A man of good stature and
handsome appearance, taller than average, with robust limbs; his
lively eyes and other features were well proportioned, his hair
was very red, his face ruddy and freckled."
 
Finally the testimony of the Venetian Angelo Trevisan,chancellor
and secretary of the Venetian ambassador to Spain, who probably
saw the Genoese navigator when the latter was over fifty years
old: "Christophoro Columbo zenovese, homo de alta et procera
statura, rosso, de grande inzegno e faza longa."
 
                                   Note
A koine of the "diplomatic" Italian then used in Northeastern
Italy, which I translate as follows: "Christopher Columbus the
Genoese, a man of tall and distinguished stature, red-haired,
with a great mind and a long face."
 
In fifteenth century Italian, procera meant "distinguished," but
it could also maintain its original Latin meaning of
"aristocratic."
     A long face, slightly high cheeks, without a tendency
towards fat (don Fernando); an elongated face (Las Casas); a long
face (Trevisan).  His high and broad forehead made him look
aristocratic (Trevisan) and authoritarian (Las Casas). He had an
aquiline nose, a fact to which both don Fernando and Las Casas
attest.  His eyes were clear (don Fernando), blue (Las Casas),
lively (Oviedo), and the sign of a great mind (Oviedo and
Trevisan).
     The problem of color remains open.  His son, don Fernando,
Las Casas, Oviedo and Trevisan - the four who report what they
saw in person, knew Columbus when his hair was white, which was
after the age of thirty.  This explains why they disagree on what
color his hair was when he was younger.  According to don
Fernando and Las Casas, it was blonde.  The exact word which Las
Casas used was rubios, which in Castilian means "blonde," but for
some unknown reason certain English and American writers
translated rubios as "red."  They may have been influenced by
Oviedo, who talks about "very red hair" and about the color of
Columbus's face, which all four describe as tending towards red. 
Dario Guglielmo Martini correctly described his face as having
red cheekbones.  In fact, in the Historia of don Fernando, we
read, "white skin lit up by lively color"; in Las Casas, "white
complexion which tended towards a lively red"; in Oviedo,"a ruddy
and freckled face"; in Trevisan, "red."
     I tend toward the hypothesis that the young Columbus had
hair which tended more toward being red than blonde, as claimed
by don Fernando and Las Casas; perhaps they state this because
they believe that blonde is more attractive.  However, it is
definite that from the time of his first voyage of discovery
(begun when he was forty years old), the navigator had entirely
white hair.
 
The great discoverer's sensory abilities were much more important
than his external appearance.  He had an excellent sense of
smell; this is the most definite fact we have regarding
Columbus's physical makeup.  All of his writings reveal this. 
Many of those who met him praised his extraordinary sense of
smell, and left testimony about his acute sensitivity to
perfumes.  Some interpreted this sensitivity as an expression of
affectedness; instead it was the expression of an ability that he
possessed in a degree disproportionate to that of his peers: an
innate ability that constituted a fundamental and decisive
component of his sixth sense, his sense of the sea.
     His eyesight and his hearing were equally keen.  He would
ruin his eyesight while crossing the Atlantic on his third voyage
(1498); he spent twenty-seven July afternoons on the deck,
staring at the sun to keep his east-west course.  He came down
with opthamalia, but he did not lose the exceptional navigational
skills that he had acquired as a boy on the Ligurian and
Mediterranean Seas and even on the Atlantic.
     This is all regarding his physical figure.  The discussion
of his character, psychology and moral qualities is longer and
more complex.  Hundreds and perhaps thousands of essays and
articles have been written on these subjects in the five
centuries that have gone by since Christopher Columbus's
extraordinary achievement.  So have more than a few novels, plays
and operas. In this literature, which makes no scruples about
historical validity and relies instead exclusively on poetic
inspiration, two works stand out: Le livre de Christophe Colomb
by Paul Claudel and El harpa y la sombra by Alejo Carpentier. 
These are two interpretations in which the historical data are at
times exact but not infrequently twisted and distorted, mixed in
with outright inventions.  However, their artistic achievements
are incomparable, and are such as to establish them as gems of
world literature.  The one and the other constitute a perfect
antithesis: in one Columbus hears voices like Joan of Arc
(Claudel); in the other Columbus is a mystifier, a dishonest man,
a thief, a womanizer (Carpentier).  These two artistic
interpretations should be read without concern as to who the real
Christopher Columbus actually was, apart from every praising or
denigrating myth.
     On a scrupulously and rigorously historical level, Columbus
was neither a saint nor a politician.  His disgraces cannot be
explained solely on the basis of misfortune, the malice of his
enemies or the enviousness of those who couldn't bear the fact
that a foreigner of modest origins had achieved incredible
privileges and the greatest honors.  He was neither inept nor
inefficient, but he did lack the two chief and essential talents
of a political man: farsighted firmness in his decisions and an
acute knowledge of men, this last an indispensable prerequisite
for making prudent choices in assigning responsibilities.
 
It has been said that Columbus was still wholly a man of the
Middle Ages.  Others have argued instead that he had the spirit
of a Renaissance man, and written that his spirit was superior to
the century in which he lived.  In reality he can be situated
between two eras.  His philosophical and theological vision, as
well as the assumptions on which his scientific concepts were
based, are medieval.  His inquisitive fervor, his feeling for
nature, his ability to attempt explanations of facts and of
phenomena which had not yet been observed or explained are all
characteristics of the Renaissance.  His mercantile and
capitalistic approach to economics, at least until the confusing
events of the third voyage of the Santo Domingo, was of the
Renaissance, as we have already described at length.
     In these respects he had the psychological traits typical of
modern man, being concrete and practical to the point of
fastidiousness.  He only relied on direct experiences which he
tried to acquire in every way.  From these he began to trace his
ideas and to germinate the seeds of his great design - a modern
psychology, therefore, but on a medieval foundation.
     The same definition could be applied to his religious
spirit.  He was a Christian and a Catholic in the modern sense,
but on a medieval foundation.  His faith was strong, sincere and
inexhaustible.  In any given moment, and even in the most
difficult predicament, he was not at all superstitious or
hypocritical.  At times he was fanatical, or, as one would say
today, a fundamentalist.  But his fanaticism never veered from
the ever valid principles of the Christian and Catholic ideology. 
And he was never pro-clerical.  In defence of authentic
Christianity he never hesitated to fight with priests, monks and
bishops, just as in the common interpretation of the events of
his life he found comfort, consolation and friendship with
certain monks and bishops.  In this regard, towering over all
others, stands the Franciscan father Antonio Marchena,
undoubtedly the most important protagonist, after Columbus, of
the greatest adventures in the history of the discoveries.
     When he found himself facing the superhuman risks of storms
at sea, he made vows to the Madonna and to the saints, just as
believers in Catholicism always have, be they Medieval,
Renaissance or Modern.
     He was especially devout toward the Madonna and Saint
Francis.  He knew the New Testament perfectly as well as long
passages from the Old Testament.  When confronted by the most
terrifying danger that he had to face in his lengthy story of
love and war with the Ocean, Columbus, when he recognized that
there was no hope in the order of nature, made direct recourse to
the Creator of nature, to the "Verbum caro factum est," and he
recited the first verses from the gospel according to Saint John.
 
Finally, his continuous obsessive search for gold and riches was
always aimed toward a definite goal: the crusade for the
reconquest of the Holy Sepulcher.  Moreover, his crusading was no
longer that of the Middle Ages.  It was a new spirit, renewed in
light of the psychological effects of the fall of Constantinople,
the other great capital, with Rome, of Christendom.
     The spirit of the Crusades did not so much entail only the
aspiration to reconquer the Holy Land.  It meant much more: to
rejoin that which had been divided, to lead back to unity a world
which had been one under the eagle of Rome, and had remained one
with the conversion to Christianity.  Christianity had subsumed
the barbarians: all the Germans, Slavs, and even the Vikings and
the Mongolian Hungarians.  But Christianity had been broken by
Islam.
     Columbus's finalization of projects with the religious ideal
of a new crusade in mind was also rooted in Genoa, where the need
for a new crusade had been evident since the beginning of the
second half of the fifteenth century.  This need became even more
evident upon contacts in the Iberian Peninsula with Christians
who had been liberated from the yoke of Islam.
     The Christian and Catholic conception of the world
constituted the essential and primary pillar of Columbus's
personality.  And there is no contradiction between this
statement and the equally categorical statement that he was no
saint.  Faith is not enough, even if it is indestructible;
demonstrations of resignation, and even of occasional generosity
are not enough.  There are also signs that he was attracted to
money and to privileges, that he was suspicious, almost stingy,
guilty of favoritism toward relatives and family, that he was
indifferent to the horrible practices of slavery.  And especially
that he was proud: his mystical conception of himself and his
mission led him in the last years of his life to believe that he
was the man who would stand the Third Era, that of the Holy
Spirit, prophesied by Gioacchino da Fiore.
     Columbus's "faith" was as strong as his "charity" was feeble
and desultory.  Thus he was neither a great nor a small saint. He
was - and this is not insignificant - a convinced, profound,
tenacious defensor fidei.
     The image of Columbus as an adventurer is a false one.  He
never refused adventure; on the contrary, he searched for it,
often if not always.  He searched for it and lived it with
disdain for danger, with the ardor and genuine courage of a man
conscious of his own skills and strengthened by divine support. 
His first transatlantic voyage was undoubtedly a fabulous
adventure; but so were, in their own way, his youthful voyages to
Chios, Iceland and Guinea.  And his third voyage was also an
adventure, deliberately conducted in the torture of equatorial
doldrums and unending tropical heat.  But the most surprising of
his adventures, or better yet, his tangle of adventures, was the
fourth voyage he embarked on - when his star was already falling
- with the precise aim of circumnavigating the globe, and
concluded with two vessels, rotting due to an infestation of
teredos (shipworms), and stranded for an entire year in Santa
Gloria, Jamaica, on the most open beach in the world.
     And his were not just maritime adventures.  Was it not
perhaps an adventure to flee from Portugal to Spain, and seven
years there to be insistent - without ever giving up - in the
strenuous hope of one day realizing his great design?  Was it not
an adventure when he went on a land expedition in Vega Real to
found San Tomaso in the middle of a land even more unknown than
the ocean?  The life of Columbus was a marvelous adventure, at
times happy, at times sad, at times extremely sad.  But he is
called an adventurer by those who would diminish his merits, by
those who would consider his successes a product of luck, of pure
chance.  In this sense, Columbus was anything but an adventurer. 
His merits are indeed linked to his successes, but they are the
cause, not the effect.
 
Above all, there is one fact that cannot be denied if one does
not want to deeply falsify history.  Columbus's genius for the
sea was exceptional, outstanding.  We have had more than one
chance to dwell on facts, episodes, and judgements that prove and
confirm our assertion.  Above all, his route, or rather, his
routes, confirm it.  Columbus did not just discover America: he
discovered the round-trip route between America and the Gulf of
Mexico.  As long as sails were used in navigation, ships that
departed from Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian ports,
directed toward Mexico, the mouth of the Mississippi, any of the
Caribbean islands, Columbia or Venezuela, followed the route of
the first voyage of discovery.  And, on the return trip, they
would go north of the Sargasso Sea to the parallels of the
Azores.  Even today, someone who wants to cross the Atlantic by
sail chooses the route of Columbus's second voyage: from the
Canary Islands to Guadalupe!
 
We have already said that he possessed in excellent measure the
physical talents of a seaman.  Michele da Cuneo writes: "He only
needed to see a cloud or star at night to know which direction to
follow or if bad weather was on its way; he himself commanded and
stood at the helm; and when the tempest had passed, he raised the
sails while others slept."  And there is spectacular proof of his
extraordinary, almost magical maritime abilities.  During the
fourth voyage, Columbus found himself facing Santo Domingo.  He
learned that thirty Spanish ships were about to weigh anchor and
sail for Europe, with heavy cargoes of gold.  He immediately sent
word that the departure should be delayed because a huge storm
was ready to burst.  However, there was no palpable sign that
seemed to back up Columbus's predictions.  The sea and the sky
did not appear threatening,and the wind at the time of departure
was blowing toward the east.  The Spanish laughed at his worries,
and the imposing armada weighed anchor.  Even before it reached
the easternmost tip of Hispaniola, the sky darkened, the sea
became flat and dark, and the air became stifling.  The storm - a
hurricane - was announcing itself, but there was no way to turn
back due to the dying winds.  The hurricane violently shook the
masts and keels, and smashed everything on board.  Most of the
ships were lost, along with the entire crew and a large cargo of
gold, while only four half-sunken ships made it back to Santo
Domingo.  Other foundering ships sought refuge in harbors off the
southeast coast.
     Only one ship, the smallest and flimsiest, the Guecha,
escaped harm, and continued its course toward Spain, unaware of
the plight of its sister ships.  On board was Christopher
Columbus's agent, Alonso Sanchez de Carvajal; he was carrying
approximately four thousand gold pesos, which Bobadillo had
returned to the rightful owners, on the king's orders.  Of the
many shipments which had left from Santo Domingo on the occasion,
this was the only gold to reach Spain, where it was duly turned
over to Christopher's son, don Diego.  To the surprising fact
that only Columbus's gold was saved from hurricane, an equally
surprising fact was added: all four of the Navigator's ships,
even the Santiago de Palos, which the Admiral had wanted to
change, were able to find safety.
     A haughty foreigner, now a seer, a witch doctor, able to
conjure up a hurricane with magical powers that could sink the
ships of his enemies and spare the ones that interested him!  It
is obvious that Christopher Columbus was not a witch doctor, and
it is only by chance that the one ship which succeeded in
reaching Spain was the one carrying his gold.  But it is not
obvious that Christopher Columbus could guess that a hurricane
was about to strike: a hurricane was an utterly unknown
phenomenon in the Old World, and the Genoese had had only a
single experience of one seven years earlier.  Columbus thus
demonstrated yet one more time that he possessed an unsurpassed 
knowledge of the sea.
     The greatest Columbus scholars - Thacher, Charcot, De
Lollis, Revelli, Morison, Ballesteros Beretta, Madariaga, and
Nunn - fully confirm the words of Las Casas: "Christopher
Columbus surpassed all his contemporaries in the art of
navigation."  Dissenting conclusions on this point are extremely
rare.  The most drastic is Vignaud's, whose nautical experience
would seem to be limited to a few rides on the Seine in a bateau-
mouche.
     The great French explorer Charcot describes Columbus in
these words: "A seaman who had 'le sens mars': the mysterious and
innate gift of being able to direct a pathway in the midst of the
sea...Dogs have barked, and they will bark again, but the
caravels passed by.  The work of Christopher Columbus is so great
that it bewilders you into enthusiasm."  This is the most
flattering judgement that a great mariner could pass on a man who
can be considered, together with Cook, the greatest mariner of
all time.
     
Columbus was also a geographer.  He was to a large degree, though
not wholly, self-taught.  It is neither casual nor
inconsequential - as some have said superficially - that he was
born in Genoa.  Ever since he was a child in Genoa he had learned
the primary elements of the nautical arts, and while he was still
in the area of Genoa and Savona, he had acquired that familiarity
with questions of the sea and of navigation that is inherent in
the traditions of the Republic.  In this respect, Genoa held an
unquestionable primacy, not only in the Mediterranean but in all
of Christendom.  Then, in his first voyages, but especially in
his important prolonged Atlantic experiences, Columbus developed
a sensitivity to geography and its multiple problems.  Columbus
gave proof of this keen, often brilliant sensibility in many of
his writings.  Among the many characteristic traits of the
Genoese, Humboldt indicates the sharpness and the penetration
with which he grasped and related to the phenomena of the
external world.  As soon as he arrived in a new world and under a
new sky, he looked carefully at the lay of the land, the fauna
and the flora, the climate and the variations in earthly
magnetism.  In his Journal and in his notes he touched on almost
all the points toward which scientific discoveries of the last
half of the fifteenth century and all of the sixteenth century
were leading.  Despite his lack of a solid understanding of
natural history, Columbus's powers of observation served him well
in his direct contacts with great physical phenomena.  He was not
an educated man, and to a large extent he was an autodidact;
nevertheless, he succeeded in becoming a great geographer.
     However, it is restricting to consider Columbus only in
terms of his maritime and geographic genius.  He was a complete
genius in the true sense of the word.  He had more than just a
sense of the sea and a keen sensibility for geography: his strong
will, his tenaciousness, his stubbornness, and his courageousness
to the point of incredible temerity stand alongside his
indestructible faith and immense desire for glory.  He had ardor
and patience, memory and imagination.  In the decisive moments of
his countless adventures he succeeded, not always, but often, in
bringing together his multiple intuitions, his various skills, in
that determination which only a genius knows how to exact.
     In this way and only in this way can we explain the
conception of the great plan to buscar el Levante por el Poniete,
to seek the East by going west.  This explains his inflexible
renunciation of family, of monetary gain, and especially of his
main dream, the sea, during the best years of his life, between
the ages of thirty-four and forty-two.  This explains how he was
able to realize the four great Atlantic enterprises, directing,
commanding, resisting, maintaining clear discernment and lucid
perceptions when faced with the fury of the elements and the
rebellion of men.
 
Firm and unshakable in his intentions and decisions, Columbus had
negotiated - on almost equal footing - with the king of Portugal,
with the Spanish sovereigns, and with Genoese, Florentine and
Jewish bankers.  He was not conceited.  He was perfectly aware of
his own worth and the strength of his own ideas.
     He could never have acquired the esteem and the affection of
Father Antonio Marchena and Father Juan Perez through deceit
alone.  He could never have made so many friends, protectors and
admirers at the Spanish court through conceit; nor could he have
gained the understanding and the trust of one woman of
exceptional intelligence and rare virtue, Queen Isabella.
     Through conceit alone he could never have won over that
shrewd and expert captain from Los Palos, Martin Alonso Pinzon,
the man who shares the merit and the glory of the great
enterprise, the man thanks to whom Columbus was able to enlist
most of his crew.  Through conceit he would not have won - in
even the most difficult and troublesome situations - the esteem
and respect of the seamen, whose obedience he always commanded,
even when the events of Santa Gloria turned into tragedy.
     His success was not accidental.  He was not the fortunate
traveller who accidentally became a discoverer.  He was not, as
it is too often repeated, the navigator who left in search of new
lands without knowing exactly where they were.  It is true that,
by chance, he ran into America on his journey; but it is equally
true that he was a discoverer, an inventor, the inventor of a new
idea, of a new perspective, which until that point had been
ignored by the Old World, by the Greco-Roman-Christian, Arabo-
Islamic, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese civilizations.
     Columbus's discovery was of greater proportions than any
other discovery or invention in human history.  The Europeans
have realized this ever since the beginning of the sixteenth
century.  Later on, the measure of the importance of Christopher
Columbus's discovery grew from century to century, due both to
the prodigious development of the American continent and to the
other, numerous discoveries that derived from this first one. 
The greatness of the achievement that acquired the American
continent for the Greco-Roman-Christian culture, i.e., for
European culture, undoubtedly goes beyond the voyages of
Columbus.  In spite of errors, egos and violence, it can only
excite admiration.  It was completed first and foremost by the
Spanish people, and then by the Portuguese, the French, the
English, the Italians and the Irish: in some way, by all the
European populations.
     But this acknowledgment cannot diminish the value of the
starting point of the achievement itself: Christopher Columbus's
discovery.  Yet almost every year, the American and European
press rekindles the debate on the merits of Columbus's discovery,
and on whether or not he was truly the first.  Who arrived in
America first?  Had no one gone before the Genoese on the
Atlantic route?  Had the Viking ships not already arrived in
Greenland and Canada?  This argument has no justification on
scientific grounds.  The problem is historical.  It is not a
question of establishing who was the first European to set foot
on the shores of the American continent, but rather, of
establishing who suddenly and forcefully inserted the New World
into the sweep of civilization, and who determined a decisive
turning point in the history of humanity.
 
The first human beings probably reached American soil by crossing
the Bering Strait during the early Paleolithic age, about twenty
to twenty-five thousand years ago.  When Christopher Columbus
came ashore on the island of San Salvador in the Bahamas, The
American continent was populated by several million people, from
the extreme north to the extreme south.  The population was
ancient, because great civilizations had been prospering for
centuries on vast territories, while other great civilizations
had died out or were in the process of dying out.  The
discussions on who arrived first in America are therefore
superficial and unscientific.  Not one, but millions and millions
of people had arrived, or could trace their origins to the
numerous couples who had arrived in the millennia preceding 1492. 
The only serious question is whether any navigator from our
Greco-Roman-Christian civilization or from the Middle Eastern
civilization arrived before Columbus.  
     But the eventual casual contacts of single Europeans or Afro
Asians with the New World would not touch or diminish the value
of Columbus's discovery, just as it was not affected by the
clamorous enterprise of the Vikings' lost discovery.  Here we are
faced with irreprehensible historical fact.  But these very
historical facts assure us that whether the Vikings touched the
snowy lands of Labrador or reached Nova Scotia and Massachusetts,
they were neither conscious of finding themselves in a new world,
nor did they let the civilized world of that time - Christendom
and Islam - know about it.  Nor did anyone from that part of the
world that faces the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Chinese or
Indian, hear anything about it.
 
The Vikings memorable adventures on the northwestern Atlantic did
not have any lasting effect on the history of humanity.  And the
American continent continued to remain wrapped in mystery.  The
veil of mystery was only lifted by the brilliance, the
tenaciousness, and the faith of Christopher Columbus.  He was not
the first man to tread on American soil; millions and millions of
men already lived there when he arrived.  He was probably not
even the first European to disembark there, both because some
truth may lie at the base of certain legends and hypotheses which
periodically find some credit, and because it has been
historically proven that the Vikings did land on the North
American shores in the eleventh century.
     But on the subject of geographic discoveries, the term
"discover" does not mean to arrive first; it means to arrive  and
to return, to report back to someone who can then repeat the
experience of the discoverer.  Thus Columbus, and Columbus alone
was truly the discoverer.  He came up with the idea, and he
realized it.  He was the first to give the Old World news of the
two great discoveries.  One had been predicted by some
scientists, expected by some sailors, but no one had had the
courage to ascertain it.  On the other side of the ocean there
was not an abyss, but rather land.  Columbus landed there on 12
October 1492.  And this was the date of the beginning of a new
era.  
     The other great discovery, marvelous and only imaginary
before that point, was made by Columbus when he reached the mouth
of a huge new river, the Orinoco.  That evening, on 15 August
1498, he wrote in the ship's log:  "I think that this is a great
continent which has been unknown until today."  A few years later
he would write: "Their Highnesses will be the rulers of these
vast lands, which are another world."
     Otro mundo, neuvo mundo: only with Columbus's enterprise
would Europe learn that a New World existed.  And this profoundly
changed the course of human history.