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CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: A MAN BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
port from the Genoese network, made a fundamental act toward ensuring his own Spanish legacy, establishing
in February 1498 a
mayorazgo
in favor of his eldest son Diego and thus defining succession and inheritance. In
the
mayorazgo
, (“... root and foothold of my lineage and memory of the services which I have rendered for Your
Highnesses, that being born in Genoa I came to serve you here in Castile ... and I discovered in the West the sign
of land of the Indies and the aforementioned islands ... ”), he did not forget to mention the Genoese branch of the
family, with whom he maintained contact, recalling his native city and also directing the income to be invested
in the Bank of San Giorgio (“there in San Jorge [San Giorgio] any money is very safe, and Genoa is a noble and
powerful city by the sea ...”). In the same year he gathered the necessary documentation for drafting his
Book of
Privileges
. Meanwhile, the Crown granted other travel permits but prohibited their issuance to foreigners. This
obviously did not affect the branches of the Genoese families who, like Columbus, had become naturalized. In
Seville alone, 23 of the 28 Genoese “alberghi”
5
were represented.
The third voyage (1498-1500), in which Genoese participation was substantial, both financially and operation-
ally, marked a fundamental point in Columbus’s life, while a Genoese cousin of his also made the journey this
time. Columbus continued with his discoveries but remained stubbornly faithful to an inaccurate picture of exist-
ing geography, which he himself altered by declaring that he was in the “Earthly Paradise” when he was sailing
before the immense delta of the Orinoco and how an “other world” seemed to reveal itself. When he returned
to Hispaniola, he found a potentially explosive situation, which he tried to resolve through the application of the
encomienda
, a brutal system in which the natives were entrusted to a settler who, in exchange for protection and
Christianization, collected taxes and imposed mandatory labor.
However, by now the situation had worsened. Both he and his brothers were faced with damning accusa-
tions from the Franciscans, who called them “pharaohs” and asked that they be removed. What did the friars real-
ly mean when they wrote that Columbus wanted “to give the island to the Genoese”? Beginning in October 1499,
Genoa fell under French rule. Perhaps Columbus really intended to do the “French” side of his powerful friends
a favor? What did the financial group supporting him really want? What did the renewed contact of Columbus
with San Giorgio and Genoa suggest; and later the letters that the admiral sent to some Genoese associates, such
as Gianluigi Fieschi? Finally, what did Bartolomeo Fieschi’s lifelong intimacy actually imply? Although the Geno-
ese elite cherished their neutrality, in Genoa the Fieschis still belonged to a
de facto
pro-French “party.” Thus, did
Christopher Columbus not admit to being a corsair for the House of Anjou?
In fact, in August 1500 the Columbus brothers were imprisoned. The order was given by Investigating Judge
Francisco Bobadilla after a sham trial. The three Columbus brothers landed in Cádiz in chains. The following
year, a new governor, Nicolás de Ovando, arrived in Hispaniola.
As early as 1498, however, Columbus had begun to vigorously defend himself through memoirs and letters,
with the
Book of Prophecies
, in which the “Discovery” was woven into a fabric filled with apocalyptic and messian-
ic themes, reminiscent of Gioacchino da Fiore (Joachim of Fiore). The admiral also sought the support of many
friends, both laymen and priests, and thus a series of Genoese and Ligurian names began to dance around him
while he continued preparing for the wedding of his son Diego with María de Toledo, niece of the Duke of Alba.
He always carefully guarded his documents (of which a partial catalogue remains) with Fray Gaspar Gorricio de
Novara, in whose hands was also a copy of the
Book of Privileges
of 1498 (now in the General Archive of the Indies
in Seville), while another, certainly in Hispaniola and now lost, was the basis of the reworking to which, between
1501 and 1502, Columbus proceeded, adding other documents.
He wrote to his friends and sent to Genoa some copies of the
Book of Privileges
. He also wrote to Gianluigi
Fieschi, and the day before leaving on the fourth voyage, on April 2, 1502, he wrote a famous letter to the trus-
tees of the Banco di San Giorgio in which, as was the tradition of the great names of the Genoese elite, he left a
legacy to extinguish the public debt. “Although my body is here, my heart is always near you [...] the results of
my undertaking are already being seen, and would shine considerably if the darkness of the government does not
conceal them,”
6
he wrote.
On April 3, 1502, “the noblest journey began,” as he himself described it. The royal authorization was accom-