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t is very well-known that the initial contact between Europeans and Native Americans came about
through a Genoese sailor, as Liguria native Christopher Columbus undertook the quest of attempting to
reach Asia by means of the Atlantic Ocean. Columbus did not accomplish his goal, because his geographic
model included an error by Florentine cartographer Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, whose navigational map
of the Atlantic erroneously showed that the distance between Japan (Cipango) and the Canary Islands was
approximately 3,000 nautical miles; in fact, it was closer to 10,000.
In the midst of that expansive area of the planet, an unexpected continent lay in Columbus’s path, and he
died without ever reaching Asia, despite having attempted to do so four times on his exploratory journeys. To
finance the costs of the first trip, Queen Isabella I of Castile contributed 1,140,000 maravedíes—just over half
the funds required—in expectation of the benefits promised by Columbus. He, in turn, invested 500,000 mara-
vedíes, an amount that had he acquired through a loan from Juanoto (Giannotto) Berardi, a notable Florentine
businessman established in Seville in 1485.
1
Berardi was a member of a thriving Florentine community residing in Seville that traded in enslaved Af-
ricans, silk and other fabrics, wood, lichens and other herbs and who lent money to other merchants as well
as monarchs and nobles. The names of some of those Florentines are known, among which many friends of
Columbus were included: Amerigo Vespucci (closest of them all), Francisco de Bardi, Simón Verde, Francisco
Ridolfo, Jerónimo Rufaldi, and Lorenzo de Rabata. Many of them assisted with Lorenzo Francesco de Medici’s
business ventures and maintained correspondence with him, as has been well documented by the Sevillian
historian Consuelo Varela in her book
Colón y los Florentinos.
Consequently, some historians have speculated that “it is likely that Columbus, as an individual, person-
ally received a loan from the Medici Bank, and therefore indirectly from Lorenzo de’ Medici, through his
representative in Seville, Giannotto Berardi.”
2
In any event, what remains certain is that the funds contributed
by Berardi helped Columbus to contribute his part toward the financing of the first trip, which resulted in the
discovery of the Antilles, whose name was derived from a mythical island (Antilia or Ante Illia) that some
Europeans believed was located near other smaller islands in the middle of the ocean to the southwest of the
Azores along the same latitude as the Canary Islands.
From among the islands discovered by Columbus, he selected the second largest on which to establish
a trading post similar to those founded in Africa, which he had visited years prior together with Portuguese
sailors and merchants. He called this island Española, and ordered the foundation of a city on a majestic river
port located at the mouth of a river called the Ozama by the indigenous people who lived on this island. This
city was given the name Santo Domingo.
CHAPTER 1
The Italian Presence in Santo Domingo,
1492-1900
By Frank Moya Pons
Former Professor of Latin American History at Columbia University;
research director of the Institute of Dominican Studies of the City College
of the City University of New York
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