Historian Questions Italian Birthplace of Christopher Columbus ( http://costaricabookings.com/historian-questions-italian-birthplace-of-christopher-columbus/ )
New York, Oct 19 (EFE). – Portuguese historian Manuel Rosa, a specialist in studies about Christopher Columbus, again casts doubt on the traditional account that the great navigator was born in Italy, and says he has found convincing evidence to the contrary.
In a new article published by the e-Spanish Legal History Review, Rosa says the testament of Columbus on which the official theory is based is a forgery.
“The importance of the article is the evidence it contains that the so-called testament of 1498 was a forgery issued 90 years after Columbus died,” the historian told EFE.
“I have discovered that the suspect document was contested at the time by the Spanish justice system itself, which ruled that the document was worth about as much as a blank piece of paper,” Rosa said.
“The discovery casts doubt on everything that has been written about Columbus up to now. The history of Columbus as it has been related to us is false,” the historian said.
This new information about Columbus provides a firmer foundation for Rosa’s theory that the man sent by the Catholic monarchs to explore a new route to India was not Italian.
“Columbus was born in Madeira (Portugal) and was in fact the son of Polish King Wladyslaw III, who fled to Madeira after fighting the Turks in the battle of Varna, where many people up to now thought he lost his life,” the historian said.
In Madeira, the father of Columbus supposedly lived under the name of Henrique Alemao.
Rosa, who in 2008 published “Columbus: The Story Never Told,” in which he began to deconstruct the official biography of the discoverer of America, said he was “aware” of the criticism leveled at him by some historians.
“I know they think I’m someone out to rewrite history, but I have to tell what seems to be set in stone, that the official version is false,” Rosa said.
The specialist said in his book that Christopher Columbus was secretly working for Portugal, not Spain, which he sought to distance from the rich markets of Asia with the discovery of America.
The real Columbus, according to the historian, was not an Italian commoner at the orders of the Spanish monarchy, but a man trusted by the Portuguese monarchy, which knew from the start that he was not sailing to India but to America.
Rosa told EFE he was confident that “when the book is published in English – up to now it is only available in Portuguese, Spanish, Lithuanian and Polish – the whole history of Columbus as we have known it up to now will fall apart. EFE
The post Historian Questions Italian Birthplace of Christopher Columbus appeared first on Costa Rica Star News.
http://costaricabookings.com/historian-questions-italian-birthplace-of-christopher-columbus/
