WTI Magazine #51    2015 January, 9
Author : Giovanni Verde      Translation by:

He is the man who discovered America without realizing it. The navigator for excellence. A symbol of the Italian sense of adventure and a pride for both sides of the Atlantic. Cristoforo Colombo was born in Genoa, at the end of the August of 1451. Growing as a merchant when he is still a boy, he is convinced of the existence of a land overseas, believing a mistake to consider the Pillars of Hercules the limit beyond which it was impossible to go.

Through studies and experience, Colombo matures the conviction that we can reach, going towards west across the ocean waters, the Asian continent. He decides to apply for funding for his business to King John II of Portugal. The sovereign refuses to meet his demands and the navigator then addresses his request to the Spanish monarchs.

In 1485 Colombo loses his wife and, driven by the desire to respond to the disappearance of his companion, decides to travel to the Kingdom of Castile with his son, first in Palos de la Frontera, then in Seville, in search of financial help for his project. It will be the admiration of Queen Isabella of Castile against the navigator to push the Royal Spanish House to finance Colombo's project.

With a contract signed on April 17, 1492, the Spanish royal family allocates for the mission a sum which even then was quite modest, and that today would amount to about $ 50,000. Three ships are then built: the Santa Maria, the flagship, captained by Colombo; and two other smaller ships, the Pinta and the Niña, led by the Pinzón brothers. At six in the morning of August 3, 1492, the fleet starts from Palos de la Frontera with a route to the Canary Islands.

A failure blocks the boats after only three days in La Gomera. Colombo restarts on September 6. On September 17 the phenomenon of displacement of the magnetic north pole and the resulting confusion on the routes cause great fear in sailors. The events lead to a change in the routes and to the risk of a mutiny on October 10th: but Colombo is able to handle the situation with his men, firmly convinced of his own ideas.

Some positive signs come on 11 October, with the sighting of a cane, a stick and a fresh flower, elements that could only have come from the land. At two in the morning of Friday, October 12, 1492, the young Spanish sailor Rodrigo de Triana, aboard Pinta, first sights America. The first landing of Cristoforo Colombo is in the land that today is called San Salvador. The sailor then moves to Cuba; but the navigator remains convinced to be landed on the coast of Japan.

In the course of two months, the conditions of the fleet change. A ship, led by one of the Pinzón brothers, change course in search of riches; the flagship, the Santa Maria, runs ashore making itself unusable. Colombo decides to leave part of the crew on today's island of Haiti, and promises his men that he would return to save them during his second voyage, and by building a fort to protect them: the Navidad. He actually will return but will find his men killed and the fort destroyed.

Colombo will continue to explore those lands through three more trips. The economic failures of these trips will cause a loss of confidence of the Royal House of Castile against the Genoese navigator.

Cristoforo Colombo dies in Valladolid on May 20, 1506, due to a heart attack. His tomb is currently in the Cathedral of Seville. Mistaken beliefs and inaccurate calculations, of course, but also determination, tenacity, courage, have made Cristoforo Colombo one of the most beloved and admired persons by the Western people. The strength of the great Italian navigator is all in the famous, ironic phrase by Jonathan Swift: "Who knows what Cristoforo Colombo would have discovered if America had not got in the way".