On February 22, 1498, well-washed since the mid-1940s, Christopher Columbus ordained in writing that his mansion in the Italian port city of Genoa would be maintained for his family, “because I came from him and was born.”
Although most historians consider the document to be cut off and dried in the birthplace of the famous researcher, some asked its authenticity and wondered if there was more in history.
Last year, a decades -long investigation, led by forensic exercises, Jose Antonio Lorente of the University of Granada in Spain, came out to claim that Columbus may not be from Italian heritage after all, but was actually born somewhere in Spain to the parents of Jewish predecessors.
The revelation was declared in October as part of a special program broadcast in Spain to celebrate Columbus arriving in the New World on October 12, 1492.
It is important to keep in mind that media science should be viewed with caution, especially when there is no reviewed publication to consider critically.
“Unfortunately, from a scientific point of view, we really cannot appreciate what was in the documentary, as they do not offer any data from the analysis,” said the former director of the Spanish National Institute of Toxicology and Judicial Sciences, Antonio Alonso, in front of Manuel Ansee, Elui, Eluse.
“My conclusion is that the documentary never shows Columbus DNA and as scientists we do not know what analysis is made.”
Nevertheless, historical documents are increasingly being challenged – and strengthened – through forensic analyzes of biological records, increasing the possibility of Columbus’s own DNA potentially revealing a view of his family history.
Based on interpretations of records written when he was an adult, the man known in most of the Western world of the English name Christopher Columbus was born Christophoro Columboro sometime between the end of August and the end of October in 1451 in Genoa, the lively capital of the northwest Italian region of Ligia.
Only later in life as a young man of his twenties, he travels west to Lisbon, Portugal, in search of wealthy patrons who could finance their daring attempt to “transfer” to the east, heading in the other direction.
Although most historians accept the court documents that make his birthplace in Genoa as real deals, speculation of alternative heritage has been worn for decades.
A constant rumor maintains that Columbus is a hidden Jew, born in Spain in a time of intense religious persecution and ethnic cleansing. Proponents of the claim quote curious anomalies in his will and interpretations of syntax in his letters.
Now it seems that his own genes can provide a new line of evidence.
Lorente and his team of researchers say on the television special that their analysis of Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA taken from the remains of Columbus Ferdinand and Brother Diego is compatible with Spanish or Sephard Jewish heritage.
This, of course, does not clearly rule out Genoa, nor is it in every place in Europe as a place of birth for the researcher.
In fact, the Jews extinguished from Spain at the end of the 15th century, just as Columbus made its remarkable sailing in the Italian city, looking for asylum, though with few to succeed.
But any credit for Lorente’s discoveries would make the Italian origin of Columbus a little more difficult to support, raising questions about how one of the Sephard Jewish heritage would be born in Genoa in the 1450s.
In order for the findings to be widely accepted, the results must be carefully considered, if not convincingly repeated in detail.
Even then, there is more of the history of the individual than genetics – leaving the case open how a pursued minority really came to present the leadership of the Spanish expansion.
So far, Columbus’s history remains one of an Italian sailor who caught the eye of the Spanish Royalty, who was celebrated and celebrated and despised for the sign he inadvertently made in history away from this “noble and powerful city by the sea”, his home of Genoa.
A larger version of this article was published in October 2024.