Posted on 03/09/2009 8:02:54 AM PDT by BGHater
The 15th century explorer who opened up the American continents to Europe was actually called Pedro Scotto - not Christopher Columbus - and his family originally hailed from Scotland, a Spanish historian has claimed.
Alfonso Ensenat de Villalonga has disputed conventionally-accepted narratives on the explorer's origins - that he was the son of a weaver in Genoa, Italy, or that he was from Catalonia or Galicia in Spain.
In fact, he was from Genoa, but he was "the son of shopkeepers not weavers and he was baptised Pedro not Christopher," Mr Villalonga told Spain's ABC newspaper on Sunday.
And his family name was Scotto, and was not Italian but of Scottish origin.
"He had light-coloured eyes and freckles. He also had blond hair even though it quickly turned white. That's how his contemporaries described him. Nothing like the traditional images (of him), which are totally invented," the historian said.
Mr Villalonga cited a chronicle of Catholic kings written by Lucio Marineo Siculo, who referred in his writings to "Pedro Columbus", not Christopher.
The historian has also claimed that the navigator once worked for a pirate called Vincenzo Columbus, and adopted that family name in order not to "expose" his relations.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Columbus, again, laddy.
Those canny Scots.
Scotland Forever, baby!
His first name was neither Christopher, nor Pedro -- he was baptized "William". In addition, he was not born with the last name Scotto, nor did he adopt the name Columbus -- throughout his life he used his family name of "Shakespeare". Lastly, the man had a pathological fear of boats and never went to sea. He made his living writing plays in England.
Hope this clears up the mystery.
“The sails can’t take much more of this!”
All these years I thought he was a Scandnavian who sailed west and ran into Greenland.
“Sat-ur-day NIGHT!”
“aye I love the Bay City Rollers!”
Mike Myers as his Scottish father in How I Married An Axe Murderer was hysterical.
that’s funny, i saw an article that said christopher columbus was of Greek descent...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1241735/posts
actually if you do an internet search of “christopher columbus chios” and a who bunch of stuff pops up.
Naturally for this 'historian', pirates also comes into the Columbus narrative...arrrr!
I thought somebody said he was actually Hungarian...and of royal blood! Oh wait. That’s from Pygmalion! Never mind.
there’s no way i’m the only one who has gotten that reference. good stuff.
There’s a town in Ohio that’s gonna be scrambling. Not to mention a country in South America.
The Blancmanges must have turned Columbus into a Scotsman. This can mean only one thing:
THEY MEAN TO WIN WIMBLEDON
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I’ve seen this one:
http://columbus.vanderkrogt.net/us_ne/syracuse.html
For those who wanna look, there are at least a handful of topics regarding Columbus’ origin — a Jew, a Greek, a Basque, etc — and while I’m doubtin’ this (to say the least), Columbus did make a trip to Iceland to find out what the locals knew about the old Viking trips to the Americas.
I’m fine with this.
However, as a Scotsman by blood myself, I must say that we don’t claim Arlen Specter..... we think he’s Irish. ;>)
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