[Joe 6-pack]

"Columbus himself alludes to his birthplace. In 1502 he wrote from Spain to directors of Genoa's Bank of San Giorgio, offering an endowment to relieve the city's poor of the tax on food and wine. "Even though my body walks here," he wrote poignantly, "my heart is always there." Christopher Columbus appears to have donated one-tenth of his income from his discovery of the Americas to the Bank of San Giorgio in Genoa for the relief of taxation on foods."

[RegulatorCountry]

Historians agree that Columbus wrote in Portuguese tinged Castilian Spanish, including the letter you cite, and furthermore that he could not write in Italian.