Posted on 10/18/2006 6:07:39 PM PDT by blam
Who really sailed the ocean blue in 1492?
Spanish scholars are on a mission to demystify Christopher Columbus's life, long shrouded in a veil of mythic heroism.
By Lisa Abend and Geoff Pingree | Correspondents of The Christian Science Monitor
MADRID – Genovese nobleman or Catalan pirate? Adventurous explorer or greedy tyrant? What if the Italian gentleman who discovered America was in fact a brutal torturer and slave owner? And what if he wasn't even Italian? Schoolchildren may learn about a daring hero who proved the Earth wasn't flat, but because his biography is pocked with holes, Christopher Columbus is a figure around whom elaborate theories and enigmatic rumors have long circulated. This year, the 500th anniversary of his death, two Spanish scholars are working to clear up some of the mysteries.
José Antonio Lorente, a geneticist at the University of Granada, is attempting to resolve one of the greatest enigmas - the question of Columbus's origins. In 1927, Peruvian historian Luis Ulloa Cisneros claimed Columbus was from Catalonia - in what is today northwestern Spain - rather than from the Italian port city of Genoa.
Since then, theories have proliferated, some suggesting that Columbus was a Catalan nobleman who rebelled against King Ferdinand's father, King John II, by engaging in piracy on behalf of the French, and then hid his origins to win favor with the son. Others maintain that he was the illegitimate child of Prince Carlos de Viana, a Majorcan nobleman related to Ferdinand and Isabella. Still others suggest that Columbus was a Jew, whose family fled to Genoa to escape persecution.
A historian at the University of Seville asked Mr. Lorente (who had previously used genetic testing to determine that bones in the Cathedral of Seville belonged to Columbus's own illegitimate son), to help resolve. .
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Kolumbus?
If that really smart dog on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show says it is so, IT IS SO. Mr Peabody ROCKS!
If it sin't Columbus, the Italians will be pissed! (Note, hubby is Italian, so I can say this ;) )
It was really Christopher Columbus Boooooooosh! Thought the world was square, encouraged by Sancho Panza Roooooove! Navigated robot ships into Hispanola! Planted demolition charges in New World!
You don't have to qualify your statement.
You were first, my compliments.
I like yours better.
The reign in Spain mainly falls on the left plain...Burma Eshave.
I was under the impression Kerry invented the ocean while recuperating from his 'battle' wounds.
yet.
Leif Ericksson beat Columbus by centuries.
There's no news here. This is the same bullsh!+ that has formed the backbone of the Black Spanish propaganda propagated by the British since the failed invasion of Britain by the Spanish Armada. Every child taught in the public school since the 1970s has heard this.
What is news is the translation of his diary into English.
It was Arlington Springs Woman
No AlGore invented the ocean after he formed the earth. Kerry was in Cambodia at the time meeting one on one with Santa Claus.
Yeah, but he sailed the ocean, not the "ocen", so it doesn't count.
Another revisionist, nihilistic attack on our heritage from "Academia".
Lief landed first.
"El Rey que hay en Madrid, se fue en Aranjuez!"
Now, don't esstart, por favor!
But if Columbus had sailed the following year, the poem could still work because it would rhyme with "boundless sea" - Richard Armour
;^)
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