There has been more written about Christopher Columbus than about any other person in the world and yet his past has remained a mystery. Why, for instance, did a man who supposedly live in Genoa until early adulthood have a very poor knowledge of Italian and never use it when writing to his brothers? How, in the rigid class structure of Renaissance Europe, did a humble wool-worker manage to marry into the Portuguese nobility within three years of arriving in Portugal? How did he acquire royal patronage for a risky and unusual plan to find a new route to the Indies? The controversy surrounding Columbus's origins have been examined by many scholars and one such scholar by the name of Seraphim G. Canoutas even wrote a book about it. The novel is titled "Christopher Columbus: A Greek Nobleman" and it claims that Columbus may have come from the island of Chios. Join the X-Files today as it examines the book.
The argument supporting this theory states that Chios was under Genoese control at the time, and was thus part of the Republic of Genoa, and that he kept his journal in Greek and Latin instead of the Italian of Genoa. He also referred to himself as "Columbus de Terra Rubra" (Columbus of the Red Earth); Chios is known for its red soil in the south of the island where it grows the famous mastic trees which was a prized commodity during that era. But Canoutas does not stop there. He claims that Columbus was from a Greek family originally from the Byzantium Empire, and even though his arguments sound reasonable, they are regarded as highly unlikely by the majority of modern scholars.
Canoutas was born in Greece. He graduated in law from the University of Athens, and became a member of the European Bar at Constantinople before coming to America in 1905 and graduating from an American law school.2 In this country he became a member of the Massachusetts and New York Bars. His wife, Euphrosyne Palaiologos, was said to be a scholar, musician, writer, and associated to the house of the Byzantine emperors. Canoutas had two daughters (Pothoula and Daphne). One, Married a diplomat; the other became a Radio City Rockette. In the early part of the last century, Canoutas was a preeminent leader in Greek American society and letters. He was a prolific writer and is said to have visited the Greeks of every state in the Union except Arizona and New Mexico.
Canoutas’s nearly 300-page book on Columbus was published in English in New York in 1943. It took him nearly eight years of skilled research to write and it was the first time anyone proposed in scholarly fashion that Columbus was actually a Greek, and in fact a noble Byzantine Greek. Unfortunately Canoutas’s book was privately published and has been long out of print. After 1943, the book seems to have been all but forgotten and has certainly been overlooked by most Columbus scholars. Nonetheless the book still remains and in it he methodically lays out the evidence and then draws persuasive conclusions based on the evidence. A reviewer in 1945 said that “this book presents a case which students of the vexed ‘Columbus question’ must consider with the utmost care.
ORIGINS
Columbus’s origins are what concern us this evening, and as to his origins there are all kinds of theories. The traditional one is that he was a poor, not-very-well educated Genoese wool-worker who went to sea not as a sailor but as a kind of traveling salesman, accompanying cargoes of wool, silk, and sugar around the Mediterranean and further abroad along the Atlantic coast of Europe and possibly Africa. But there are many other theories.
Some say he was Spanish. Others say he was born out of wedlock to a Portuguese prince and then became a secret agent for King John II of Portugal, while keeping the Spanish distracted with a scheme to reach the East by sailing west while the Portuguese advanced their own plans to reach the Indies by sailing around the southern tip of Africa. And some even claim Columbus was a Catalan-speaking Jew, either from Majorca or Ibiza, whose parents may have converted to Christianity to avoid the Spanish
Inquisition. There are even theories that he was English (born in London), or Corsican (born in Calvi), or was even a Franco-Swiss. But Canoutas insists that he was Greek.
THE FACTS
One school (the traditional one) is supported by certain Genoese legal documents from Columbus’s time. These documents show that someone named Cristoforo Colombo was born in or near the city of Genoa, was a wool-worker, and later became a merchant and gained sailing experience by accompanying various cargoes to their destinations.
The other school of thought rests on the numerous - sometimes glaring - inconsistencies between the Genoese legal documents and other sources of information, especially Columbus’s own writings (he was a prolific writer), the biography written by his son Ferdinando and by Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas, Columbus’s family friend and a famous historian of the Spanish conquest of the New World. Both of these men had access to Columbus’s papers after he died in 1506.
Canoutas repeatedly emphasizes in his book that the Genoese woolworker theory simply cannot be squared either with what Columbus and his biographers said about him or with common sense. He points out over and over again that those who adhere to the Genoese theory have to contort or ignore certain important facts or accuse Columbus of being a deliberate liar in order to make him fit the profile of Cristoforo Colombo, the Genoese wool-worker.
Canoutas gives ten specific examples. Here are four of them:
- The prevailing view is that Columbus grew to majority in Genoa or its vicinity, then gave up wool carding and became a traveling salesman or trader of woolen goods, and then settled in Lisbon as the agent of a well known Genoese mercantile firm called Centurione. But when Columbus became famous all over Europe after his four voyages of discovery, no one at the Centurione firm ever remarked on the earth-shaking accomplishment of the firm’s former clerk.
- Domenico Colombo, who, according to the Genoese documents, was Columbus’s father, appears to have died in Genoa in abject poverty in either 1498 or 1499. Canoutas thinks it is beyond belief that Columbus, who is known to have been affectionate to his brothers and sons, would have shamelessly ignored his impoverished father at the end of his life, particularly when, at the time of Domenico’s death, Columbus and his brothers were at the height of their fame and prosperity.
- Canoutas says it is generally conceded that Columbus did not know Italian. Neither did his two brothers, Bartholomew and Diego. He certainly never used Italian when he corresponded with his brothers. Isn’t that odd, says Canoutas, for three boys who were born, grew up, and lived in Genoa until reaching full manhood? Some of the traditionalists, by the way, get around this problem by saying that Columbus must have been illiterate while he lived in Italy and therefore forgot his Italian when he settled in Portugal. Canoutas points out that it does not make sense that someone who was illiterate, and who had forgotten the language he probably spoke for thirty years or so, then quickly picked up Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, and Latin.
- In 1515, and again in 1520-21, Columbus’s son and biographer Ferdinando visited numerous northern Italian cities, including Genoa. He was specifically looking for relatives and for his father’s birthplace. It should be explained that Ferdinando was only 14-16 when he accompanied his father on his fourth and last voyage to America in 1502-1504 and was only 18 when his father died. So Ferdinando did not have personal knowledge of his father’s origins and believed, as many did, that Columbus was of Genoese origin. But when Ferdinando made inquiries in Genoa and the vicinity in the hope of discovering relatives, he was disappointed. No one came forth, not even Bianchinetta Colombo, who the traditionalists say was Columbus’s sister and who was living in Genoa at the time of Ferdinando’s visits, as well as her husband Giacomo Bavarello and their son Pantaleone. In other words, these were Ferdinando’s aunt, her husband, and Ferdinando’s first cousin. How can you explain, asks Canoutas, why none of these people or anyone else claiming to be related to the by-now internationally famous Admiral of the Indies came forward to meet their kinsman and perhaps even share in the Discoverer’s huge estate?
http://books.google.gr/books?id=2JbU1d9Xil0C&pg=PA261&lpg=PA261&dq=christopher+columbus+greek+nobleman&source=bl&ots=vL59rSktA1&sig=ZgL07CMtPl4HxKh9pNg-bPnOUrs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3wagT7TIAsKF4gSUosGBAw&ved=0CDYQ6AEwBDgU#v=onepage&q=christopher%20columbus%20greek%20nobleman&f=false
http://www.prometheas.org/Newsletters/11-2008.htm
http://www.prometheas.org/Events_flyers/Christopher_Columbus.pdf
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