Sold for nearly 4 million copy of the letter with which Columbus announced the discovery of America

A rare letter by Christopher Columbus, sent to the Catholic rulers of Spain to inform them of the discovery of America, was sold at auction yesterday at Christie’s in New York for the remarkable sum of $3.922 million (3.7 million euros), starting from an estimate of 1-1.5 million. This is the epistle De Insulis Indiae supera Gangem nuper inventis, written by Columbus and printed in Rome by Stephan Plannck after April 29, 1493: there is also a copy in the possession of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, from where, moreover, the letter had been stolen before 1988, and to which it was returned this summer.

Christopher Columbus’s letter about the “recent discovery of the islands of India beyond the Ganges” (this literally is the title: as is well known, Columbus believed he was in India) was later translated from Spanish to Latin by the erudite Leandro di Cosco. The one sold by Christie’s is the first known edition of Christopher Columbus’ letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella describing the first visit to the Americas by a modern European. This example remained in a private Swiss library for nearly a century.

This document then quickly spread throughout Europe and forever changed people’s perceptions of the size, shape, and possibilities of their world. The Columbus letter is a thin and ephemeral document, printed to convey the news of the moment, and very few copies, about 30 in all, survive outside institutional libraries. Not since 1966 has an ancient copy of the letter been offered at auction. Obviously, we do not know who won it for nearly $4 million, nor do we know in-depth details about the letter’s provenance, although according to Christie’s there is nothing suspicious about it. Somewhat useful information since the letter in question has often been forged and stolen, as evidenced, moreover, by the recent return to the Marciana.

Sold for nearly 4 million copy of the letter with which Columbus announced the discovery of America

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