The impact of the text demonstrates just how good Columbus was at public relations, according to the Cuban-American medieval historian Professor Teo Ruiz: “He made sure everybody knew what he had done: that he had reached the islands of the Indies by sailing westwards. “The news circulated rapidly, not just through diplomatic channels but mercantile channels as well.” Using what was then cutting-edge technology, the Spanish crown sent copies to the courts of Europe to stake Spain’s claim,says Symcox. “The significance of the letter is its wide diffusion, thanks to the printing press,” says Professor Geoffrey Symcox from the University of California, Los Angeles. The document has been in a private Swiss collection for nearly a century and is described by Christie’s as “the earliest obtainable edition of Columbus’s letter”, whose international publication triggered one of the first “media frenzies” for the printed word. “Like him or not, you can’t deny Columbus’s importance,” Fernández-Armesto says.Ī master of ‘self-promotion and propaganda’: Columbus depicted by the artist Emile Lassalle in 1839. It is now seen by historians as a piece of propaganda that heralds the start of the European colonisation of the New World.īy exploiting the resources of this apparently “new” hemisphere, European countries would finally start to catch up with China, Islamic nations and India in power and wealth – while also enslaving and exploiting people all over the globe. The letter praises the rich natural assets of the islands Columbus encountered, and he portrays the “extraordinarily timid” native people he met there as “so unsuspicious and so generous” they are “like fools”. But his voyage created, for the first time, “a viable, commercially exploitable route” across the Atlantic and opened up communications between long-sundered cultures on either side of the ocean, Fernández-Armesto says. Witness Donald Trump,” says Fernández-Armesto.Ĭolumbus had no idea that, at the time, he was the first European since the Vikings to encounter North America – he thought he had travelled to islands near Japan. “ Columbus has lost his former status as an honorary all-American hero and quasi-founding father, but notoriety rarely hurts one’s market value, especially in the US. Now a rare 1493 Latin translation of this letter, printed on an early printing press to swiftly convey news of Columbus’s “discoveries” to elite Europeans, is expected to fetch up to £1.2m ($1.5m) at a Christie’s auction this month.
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