Columbus, a peasant wool weaver from Genoa, escapes a shipwreck and swims 8 miles to shore in Portugal without a penny to his name. 2 years later, he can speak Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, read maps and doesn't correspond in Italian once. And he married a noble-lady Filipa Moniz despite being a lowly peasant.
It seems Columbus can be linked well to Spain and Portugal, but what is the most compelling evidence that he actually was born in Genoa?
I ask because I have just listened to this podcast, which raises the question (among others):
The amount of contemporary evidence for Columbus being Genovese is absolutely enormous, with testimonies from everywhere. Let's get into business:
Columbus had a meeting with the Catholic Monarchs in 1491, for discussing the voyage to the Indies. For this kind of business, you had to go through the Court's registrar, in this case Doctor Lorenzo Galíndez de Carvajal, whose short registry we possess. In that year it is said: Capitulation with Christopher Columbus, genovese, natural of Savona, for the discovery of the Indies
Angelo Trevisan, secretary to the Venetian ambassador before the Catholic Monarchs, in the year 1500-1 managed to become a good friend of Chritopher Columbus, whom he always mentions as "genovese" (zenovese, in Venetian language). Thanks to Christopher Columbus, he procured himself a copy of a navigation chart of the Indies, made in Palos (today Palos de la Frontera). One of the letters reads: Cristoforo Columbo, zenovese, homo di alta et procera statura, rosso, de grande inzegno... (Christopher Columbus, genovese, man of remarkable and tall height, redhead, of great ingenuity)
The ambassador of the Catholic Monarchs before the Court of Henry VII, Ayala, writes in 1497 a letter to his sovereigns stating that the King of England has hired a navigator, a certain Cabot, "genovese like Columbus".
Christopher Columbus himself, in a letter from 1501, as a sign of eternal gratitude, wanted to bequeath 10% of his income from the Indies to the city of Genoa, and so he instructs his friend Nicoló Oderigo, genovese ambassador, to sort out the paperwork. Bureaucracy being bureaucracy, they manage to never respond to Columbus, which lead to Columbus not bequeathing that. This was cancelled in 1504, in a letter that I translate:
Virtuous sir: When I departed for the voyage from which I now come, I talked to you for a long time: I think you may recall everything. I thought that when I would be back, I would find letters from you, and even a person with whom to speak. In that time I had left to Francesco da Rivarola a copying book of my letters and another one of my privileges, in a case of red cordovan leather with a lock made of silver, and two letters to the Office of Saint George, where I assigned a tenth of my income, discounted the levies on wheat and other supplies: I did not hear any news of it. Misser Francesco says everything made it to Genoa. If that is so, it was a great discourtesy not to have answered, and that is why they are not getting their estate augmented [...]
This Nicoló Oderigo, when writting to Christopher Columbus, always calls him "amantissimus concivis", which translates as "very beloved concitizen", which is a clear sign of Oderigo being aware of Columbus' origin.
It is not the only case of Christopher Columbus being straightly related to Genoa. In his memorial of debts, written in articulo mortis in may 1506, in the city of Valladolid, he settles some old debts, and all of them are with genovese people (and with the genovese Bartolomeo Fieschi as witness). The most relevant part, is that we know the exact nature of two of those debts:
Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, in his General and Natural History of the Indies, book II, specifically says the Columbus was from Liguria, though he is not exactly sure from where, doubting between Savona, Nervi, and Cogoleto. Let's keep in mind that Gonzalo de Oviedo was raised alongside Christopher Columbus' sons, and met the man in more than one occasion.
Bartolomé de las Casas, a good friend of Hernando Colón, everywhere mentions that Columbus was from Genoa. In fact, in several passages he mentions "Antonio Colombo, Genovese, a relative of the Admiral", because that Antonio is a recurring character. That Antonio was one of Columbus' cousins.
Diego Colón de Toledo, III Admiral of the Indies, when he had to testify his ancestry in order to get knighted as member of the order of Santiago (1535), reports this about his grandfather: "He says his grandfather was Don Cristóbal Colón, and that he was Genovese, born in Savona, a town close to Genoa".
There is plenty more evidence from all sorts of contemporaries of Columbus accrediting he was genovese, including a number of people from Genoa like Bartolomeo Senàrega, Antonio Gallo, and cardinal Giustiniani. Antonio Gallo would be worth mentioning on its own, as he knew Columbus at a young age, as both lived in the same street in Genoa. Portuguese sources from the time mention Columbus as Ligurian, Genovese, or Italian
Oddly enough, the least trustworthy source is Hernando Colón, Columbus' younger son, who very frequently makes stuff up, including making entirely up his father's noble ancestry. His father of humble birth, but was relatively rich thanks in part to his political connections to the Fieschi family. However, at no point does Hernando deny his father being Genovese, in fact he affirms it at different points.
The evidence of Columbus being genovese is everywhere, and these examples are nothing but a few, and as chronologically close to the man as possible.
Being of humble birth was not an insurmountable barrier for marrying a noblewoman, think of Hernando de Zafra (secretary of the Catholic Monarchs), "of honest plebeian parents" who married a woman of the house of Ayala, one of the oldest and most respected lineages in the whole realm of Castile.