Description
Commemorative edition and facsimile of the Autograph Letters of Christopher Columbus that are preserved in the General Archive of the Indies (Seville).
On the occasion of the V Centenary of the death of Christopher Columbus (1506-2006), the publishing label Taberna Libraria publishes the 15 autograph letters of the Admiral, never before reproduced, in a high quality facsimile edition, which will undoubtedly constitute a delight and enjoyment for Columbianists and historians with the reading of the documents.
The edition of these fifteen autograph letters, plus an autograph memorial, is accompanied by their transcription and analysis carried out by Ms. María Isabel Simó Rodríguez (Director of the General Archive of the Indies) and Ms. Pilar Lázaro de la Escosura (Head of the References Department of the AGI).
The work is presented in an elegant case (format 30.5 x 38.5 x 7 cm), which contains all the letters (15 letters plus a memorial, 36 pages), the volume of transcription and analysis of them ( format 21 x 29.7 cm, 144 pages, bound in hard cloth cover with dust jacket) and the notarial act that authenticates the limited and numbered edition of 500 copies.
The General Archive of the Indies, created by King Carlos III in 1785, is considered the first research center in the world for the study and knowledge of the Spanish administration in America. It contains documentation referring to more than three centuries of history not only of the American continent, but also of the possessions that Spain held in the Far East.
In the more than 43,000 files that it preserves, all the vicissitudes and events that occurred during the Discovery, conquest and colonization of the New World can be studied and known.
Along with all this documentation that we could define as official, in 1926 an event occurred that would enrich the Archive’s funds. It was the acquisition by purchase by the Spanish State from the descendant of Admiral Don Cristóbal Colón, of the Veragua Archive. This Archive contained the original official documents that both Christopher Columbus and his successors had jealously guarded in order to defend their rights and prerogatives granted since the time of the Catholic Monarchs. But along with the official documents, others of a private nature also appeared, no less than fifteen original letters in the Admiral’s handwriting plus the draft of another, also handwritten by Columbus, but unsigned.
These letters correspond, with the exception of the draft dated at the end of 1500, to Columbus’s fourth and last trip to America and his return to Seville, between 1502 and 1505. In these documents, Columbus reflects his concerns, fears, his lack of health. , and almost invariably their concern that the titles granted by the Kings are not respected.
It is about being able to know, through reading it, the feeling of rage and humiliation that Columbus experienced when he returned to Spain in 1500, after his third voyage, chained and stripped of the titles of Viceroy of the Indies and Governor of Hispaniola, when He addresses the Royal Council with the letter titled “To the Lords”, as well as the one he wrote to his son Diego on February 5, 1505, where he mentions Américo Vespucio, saying of him that “he is a very good man to whom the fortune has been against him like many others.”
Complete copy and in perfect condition, new, unused.
Free shipping for this item. Ask us any questions, indicating the article reference.
