The letter that changed the world | Cultural Heritage. Goverment of Catalonia.

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The letter that changed the world

Uncovering the mysterious story about the robbery of one of the most interesting documents in world history: the epistle of insulis nuper inventis, the letter in which Christopher Columbus announces the results of his first voyage to America.

1493

The winter wind lashes the raging waters of the Atlantic. The tremendous force of the waves separates the course of two ships which, unbeknownst to them, are sailing the last miles of one history's most fascinating maritime adventures. On 14 February 1493 the two caravels go off in opposite directions after almost a month of travelling together. La Pinta heads towards the coast of Galicia, La Niña, towards the Azores and Portugal. The admiral of the expedition, a renowned Genoese by the name of Christopher Columbus, is on board La Niña. He and his entire crew have just survived the storm. They were expecting to be shipwrecked, but God has kept his promise. "Land ahoy!" And by now it is a familiar land. After an exhausting journey and with a heart full of joy he has, by means of a western sea passage, as predicted, made it to the Indies, and has returned with every hope of pleasing their majesties. The triumph is complete. In his hand he holds a quill, he dips the nib in ink. His feet having reached terra firma in the port of Lisbon on 4 March 1493, he composes a letter, a letter that would change the world view for ever.
 

Replica of the three ships that participated in the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, at the Muelle de Las Carabelas (Palos de la Frontera, Spain). (Edward The Confessor/Wikimedia Commons)

Epístola de insulis nuper inventis

Columbus needs to make his incredible discovery known and he wants to magnify his achievement the better to increase his importance in the annals of history. This means notifying the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, about his extraordinary feat, something he does with a letter to his protector and confidant, father Lluís de Santàngel.
 
The story starts with departure from the port of Palos on 3 August 1492, goes on to describe arrival on the new continent, the plundering of the islands (beyond the Ganges), and finishes with arrival at the port of Lisbon seven months later. For Columbus it is of vital importance to convey the fact that what has been discovered is a previously unknown territory. A rich territory with fertile soil and abundant quantities of gold, an incalculable quantity of gold. Furthermore, he wishes to convey a detail to his governors about the unknown people there, a perception that will be of vital importance to the monarchs of a kingdom at the gates of becoming the largest empire ever known: it would seem to be an easy matter to convert the local inhabitants of this New World to Christianity.
Columbus' first landing in America (Dióscoro Puebla/Wikimedia Commons)
Columbus in front of Isabel I of Castile (Unknown. Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons)

On the horizon is Barcelona, the last stop on this odyssey without precedent, where the Catholic Monarchs anxiously await his arrival. It will be a splendid welcome at the monastery of Sant Jeroni de la Murtra, in Badalona. Everything has been prepared to make a great impression: seven Taino 'Indians'; parrots with colourful plumage; gold; precious pearls, spices and other exquisite materials.
 
He has brought his letter to an end. He is clear in his mind that this news must spread throughout Europe and that the best way to achieve this is this letter. It is not known for sure who ordered it to be printed. Some say it was the Catholic Monarchs who first ordered it to be printed in Spanish, and later in Latin and other languages. Ultimately, they were the ones who were most interested in enlarging their empire. But what if it was Columbus? He too wanted to magnify his exploits believing, after all, that he had arrived at the lands of the Ganges by a different route. Whatever the case, the letter was published for the first time in Spanish at Pere Posa's printshop in Barcelona and later, a second edition was published in Latin, in Rome, by a renowned printer, and it was this second edition that became the model for later versions. In all there were nine editions and a total of 17 versions. It is one of life's ironies that Columbus was unaware of his real discovery, a discovery that changed the world, and he died believing that on four occasions he had visited the Indies beyond the Ganges.
 

Image of the real letter next to the copy (Biblioteca de Catalunya)

2004 – 2005

If you go down Carrer Hospital, in the heart of the Raval district of Barcelona, and turn to the right, you come to the courtyard of the Biblioteca de Catalunya, an iconic institution that has, since 1918, been the custodian of one of the versions of Columbus's letter.
 
In 2004 or 2005, somebody went inside, passed through all the security systems, and asked to see the original letter. So far so good. All the protocols had been observed. It is not known what happened next but at that moment a theft took place that would remain unresolved for almost a decade. The four sheets of the letter were replaced by an almost perfect forgery. One of the most important documents in history had just been removed and secretly taken from the library, possibly in a jacket pocket.
Biblioteca de Catalunya (Bob Masters/Departament de Cultura)

A new journey begins

The letter reappeared some years later in a Paris bookshop. A couple of years previously an antiquarian bookseller had bought it from some Italian art dealers for a sum of around €600,000. In fact, this time in New York, however, the same antiquarian bookseller bought it again. The famous letter seemed to be imitating Columbus's epic journey, although it has not been possible to establish the exact the route it took.
 
It is known, however, that at a book fair held in San Francisco in 2011, a private collector spotted the valuable document and it once again appeared in New York, was acquired for the sum of almost a million euros, and began a new journey, this time to Brazil.

The suspicions of the FBI and INTERPOL were aroused; something strange was going on. Another robbery had come to light, this time of another example of the same letter, from the Ricardiana library in Florence. The same method might have been used in Florence as in Barcelona, and the police investigating the case start following the clues. The Biblioteca de Catalunya is informed and the worst fears are confirmed because, thanks to the digitalisation of the document, something that was done shortly prior to its theft, it was possible to compare the samples sent and confirm that the letter in the library's collection was a forgery, a very good forgery, but a forgery nevertheless.

Paris (Chris Molloy/Pexels)
San Francisco (Pixabay/Pexels)

 

The letter returns to port

In 2018 the letter was delivered to the Spanish ambassador to the USA and then kept in the vault at the Ministry of Culture and Sport until, in 2021, the so-called Epistola de insulis nuper inventis was returned to the Biblioteca de Catalunya.
 
The return of Columbus's letter to the library where it had been kept for so many years before its theft marks the end of its unresolved vicissitudes. The document is, without doubt, of enormous historical value since it provides a window into the past and onto a far-off world, but one we can rediscover through each of the lines written by a man whose name is eternal thanks to a journey that was never imagined.
Biblioteca de Catalunya (Bob Masters/Departament de Cultura)

Do you want to read the letter that changed the world?

You can find it in the Digital Memory of Catalonia, a cooperative open-access repositori containing digitized Collection related to Catalonia and its heritage.