Christoph Kolumbus: Korsar und Kreuzfahrer (review)

After the smoke cleared from the fiery 1992 debates regarding the image of Christopher Columbus, a new biography of the admiral in German by Corina Bucher was published in 2006, five hundred years after his death. On one hand, the quincentenary of the first voyage provoked harsh criticism of Columbus by revisionist historians and indigenous groups seeking to promote their contemporary agendas; and on the other hand, a more thorough investigation of the primary sources—principally Columbus’s own writings—was welcomed by other scholars searching for the authentic Columbus in the context of fifteenth-century Europe. The clash of assessments is graphically illustrated by Leonardo Lasansky’s modern caricature of Columbus (James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota), in contrast to the drawing of Columbus as “Christ Bearer” on the 1500 map of Juan de la Cosa who sailed with Columbus (Museo Naval, Madrid; Bucher, p. 190).

Bucher, a historian at the University of Zurich, has built on the vast body of Columbian scholarship, especially those primary sources recently published in translation—some for the first time. The older sources include Historia de las Indias by Bartolomé de Las Casas (completed 1561, published 1875) and Historie (1571) by Columbus’s second son, Ferdinand Columbus. A valuable resource is the Italian government’s 1892–96 publication of the grand Raccolta di documenti e studi (14 volumes). A collection of Columbus’s writings made available on the eve of the quincentenary is Cristóbal Colón: textos y documentos completos (Madrid, 1984), edited by Consuelo Varela. Also in 1984, Testimonio Compañía Editorial produced the marvelous facsimile of the complete text of Columbus’s Libro de las profecías (1502) along with facsimiles of the admiral’s own books with his marginal annotations (Marcus Polus deVenetiis, Imago Mundi, Historia rerum ubique gestarum) that contributed to the idea of the Enterprise of the Indies—all preserved in the Biblioteca Colombina in the Cathedral of Seville. Until recent times, Columbus’s Book of Prophecies, with numerous citations from the Vulgate Bible and authoritative Scholastic writings, had been dismissed and never seriously studied. Bucher, however, values the work of Alain Milhou and Pauline Moffitt Watts who first signaled the importance of the Book of Prophecies in understanding Columbus’s spirituality. Columbus, a student of the Bible and the writings of the Church Fathers and Scholastics (St. Augustine, St. Isidore of Seville, Joachim of Fiore, St. Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Lyra, and so on), clearly outlined the vision of the Great Enterprise and his motivations in the prefatory letter of his Book of Prophecies. Columbus also came under the influence of the Spanish Franciscans who were students of Bible prophecy. In his own mind, Columbus was the “new” David who would liberate Jerusalem from Muslim domination and finance the rebuilding of the Temple with gold from the Indies, thus preparing the way for the second coming of Christ. For modern-day people, this kind of thinking is hard to comprehend, but Columbus’s religious and intellectual formation was a product of the Middle Ages and the spirit of the crusades. His messianic spirit led to the phenomenal expansion of Christianity in the New World and directed the course of history into the future.

Although Bucher strongly documents the image of Columbus as crusader, the hypothesis of Columbus’s career as corsair before 1476—the year of his arrival in Portugal—may be the stuff of myth, given the shrouded details of his early life. There is no hard evidence other than Ferdinand’s confusing references to two famous corsairs nicknamed Columbus and a quote from a now lost letter Christopher Columbus allegedly wrote about his sea adventures aboard a Genoese armed ship in service of René d’Anjou. Historians are wary of other unfounded claims by Ferdinand. Nevertheless, Mediterranean corsairs were prevalent in the experience of mariners in that chaotic period of religious and political wars.

Bucher investigates the mysteries surrounding Columbus’s origin and the location of...