El Nuevo Mundo

by Christopher Columbus, Cristóbal Colón, Amerigo Vespucci

Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here.

Este volumen contiene dos testimonios fundamentales para el conocimiento del Nuevo Mundo. El primero es la carta de Cristóbal Colón (1450-1506) a Luis de Santángel, su protector y amigo, del 15 de febrero de 1493, cuando luego de descubrir varias islas antillanas regresaba a Europa. El segundo testimonio lo constituye la carta que el cosmógrafo, cartógrafo y marino Américo Vespucio, nacido en Florencia (1451-1512), escribió al “magnífico señor” Lorenzo de Médicis, magante florentino, dándole cuenta de su “viaje y de las cosas más maravillosas que se me han ofrecido” en su navegación a lo largo del mar Océano, iniciada el 18 de mayo de 1499. La misiva de Colón fue impresa en Barcelona en 1493, las de Vespucio lo fueron a partir de 1504. Con la información contenida en éstas últimas, Martin Waldseemüller hizo un mapa y en las tierras descritas por Vespucio, colocó el nombre de América, bautizando así al continente.

57 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

Christopher Columbus (c. 1451–1506) was a Genoese navigator, colonizer and explorer whose voyages across the Atlantic Ocean led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. Although not the first to reach the Americas from Europe—he was preceded by the Norse, led by Leif Ericson, who built a temporary settlement 500 years earlier at L'Anse aux Meadows — Columbus initiated widespread contact between Europeans and indigenous Americans. With his four voyages of discovery and several attempts at establishing a settlement on the island of Hispaniola, all funded by Queen Isabella of Spain, he initiated the process of Spanish colonization which foreshadowed general European colonization of the "New World." (The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.)

His initial 1492 voyage came at a critical time of growing national imperialism and economic competition between developing nation states seeking wealth from the establishment of trade routes and colonies. In this sociopolitical climate, Columbus's far-fetched scheme won the attention of Queen Isabella of Spain. Severely underestimating the circumference of the Earth, he estimated that a westward route from Iberia to the Indies would be shorter and more direct than the overland trade route through Arabia. If true, this would allow Spain entry into the lucrative spice trade — heretofore commanded by the Arabs and Italians. Following his plotted course, he instead landed within the Bahamas Archipelago at a locale he named San Salvador. Mistaking the North-American island for the East-Asian mainland, he referred to its inhabitants as "Indios".

Academic consensus is that Columbus was born in Genoa, though there are other theories. The name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. The original name in 15th century Genoese language was Christoffa Corombo. The name is rendered in modern Italian as Cristoforo Colombo, in Portuguese as Cristóvão Colombo (formerly Christovam Colom), and in Spanish as Cristóbal Colón.

The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is observed as Columbus Day on October 12 in Spain and throughout the Americas, except that in the United States it is observed on the second Monday in October.

Reviews

[William Lozano-Rivas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Estás dos largas cartas son excelentes y valiosos testimonios de las primeras impresiones que tuvieron Cristóbal Colón y Américo Vespucio, en viajes cercanos e independientes por las tierras americanas. Ambos exploradores quedaron maravillados con lo que veían en naturaleza, costumbres, forma de organizarse, comida e, incluso, por la existencia de vino de fruta y arquitectura palafítica hecha con "mucho arte", a la manera en que los venecianos hacían la suya.

[Rhodas Roux · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imaginar el pasado a través de un español antiguo.