Author Description

This book is about the discoverer's true identity. David Sarfaty proposes a new set of findings. The discoverer's name was Cristobal Colom. He was a Catalan born in Mallorca. His parents were merchants who made their living from seaborne commerce. Born in the year 1436, the year following the forced baptism of Mallorca's Jewish community, he learned his catechism at the local parish church and of his Jewish heritage at home. The Monarchs addressed him as Colon, as demanded by the king, to hide the fact that, as the king's subject, he had sailed on the other side in the civil war. The king also feared the discoverer's fame and his proven patriotism and faithfulness would undermine the Spanish Inquisition's campaign against "faithless" New Christians, seen as indispensable for ending Judaism in Spain. The king removed two of the discoverer's high titles as being inconsistent with the royal agenda and the Reconquista's objectives. Genoa's chroniclers did their religious duty and wrote that the discoverer was the wool-worker Cristoforo Colombo. The king had his way, but so did the discoverer, who left clues of his identity behind.