The document dated 1493 announcing to the Catholic kings the discovery of the New World had disappeared from the National Library of Catalonia a decade ago.
Incunabula of Christopher Columbus, dating from 1493, stolen and returned to Spain on June 8, 2018.
No one had noticed anything! For years, the invaluable original - kept in the National Library of Catalonia in Barcelona (Spain) - of a letter sent by Christopher Columbus to the Most Catholic Kings Isabella 1 st of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, announcing to them his discovery of the unsuspected lands of the New World (1492), had been surreptitiously replaced… by a fake! The original version of the "Epistola Cristophori Colom De Insulis Indiae supra Gangem nuper inventis (The Islands of India beyond the Ganges* ), published in Rome by Stephen Plannck in 1493, having simply been stolen from everyone's face...
After seven years of an investigation worthy of the best detective stories, Spanish Civil Guard special units have announced that they have finally recovered her, thanks to the help of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Service. . A document whose value is all the more invaluable in that it is an incunabula, as the first printed matter in the history of mankind are called, produced thanks to the invention of the type printing system. mobiles by Johannes Gutemberg (1400-1468). The precious folios were in the State of Delaware (USA), in the hands of a buyer apparently unaware that it was a stolen original. They were officially handed over to the Spanish Ambassador in Washington on Wednesday, June 6, 2018.
Ceremony of delivery of the letter of Christopher Columbus at the Spanish Embassy in Washington (DC), June 6, 2018. Source:Twitter
Everyone still does not know the name of the clever criminal who managed to replace the original with a fake without those responsible for the library of Catalonia realizing it, nor on what date the crime took place. “In the United States, the police investigation really began in 2011 when the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency learned that the letter was on the market and its dealers were looking for a wealthy buyer “, explains the Spanish daily El Pais who relates the case. Alerted, the library of Catalonia then appealed to an expert, who confirmed in 2012 that the document kept in Barcelona was indeed a fake.
It is perhaps through this same expert that the case was probably partly resolved! It was indeed to him that the last potential buyer of the stolen letter had recently chosen to appeal, keen to verify the authenticity of the document offered to him... The specialist then managed to convince him to hand over the letter to the authorities. . The opportunity for investigators to discover the eventful journey of the invaluable missive which had already changed hands twice since its theft! First sold for 600,000 euros "by two Italians" in 2005, it was then acquired in Brazil in 2009 for one million dollars...
Christopher Columbus announcing his discovery to Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, on his return from the New World , in 1493. ©Josse/Leemage/AFP
The unknown author of this unusual theft is perhaps not his first attempt. Indeed, 16 copies of this letter from Christopher Columbus are preserved around the world, the latter having been "printed" in Latin in several copies as early as 1493 to allow the incredible news to be disseminated throughout Europe. However, the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia - who also relays this information - recalls that the same stratagem had been used at the Riccardiana Library in Florence (Italy) as well as at the Holy See (Vatican) where two other versions of this shipment were. To date, only the first letter has been found - also in the United States - and returned to Italy in 2016.
Portrait of Christopher Columbus, author unknown. ©Leemage/AFP
* wanting to reach Asia from the west, the Genoese navigator imagined himself at the forefront of Asia, - India beyond the Ganges - reached via the Atlantic, when he had just discovered the New World... and the American continent.