Domenico Colombo

Domenico Colombo (English: Dominic Columbus, Genoese: Domenego Corombo) (1418–1496) was the father of navigator Christopher Columbus and Bartholomew Columbus. He was also a middle-class weaver.

There is speculation that the Dominican Republic, the island on which the younger Columbus first landed when reaching the New World, was named after Domenico.^[1]

Biography

Domenico was born in 1418. He had three brothers, who were called Franceschino, Giacomo and Bertino.^[2][3]

Statue of Domenico’s son Christopher Columbus

His father, Giovanni Colombo, had apprenticed him to the loom at age 11. Domenico, a third-generation master of his craft in Genoa, was also a shopkeeper. His position was secure and respectable in the lower middle class, but he did not have a firm work ethic. He was a poor provider but was generally liked in his community.

In the boisterous, enterprising spirit of Genoa, he worked as a cheese maker, tavern keeper and dealer in wool and wine. He married Susanna Fontanarossa.^[4] Their firstborn was Christopher,^[5] in 1451; Giovanni Pellegrino, Bartholomew,^[6] Giacomo, and daughter Bianchinetta were born after.

When he was found in financial difficulty, he was helped economically from Christopher. Forsaking the loom, two of his sons – Bartholomew and Christopher – went to the sea. If Domenico had, however, been prosperous, Christopher might have spent his entire life at a loom.

Domenico’s daughter-in-law was Filipa Moniz Perestrelo^[7] and his grandsons were Diego Columbus and Ferdinand Columbus.^[8] He also had one natural granddaughter, Maria.

Notes

1. ↑ Partido Revolucionario Dominicano. "Leyenda e Historia Envuelven la Fundación de Santo Domingo. Accessed 18 October 2011. (Spanish)
2. ↑ (Spanish) De Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo Fernández. Historia general y natural de las Indias, islas y tierra-firme del mar océano (Volume I). Real Acad. de la Historia, 1851. p. 12. Retrieved 2011-11-10.
3. ↑ (Spanish) De Oviedo y Valdés, Gonzalo Fernández. "Historia general y natural de las Indias, islas y tierra-firme del mar océano" (Volume III). Real Acad. de la Historia, 1855. Retrieved 2011-02-06.
4. ↑ Encyclopædia Britannica, 1993 ed., Vol. 16, pp. 605ff / Morison, Christopher Columbus, 1955 ed., pp. 14ff
5. ↑ Phillips, William D., and Carla Rahn Phillips. The Worlds of Christopher Columbus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Page 9.
   "Even with less than a complete record, however, scholars can state with assurance that Columbus was born in the republic of Genoa in northern Italy, although perhaps not in the city itself, and that his family made a living in the wool business as weavers and merchants... The two main early biographies of Columbus have been taken as literal truth by hundreds of writers, in large part because they were written by individual closely connected to Columbus or his writings. Both biographies have serious shortcomings as evidence."
6. ↑ Ra Gerusalemme deliverâ, Genoa, 1745, XV-32.
7. ↑ Freitas, Antonio Maria de (1893). The Wife of Columbus: With Genealogical Tree of the Perestrello and Moniz Families. New York: Stettinger, Lambert & Co. 
8. ↑ Irving, Washington (1828). A history of the life and voyages of Christopher Columbus, Volume 3. New York, New York: G. & C. Carvill. p. 232.