Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed four Spanish-based voyages across the Atlantic Ocean sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and European colonization of the Americas. His expeditions were the first known European contact with the Caribbean and Central and South America.
Posthumous portrait by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1519
Christopher Columbus House in Genoa, Italy, an 18th-century reconstruction of the house in which Columbus grew up. The original was likely destroyed during the 1684 bombardment of Genoa.
Colombo giovinetto, sculpture of young Columbus by Giulio Monteverde, Genoa
Portrait of Christopher Columbus preserved in the Library of Congress of the United States of America – 19th century copy from an engraving by Aliprando Caprioli
Voyages of Christopher Columbus
Between 1492 and 1504, the Italian navigator and explorer Christopher Columbus led four transatlantic maritime expeditions in the name of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain to the Caribbean and to Central and South America. These voyages led to the widespread knowledge of the New World. This breakthrough inaugurated the period known as the Age of Discovery, which saw the colonization of the Americas, a related biological exchange, and trans-Atlantic trade. These events, the effects and consequences of which persist to the present, are often cited as the beginning of the modern era.
Handwritten notes by Christopher Columbus on the Latin edition of Marco Polo's Le livre des merveilles
A conjectural replica of the Niña
A replica of the Pinta in Palos de la Frontera, Huelva
A replica of the Santa María at West Edmonton Mall
