“Jews could only spend three days at a time in Genoa by law at that time,” said Mr Albardaner.
“There were around 200,000 Jews living in Spain in Columbus’s time. In the Italian peninsula, it is estimated that there were only between 10,000 and 15,000. There was a much larger Jewish population in Sicily of around 40,000, but we should remember that Sicily, in Columbus’s time, belonged to the Crown of Aragon.”
Mr Albardaner said his research has shown that Columbus was from a family of Jewish silk spinners from the Valencia region.
Analysis of the around 40 letters signed by Columbus that have been preserved show that his writing in Castilian Spanish was free of any Italian influences, with researchers pointing out that he even wrote letters to a bank in Genoa in Spanish.
In the same year of 1492 that Columbus landed on Guanahani, in the Bahamas, Spain’s Catholic monarchs – Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon – ordered the expulsion of all Jews who did not agree to convert to Christianity.