FLORENCE, ITALY – The letter where Christopher Columbus announced the discovery of the New World to the Spanish royal family, stolen from Florence’s Riccardiana library and given back a few weeks ago by US authorities, is now displayed at the Rome’s Museo storico dell’Arma dei Carabinieri.
It is included in the Arte Ritrovata exhibition with many other important pieces found by the Italian and International authorities, as a Canaletto and a funerary stele from excavations in Palmyra.
The free exhibition in piazza del Risorgimento (from June 9, 2016 to July 3, 2016) includes masterpieces and archaeological finds recovered by the Italian military police Carabinieri’s section focusing on artistic heritage protection.
Columbus’ letter on the first voyage is the first known document announcing the results of the first voyage of Columbus that set out in 1492 and reached the Americas. The letter was ostensibly written by Columbus himself, on February 15, 1493, aboard the caravel Niña, while still at sea, on the return leg of his voyage.
A post-script was added upon his arrival in Lisbon on March 4, 1493, and it was probably from there that Columbus dispatched two copies of his letter to the Spanish court. The original Columbus letter will soon be replaced in the Florence’s Riccardiana library.