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From: "XANANA G." <>
Subject: Cristovao Colombo/ Historia de Portugal (long)
Date: 7 Dec 1998 00:28:02 GMT


> From: Paulo Miguel Brito <>

- CRISTOVAO COLOMBO
>In Spain,CC was known as "the portuguese", not only because he lived
there,
> but he didnt stop writing and talking in Portuguese...

AHAAAaaa! And probably he never learned how to speak Genoese?!?

> : Do you know where the "story" of CC really starts? When he survivesto
> : a shipwreck and swims to the beach in the PORTUGUESE COAST.

Is it or is it not this the "true" legend ?

> Actually, CC has always the nationality (or even was born in the region)
> of the person that suggests each theory... which is very interesting.

So, why would he be from Genoa, and not from Beja or Evora or Setubal ?!?

> : For me,he was born in Portugal and sent to Spain to deturn the
attention
> : of the "very catholic Kings" from what the Portuguese were up to(they
were
> : about to reach India, discovered South America probably in the 1450's,
> : etc....)

> This portuguese CC theory is very interesting (and would give a great
> novel) but what about some real proofs to back it up???
> I guess you are talking about the secret agent theory of Mascarenhas
> Barreto... Its very interesting but until more convincing proofs are
> presented its a complete nonsense...

So, you would say that other theories (like the big bang, relativity,
etc.) are also interesting but until more convincing proofs are presented
its a complete nonsense... ?
BTW. I heard about Mascarenhas Barreto theories but never read his books.

THE PORTUGUESE IN SOUTH AMERICA IN THE 1450's

Have you ever heard about Bianco's map?

Right now I have a reproduction of Andrea Bianco's map before my eyes. It
is published in p. xxxii (Roman numerals) of Vol. 1 of the *Historia da
Colonizao Portuguesa do Brasil*, vol. I, dated Oporto [Porto], 1921. This
introduction was written by the general editor of the series, Carlos
Malheiros Dias, and summarizes (sort of) in a hundred of so pages the
evidence for 14th and 15th century travels to America and to Brazil.
Malheiros Dias doesn't mention Sinclair, but discusses the Bianco map in a
couple of pages. I have in this computer a .tiff or .jpeg line copy of the
image in Malheiros Dias, and would be happy to send it to whomever wanted
to see if it; in fact, looks like a map of Northern Brazil in relation to
Africa (restricted to the Mina and to the Gulf of Guin).

J. Batalha Reis found this map and published a paper on it, ``The supposed
discovery of South America before 1448,'' *Geographical Journal* London
Feb. 1897. (I don't have that reference, but am going to ask our librarian
on Monday for it.)

Looking at the map, you can see sketched what looks like the Amazon mouth,
and to the right of it, `ixola otinticha. se lunga a ponente 1500 mia.'
Authentic island. Distant from the West 1500 miles. Distance is to be
counted from the gulf in Africa. You can also read as a signature,
...de.galia.mi.fexe.a.londra.m.cccc.xxxx.viij which goes as, from Gaul
[France] made me in London 1448.

When Pero Alvares Cabral arrived in Brazil in 22 April 1500, several
letters were sent to Dom Manuel, King of Portugal from the discovery's
site. Two still exist. The first one is the well-known Caminha letter; the
second one, much shorter, is the letter from Mestre Joam (Master John, a
physician to the King). I'll quote it now, first in Spanish - Spanish and
Portuguese were used interchangeably as semi--official languages in the
Portuguese court - and then in English:

O bacherel mestre Johan fisjco e irurgyano de vosa alteza beso vosas
rreales manos. [...] quanto Seor al sytyo desta terra mande vosa alteza
traer un napamundi qur tyrne pero vaaz bisagudo e por ay podrra ver vosa
alteza el sytyo desta terra, en pero aquel napamundi non ertyfica esta
terra ser habytada, o no; es napamundi antiguo e ally fallara vosa alteza
tan byen la mina; ...

Reference: *Os Sete Unicos Documentos de 1500*, official publication,
Lisbon, 1968, p. 109.

Translation:
Bachelor Master Joo, physiciand and surgeon to your highness, I kiss your
royal hands [...] As for the place of this land, your highness should send
for a world map in the possession of Pero Vaz Bisagudo; there you can see
the place of this land. It isn't shown in that map whether the place is
inhabited; it's an old world map and there you can also find the [Coast of]
Mina.

Now for genealogy: who was Pero Vaz da Cunha, o Bisagudo? (Viso Agudo:
Sharp Features, a nickname). Despite his old name, Cunha, which he received
from his mother's family, he was of recent, bourgeois origins, as the gson
of Alvaro Pais, one of the bourgeois leaders of the Aviz revolution in
1383. He was an experienced sailor, who had commanded an expedition to
Africa in 1489 (this I quote from memory, but you can verify it easily).
Moreover - as anyone with access to a standard Portuguese lineage book can
verify - he was a guncle to Afonso de Albuquerque, another very important
Portuguese explorator, and to many people who later came to Brazil, like
Dr. Tom de Sousa, the country's first governor-general, half a century
later.

Columbus married in the Madeira, in 1480?, a girl from a family of
experienced explorers. He was sponsored by a powerful Genoese consortium
whose main managers had representatives in the Madeira at precisely that
time. I mean, he was a delegate of Lodisio Centurione, a wealthy merchant
who had just substituted (with Lazzaro Doria) the Medici as the papal
bankers. Pick up Battilana: again you can very easily trace the family
relationships between Battista Lomellini (search the Rootsweb files for his
pedigree, which I've posted here a few months ago), Lodisio Doria (who left
issue in the Madeira) and Lodisio Centurione. To me, it looks like several
consortia were on an expansion drive in the Western direction; the Genoese
had already some knowledge about Atlantic (trans-Atlantic?) navigation -
there is the frustrated Vivaldi expedition of 1291, sponsored by Tedisio
Doria. The Portuguese knew a lot about it, but many things were kept in
secrecy - Columbus' brother in law, Pedro Correia da Cunha, lord of
Graciosa, was also closely related to the Bisagudo and had Albuquerque
blood in his veins. I think that he never believed what they told him, that
there was a huge mass of land between Europe and Asia in the Western
direction. I also think that this was the main reason why the King of
Portugal, who was no fool, refused Columbus' plans; he knew it couldn't be
done because America was in the middle of the way. And also this explains
the swift Portuguese reaction after the Intercoetera bull of 1493, which
led to the Tordesillas treaty of 1494. Portuguese negotiators were Ruy Leme
(a brother of Antonio Leme, who according to Columbus' himself, had been
here (in Brazil) in 1471) and Duarte Pacheco Pereira, also involved in this
controversy.

That's my opinion.
(by Francisco Antonio Doria-Brasil)


> I suggest you to read what real historicians like
> Prof. Luis de Albuquerque thought about that....
> Until someone really proves otherwise Colombo (or Colon), btw Colombo
> means pidgeon in italian, is genovese, or he was born in Genoa, and
> was a citizen of the world...

And your name BRITO means "briton" ("breto" in Portuguese) in ancient
gaelic. Does it makes you a british??
:-))
And was C.C. his real name?
Doesn't Colon also means "colon", i.e. guts ("tripa" in Portuguese) so he
could be a tripeiro (a person from Oporto - Portugal). :-))

Some more words about the marriage of Columbus:

No marriage record for Columbus was ever found. Felipa Moniz (not Moniz
Perestrello; her brothers only incorporated the Perestrello name c. 1500)
was born in the Madeira. Columbus is known to have been in the Madeira in
1478, and in Genova in 1479, where he appears in a lawsuit by Lodisio
Centurione - he owed Centurione thru Paolo di Negro some sugar boxes. Then
in 1481 he is again on the road, with a babe in his arms and no wife. If
there ever was one such marriage, it must have happened in the Madeira in
late 1479 or early 1480; and most certainly Felipa Moniz died in
childbirth.

Who was Felipa Moniz? Bartolommeo Palastrelli (Perestrelo, in Portuguese),
her father, was an able sailor of not fully illibate behavior. His first
(or perhaps only legal) wife, one Catarina Furtado de Mendoa, is
conjectured to have been a lady of good nobility, certainly above
Perestrello's, the daughter of Afonso Furtado. They had three daughters,
with known issue until today.

He then either had a liaison - a common-law marriage - or legally married
Isabel Moniz. Who was she? Peragallo mentions that she had a brother named
Diogo. Most authors follow Braancamp Freire's assertion that she was the
sister of Vasco Gil Moniz, ancestor of the Moniz de Lusignan family in
Portugal. (Representative today: the marquess de Sampaio.) Chronological
considerations make this hypothesis impossible - Vasco Gil was born in the
late 14th century, while Isabel Moniz must have been born c. 1435. Best fit
is to take her as the sister of Diogo Moniz, alcaide-mor of Silves, and
sister of Vasco Martins Moniz, who settled in the Madeira and started there
the Moniz Barreto family. They were of very obscure origins, but related
thru female lines to the great Meneses family - Vasco Martins Moniz was the
son of Henrique Moniz and Ins de Meneses, descended from Dom Pedro de
Meneses, conde de Viana. I wonder whether Isabel Moniz wasn't in fact
illegitimate.

She had 5 children with Bartolommeo Perestrello: Bartolomeu Moniz,
Cristvo Moniz, Filipa Moniz, Violante Moniz and Briolanja Moniz.
Cristvo was a friar in the Carmelite convent in Lisbon, where he became
prior and later was consecrated a bishop (c. 1510, I think, in his old
age). Violante and Briolanja married merchants established at Cdiz, and
Bartolomeu fought in the courts for the right to inherit the captaincy of
porto Santo. When he finally won, he changed his name from Moniz to
Perestrello.

I can only explain the name Moniz thru an illegitimacy: Isabel and
Bartolommeo the Elder never married. However this is just a conjecture.
Filipa's three half-sisters were married to middle-level noblemen with
important connections in Lisbon: Pedro Correia da Cunha, lord of Graciosa,
and Mem Rodrigues de Vasconcellos, a cadet of the powerful Vasconcellos
clan. Let me just note that they left many, many descendants this side of
the Atlantic, thru the marriage between Antonio de Oliveira Carvalhal and
Luisa de Mello de Vasconcellos, whose father was a gson of both Pedro
Correia and Mem Rodrigues.
(by Francisco Doria - RJ - Brasil)


Xanana G.
Lisboa-Portugal

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