Ferdinand Columbus: Print Collector
Mark McDonald introduces an earlier Spaniard with a famous name who made an art collection in the Low Countries.
In the cultural and intellectual histories of the Renaissance, one fascinating figure has been largely overlooked: Ferdinand Columbus, illegitimate son of the explorer Christopher Columbus and his mistress Beatriz Enríquez. At the age of twelve he took part in his father’s troubled fourth and final voyage to the New World in 1502, compiling an account of that journey. He later became without doubt the greatest bibliophile and print collector of his day. At the time of his death in 1539, his library in Seville contained over 15,000 books and manuscripts and more than 3,200 prints – the largest such collection in Europe at the time. Today only a fraction of the books survive and the print collection has vanished.
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