Columbus’ role in history has been overblown. There were English fishermen fishing off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1400s. They kept it secret because they didn’t want the French and Portuguese moving in and ruining the great fishing. Viking explorer Lief Ericson got to the Canadian Maritime in the eleventh century CE. Look at a map: Greenland was well known to Europeans and only a short hop from what is now Canada. America would have been “discovered” by someone or other; Columbus merely was the first one to publicize it when he bumped into some Caribbean islands accidentally.
Regarding honoring Italians: Columbus (who was calling himself by the Spanish equivalent Cristobol Colon by then) had long before abandoned his native Genoa. He was sailing for Spain’s queen Isabella, a religious fanatic who thought a route to the East would open up a European conquest and forced conversions to Christianity. Statues to truly great Italians such as Verdi, Fermi, Garibaldi, and others would honor Italian people far better than a statue of Columbus would.
Columbus’ role in history has been overblown. There were English fishermen fishing off the coast of Newfoundland in the early 1400s. They kept it secret because they didn’t want the French and Portuguese moving in and ruining the great fishing. Viking explorer Lief Ericson got to the Canadian Maritime in the eleventh century CE. Look at a map: Greenland was well known to Europeans and only a short hop from what is now Canada. America would have been “discovered” by someone or other; Columbus merely was the first one to publicize it when he bumped into some Caribbean islands accidentally.
Regarding honoring Italians: Columbus (who was calling himself by the Spanish equivalent Cristobol Colon by then) had long before abandoned his native Genoa. He was sailing for Spain’s queen Isabella, a religious fanatic who thought a route to the East would open up a European conquest and forced conversions to Christianity. Statues to truly great Italians such as Verdi, Fermi, Garibaldi, and others would honor Italian people far better than a statue of Columbus would.