A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range (using scientific pitch notation, where middle C = C₄) from approximately middle C (C₄) to "high A" (A₅) in choral music, or to "soprano C" (C₆, two octaves above middle C) or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody. For other styles of singing see Voice classification in non-classical music.

Typically, the term "soprano" refers to female singers but at times the term "male soprano" has been used by men who sing in the soprano vocal range using falsetto vocal production instead of the modal voice. This practice is most commonly found in the context of choral music in England. However, these men are more commonly referred to as countertenors or sopranists. The practice of referring to countertenors as "male sopranos" is somewhat controversial within vocal pedagogical circles as these men do not produce sound in the same physiological way that female sopranos do. The singer Michael Maniaci is the only known man who can refer to himself as a true male soprano because he is able to sing in the soprano vocal range using the modal voice as a woman would. He is able to do this because his larynx never fully developed during puberty.

In choral music, the term soprano refers to a vocal part or line and not a voice type. Male singers whose voices have not yet changed and are singing the soprano line are technically known as "trebles". The term "boy soprano" is often used as well, but this is just a colloquialism and not the correct term.

Historically, women were not allowed to sing in the Church so the soprano roles were given to young boys and later to castrati—men whose larynxes had been fixed in a pre-adolescent state through the process of castration.

The term soprano may also be used to refer to a member of an instrumental family with the highest range such as the soprano saxophone.

Types and roles in opera

In opera, the tessitura, vocal weight, and timbre of soprano voices, and the roles they sing, are commonly categorized into voice types, often called ( , from German or , "vocal category"). A singer's tessitura is where the voice has the best timbre, easy volume, and most comfort. For instance a soprano and a mezzo-soprano may have a similar range, but their tessituras will lie in different parts of that range.

The low extreme for sopranos is roughly B₃ or A₃ (just below middle C). Often low notes in higher voices project less, lack timbre, and tend to "count less" in roles (although some Verdi, Strauss and Wagner roles call for stronger singing below the staff). Rarely is a soprano simply unable to sing a low note in a song within a soprano role.

The high extreme: at a minimum, non-coloratura sopranos have to reach "soprano C" (C₆ two octaves above middle C), and many roles in the standard repertoire call for C₆ or D₆. A couple of roles have optional E₆’s, as well. In the coloratura repertoire several roles call for E₆ on up to F₆. In rare cases, some coloratura roles go as high as G₆ or G₆ such as Mozart's concert aria "Popoli di Tessaglia", or role of Dinorah in Meyerbeer's opera ''Le pardon de Ploërmel''. While not necessarily within the tessitura, a good soprano will be able to sing her top notes full-throated, with timbre and dynamic control.

The following are the operatic soprano classifications (see individual articles for roles and singers):

Coloratura soprano

Lyric coloratura soprano—A very agile light voice with a high upper extension, capable of fast vocal coloratura. Light coloraturas have a range of approximately middle C (C4) to "high F" (F6) with some coloratura sopranos being able to sing somewhat higher or lower.

Dramatic coloratura soprano—A coloratura soprano with great flexibility in high-lying velocity passages, yet with great sustaining power comparable to that of a full spinto or dramatic soprano. Dramatic coloraturas have a range of approximately "low B" (B3) to "high F" (F6) with some coloratura sopranos being able to sing somewhat higher or lower.

Soubrette

In classical music and opera, the term soubrette refers to both a voice type and a particular type of opera role. A soubrette voice is light with a bright, sweet timbre, a tessitura in the mid-range, and with no extensive coloratura. The soubrette voice is not a weak voice for it must carry over an orchestra without a microphone like all voices in opera. The voice however has a lighter vocal weight than other soprano voices with a brighter timbre. Many young singers start out as soubrettes but as they grow older and the voice matures more physically they may be reclassified as another voice type, usually either a light lyric soprano, a lyric coloratura soprano, or a coloratura mezzo-soprano. Rarely does a singer remain a soubrette throughout their entire career. A soubrette's range extends approximately from middle C (C4) to "high D" (D6). The tessitura of the soubrette tends to lie a bit lower than the lyric soprano and spinto soprano.

Lyric soprano

A warm voice with a bright, full timbre, which can be heard over a big orchestra. It generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenues and other sympathetic characters in opera. Lyric sopranos have a range from approximately middle C (C₄) to "high D" (D₆). There is a tendency to divide lyric sopranos into two groups:

Light lyric soprano—A light-lyric soprano has a bigger voice than a soubrette but still possesses a youthful quality. Full lyric soprano —A full-lyric soprano has a more mature sound than a light-lyric soprano and can be heard over a bigger orchestra.

Spinto soprano

Also lirico-spinto, Italian for "pushed lyric". This voice has the brightness and height of a lyric soprano, but can be "pushed" to dramatic climaxes without strain, and may have a somewhat darker timbre. Spinto sopranos have a range from approximately middle C (C₄) to "high D" (D₆).

Dramatic soprano

A dramatic soprano (or ''soprano robusto'') has a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over a full orchestra. Usually (but not always) this voice has a lower tessitura than other sopranos, and a darker timbre. Dramatic sopranos have a range from approximately middle C (C4) to "high D" (D6).

Some dramatic sopranos, known as Wagnerian sopranos, have a very big voice that can assert itself over an exceptionally large orchestra (over eighty pieces). These voices are substantial and very powerful and ideally even throughout the registers.

Intermediate voice types

Two types of soprano especially dear to the French are the ''Dugazon'' and the ''Falcon'', which are intermediate voice types between the soprano and the mezzo-soprano: a Dugazon is a darker-colored soubrette, a Falcon a darker-colored soprano drammatico.

See also

Bel canto

List of sopranos in non-classical music

References

Further reading

External links

Beverly Sills in the title role from Donizetti's ''Linda di Chamounix''—an example of a Lyric coloratura soprano

Joan Sutherland singing the title role from Donizetti's ''Lucrezia Borgia''—an example of a Dramatic coloratura soprano

Dawn Upshaw as Susanna in Mozart's ''The Marriage of Figaro''—an example of a Soubrette

Lucia Popp as Pamina in Mozart's ''The Magic Flute''—an example of a Light lyric soprano

Kiri Te Kanawa as Marguerite in Gounod's ''Faust''—an example of a Full lyric soprano

Leontyne Price in the title role of Puccini's ''Tosca''—an example of a Spinto soprano

Jessye Norman in the title role of Strauss' ''Ariadne auf Naxos''—an example of a Dramatic soprano'

Birgit Nilsson as Isolde in Wagner's ''Tristan und Isolde''—an example of a Wagnerian soprano

Category:Vocal music Category:Voice types Category:Opera terminology Category:Italian loanwords Category:Pitch (music)

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Coordinates	31°6′12″N77°10′20″N
real name	Anthony John Soprano
portrayer
creator	David Chase
gender	Male
first	"The Sopranos"
last	"Made in America"
date of death	(2007)
occupation	Crime boss, various business enterprises
title
alias	"Tony Uncle Johnny", "Ronald 'Big Ron' F. Spears", "Don Antonio", "Kevin Finnerty", "Mr. Petraglia", "Bada Bing" (FBI code name), "Skip", "T", "Ton" "Leadbelly"
family	Livia Soprano (mother), Johnny Boy Soprano (father), Ercoli Soprano (uncle), Junior Soprano (uncle), Quintina Blundetto (aunt), Janice Soprano (sister), Barbara Giglione (sister), Tony Blundetto (cousin)
spouse	Carmela Soprano (wife)
children	Anthony Soprano, Jr. (son), Meadow Soprano (daughter)
relatives	Hugh De Angelis (father-in-law), Mary De Angelis (mother-in-law), Christopher Moltisanti (cousin in-law), Bobby Baccalieri (brother-in-law), Bobby Baccalieri III (step-nephew), Sophia Baccalieri (step-niece), Domenica Baccalieri (niece)
religion	Roman Catholicism }}

Anthony John "Tony" Soprano, Sr. is an Italian-American fictional character and the protagonist on the HBO television drama series ''The Sopranos'', on which he is portrayed by James Gandolfini. The character was conceived by ''The Sopranos'' creator and show runner David Chase, who was also largely responsible for the character's story arc throughout the show's six seasons. Bobby Boriello portrayed Tony Soprano as a child in one episode and Danny Petrillo played the character as a teenager in three episodes. The character is loosely based on real-life New Jersey mobster Vincent "Vinny Ocean" Palermo (born 1944), who is a former caporegime (capo) and de facto street boss of the DeCavalcante crime family of New Jersey. The DeCavalante Family is widely considered to be the model for the Soprano family; some incidents that the DeCavalcantes were involved in have been incorporated into ''Sopranos'' scripts.

In the series, Tony begins as a capo in the DiMeo crime family during the first season. Between the first and second seasons, he is promoted to acting boss, a title he retains until the sixth season (his uncle Corrado "Junior" Soprano is the official boss up until early on in season 6, but has little or no actual power). Throughout the series, Tony struggles to balance the conflicting requirements of his "two families": his actual family—wife Carmela, daughter Meadow, son Anthony "A.J." Soprano, Jr., and mother Livia — and the criminal organization he heads. He also struggles with depression and is prone to panic attacks. Because of this, he seeks treatment from Dr. Jennifer Melfi in the show's first episode, and remains in therapy on and off up until the penultimate episode of the series.

Plot details

Early life

Tony was born on August 24, 1960, to Livia and "Johnny Boy" Soprano. He grew up living with his mother, father, and two sisters, Janice and Barbara, in the Ironbound neighborhood—known to locals as "Down Neck"—in Newark, New Jersey. His father was involved in crime, and Tony recalls some of his activities in flashbacks on the show. Tony's grandfather, Corrado Soprano Sr., was a master stonemason who emigrated from Avellino, Italy in 1910. He helped to build a church in Tony's old neighborhood in Newark. Tony takes his children there so he can tell them about their heritage and the value of hard work.

Bobby Boriello played Tony in the episode "Down Neck", in which Tony recalls childhood events relating to his realization that his father was involved in organized crime. He recalls how his father, "Johnny Boy" Soprano, used his older sister, Janice, as a cover for attending meetings with criminal associates at a children's amusement park. At the time, Tony thought Janice was his father's favorite child. In therapy, when asked to remember happy childhood memories about his mother, Tony struggles to come up with any, eventually recalling that he witnessed his father falling down the stairs, causing the whole family to laugh, even his mother; he later describes his mother as a cruel, joyless woman who wore his father down "to a little nub". Tony has a distant relationship with Janice, because she is always asking him for money and once tried to sell Livia's house by herself. Tony had to dispose of the body of Janice's re-acquainted boyfriend Richie Aprile, after Janice killed him.

Tony went to high school (school letters "WOHS", suggesting West Orange High School, were seen in the episode "The Test Dream") with Artie Bucco and Davey Scatino, and remains friends with them into adult life. He played baseball and football, and according to Sal Bonpensiero, he nearly made All-County. He met his future bride, Carmela DeAngelis, in high school. Tony was close to his cousin Tony Blundetto, and neighborhood kids called them Tony Uncle-Al and Tony Uncle-Johnny (after their fathers) to tell them apart.

In their teenage years, the two Tonys spent summers at their Uncle Pat Blundetto's farm—Pat was a soldier in the DiMeo organization. Blundetto was arrested for his part in a hijacking when the two Tonys were young men. Tony was supposed to join Blundetto on the job but failed to appear because of a panic attack; at the time, he told people he had been attacked and injured. Tony attended Seton Hall University for a semester and a half before dropping out to pursue a life of crime.

Tony was part of an unofficial crew of young criminals consisting of Silvio Dante, Ralph Cifaretto, and Jackie Aprile, Sr. Tony gained notoriety in the DiMeo crime family by robbing a card game run by Michele "Feech" La Manna along with Silvio and Jackie. From then on, he was on a fast track to becoming a made man. He committed his first murder in 1982 at the age of 22, killing a small-time bookie named Willie Overall. In season one Tony states that he knew Mafia boss John Gotti in the 1980s, but he may have been kidding.

His father shepherded Tony through his ascendancy until his death in 1986 from emphysema. When he died, Johnny Boy had risen to the level of captain of his own crew—as had his brother, Junior. Junior took over the paternal role and continued to advise and assist Tony. Tony remembers having to buy expensive dinners for Richie Aprile as a newly made man. Soldiers from Johnny Boy's crew, Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero and Paulie "Walnuts" Gualtieri, passed their loyalty on to Tony after Johnny Boy died. Tony then became acting capo of his father's old crew in 1986, making him the youngest capo in the family, at age 26. He was elevated to permanent capo in the late 1980s. His old friend, Silvio Dante, joined him as a soldier in his crew.

By 1995, Tony was a well-respected caporegime in the organization when the boss of the family, Ercole "Eckley" DiMeo, was sent to prison. Tony's longtime friend and fellow captain Jackie Aprile, Sr. took on the role of acting boss in December 1995. With DiMeo in prison, Aprile became the official "Street Boss" of the family.

Under Jackie's rule, the DiMeo Family was peaceful and prosperous until 1998, when Jackie was diagnosed with intestinal cancer; afterward, the family slowly descended into turmoil. With Jackie in and out of the hospital, and as such not able to fully run the family, Tony began to take on many of his duties, much to his Uncle Junior's chagrin.

For a time in early 1999, Jackie seemed cured and was back on the street as boss and the family's woes were eased. By late spring, however, he was back in the hospital and had begun chemotherapy treatments. With Tony's role in the family's operation increasing and disagreements, including Tony thwarting Junior's plot to kill "Little Pussy" Malanga in Artie Bucco's restaurant, tensions between Tony and Uncle Junior rose and reached an all-time high as Jackie's condition turned for the worse.

With Jackie's death in mid-1999, a crisis emerged as to who would run the family, and the soldiers and other captains began to prepare for all-out war within the family. Tony brought a quick end to the conflict by making Junior the official boss of the family. Junior would unknowingly act as the lightning rod for the feds, while Tony would run the family from behind the scenes as a de facto boss starting in 2000.

Narrated killings committed by Tony Soprano

Tony has personally committed eight murders in the show. Furthermore, as a Boss, he is responsible for the deaths of others killed on his orders. The eight known murders, all explicitly presented onscreen, were:

Willie Overall, shot and killed by Tony to "make his bones", or become a made man (1982).

Fabian "Febby" Petrulio, strangled by Tony for ratting out members of Paulie and Pussy's crew and joining the witness protection program (1999).

Chucky Signore, shot and killed by Tony for conspiring to kill him with Junior (1999).

Matthew Bevilaqua, killed by Tony and Big Pussy for attempting to kill Christopher Moltisanti (his cousin in-law) (2000).

Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero, executed by Tony, Silvio, and Paulie on a yacht, after they discovered that he was an FBI informant (2000).

Ralph Cifaretto, choked/bludgeoned to death in a fight over Ralph's supposedly killing of their prize-winning race horse "Pie-O-My" for insurance money. (2002).

Tony Blundetto, shot and killed by Tony with a shotgun for the unauthorized killings of Joe Peeps and Billy Leotardo, in order to spare him from being the subject of torture from Phil Leotardo in revenge for his brother's death (2004).

Christopher Moltisanti, suffocated by Tony after a major car accident (2007).

It is made clear that some of these murders leave Tony perplexed as to how to cope with the situation; most notably, after murdering Christopher Moltisanti, he feels a rush of relief for finally being rid of an associate whom he feels he can no longer trust. He has to "show the sad face" while the rest of the family grieves, but Tony reassures himself that Moltisanti's murder was necessary, despite the hurt caused to the family.

The murder of "Big Pussy" in "Funhouse" weighs heavily on Tony. He is at first tempted to spare his old friend, but in the end knows what his priorities are. In the years to follow, Tony—along with Silvio and Paulie—have haunting dreams of the murder of their friend.

Tony kills Ralph Cifaretto after their horse, Pie-O-My, dies amid suspicious circumstances in "Whoever Did This". Tony tries to confront Ralph about the situation but, after some heated words, Tony loses control and violently murders Ralph. Though no solid proof was found that the fire killing Pie-O-My was arson, Tony is convinced Ralph did it.

The murder of Matthew Bevilaqua was vengeance, an act that had to be carried out since the fact that Christopher was shot was a direct affront to him as Boss. Tony takes satisfaction in it, as it is revenge for an attempt on the life of one of his relatives.

The murder of his cousin, Tony Blundetto, is solely to save him from a far worse death if he were to fall into Phil's hands, and so that Tony does not lose his reputation as a Boss.

The murder of his nephew, Christopher Moltisanti, is done out of necessity; Moltisanti presents a threat to Tony's life and the New Jersey Mob. Christopher has been addicted to heroin, cocaine, and alcohol for many years and could not defeat his addiction in rehab. His addiction caused many problems for the family, especially for Tony. Additionally, Christopher's methods often violated the Mafia's code. When Tony was about to call 911 for help, he sees that a baby seat in the back seat of the SUV has been destroyed by a tree branch; he closes his phone and suffocates Christopher by holding his nose shut so he chokes to death on his own blood. Tony did not plan to murder Christopher but saw the opportunity after the car accident. After killing Christopher, Tony tries to discover whether other mobsters or family members had similar feelings; it seems that they do not. Tony is never suspected of this murder.

As a father

Tony has two children: Meadow Soprano and Anthony (A.J.) Soprano. He also treats Christopher Moltisanti, his wife's first cousin once removed, as a son in many ways.

Tony is often portrayed as a loving father—he attends his children's sporting events on a regular basis and does all he can to insure they have luxuries and opportunities. He hopes that both his children will escape the life of crime he has led. Tony takes great pride in Meadow's achievements. In Season 1, he is moved to tears by her performance at a choir recital. He often tells people about her aspiration to become a pediatrician.

He also sometimes alienates his children with his behavior. He has always tried to conceal his criminal life from them—something that Meadow saw through early on and A.J. also realized with guidance from his sister.

Tony's over-protectiveness of Meadow led to feuds between them on several occasions. For example, her first boyfriend at college was of part black heritage, and Tony's racism led him to try to drive him away. Meadow learned of her father's actions and did not speak to him for several months, eventually reconciling at Christmas in 2001.

Meadow's next boyfriend was Jackie Aprile, Jr., the son of Tony's old friend Jackie Aprile, Sr. Tony had promised Jackie Jr.'s father that he would try to keep his son on the straight path. Tony was initially pleased with the relationship, believing Jackie to be a hard-working pre-med student from a good family.

However, since his Uncle Richie's release from prison and subsequent death, Tony realized that Jackie had become more involved in the Mafia when he saw him at strip clubs and a casino. He eventually beat Jackie up to warn him about abusing his daughter's feelings and confiscated his gun. Jackie was killed by Vito for his involvement in a robbery at Christopher's and Furio's executive card game, and for shooting a made man, Furio. This drove Meadow to drinking and depression, although they'd broken up shortly before his death.

After Jackie's death, Tony accepts Meadow's college friends and gets along well with her fiancé, Finn, before the two separated under unrevealed circumstances.

When Meadow is out for dinner with her "mystery" boyfriend Patrick Parisi, New York mob member Coco walks up to the table and makes drunk remarks about her looks and how "Tony must love tucking you in at night". After taking advice from her mother, Meadow tells Tony, who hides his rage and says Coco is "harmless" and "an idiot". Tony then tracks down Coco and Butch DeConcini at John's Restaurant on East 12th Street in Manhattan. Tony viciously pistol-whips Coco several times with a snubnose revolver and warns Butch at gunpoint to shut up and remain seated at his table. After breaking off some of Coco's teeth with a curb stomp, Tony leaves the restaurant.

Tony's feelings toward his son are mixed; he worries about his future. From the beginning, Tony had doubts that his son could succeed him as Boss. His fears are confirmed as A.J. consistently demonstrates throughout the series that he lacks his father's cunning and dominating persona. Tony tells A.J. numerous times that he is proud that his son is gentle and kind. Tony was especially proud of A.J.'s prowess on the football field, even amid his failing grades in high school, but is frustrated with A.J.'s lack of focus after graduation.

After flunking out of Ramapo State, A.J. loafs around the house, parties, and for a time holds a job at Blockbuster, until his father, hoping to keep A.J. away from a life of crime, gets him a job working construction. There, A.J. meets Blanca, and in Tony's opinion, A.J. was doing well until he and Blanca broke up. Tony worries about A.J.'s depression, a 'rotten putrid gene' that Tony believes he passed down to his son.

Hoping to get A.J. back on track, Tony rekindles A.J.'s friendship with "the Jasons", sons of two of his associates, and A.J. seems to be doing better. With the help of a therapist and medication, A.J. is finally getting back to college, this time at Rutgers University, to take classes and party with girls as Tony believes every college kid should. This later turns sour after A.J. sees his new friends attack a Somalian student on a bike and he regresses into depression. A.J. tries to drown himself in a swimming pool, but decides he wants to live; he is unable to escape the pool, however. Tony hears his cries for help, and rescues him. After A.J. is released from a mental health ward, Tony and Carmela dissuade him from joining the Army, and convince him instead to become involved in a film bankrolled by Carmine Lupertazzi, Jr., with the possibility of opening his own club.

Interests and hobbies

Tony is an avid animal lover, and enjoys feeding the ducks which visit his pool. He has a sentimental attachment towards animals, as he had been traumatized by the loss of his childhood dog (as revealed in the episode "In Camelot"). In Christopher Moltisanti's intervention, when Tony hears Christopher accidentally suffocated Adrianna's dog, he went furious saying "I oughta suffocate you, you little prick!" He becomes involved in horse racing through his friend Hesh, who owns a stable, and invests in a racehorse named Pie-O-My. When his horse is killed in a fire – possibly set by Ralph Cifaretto – Tony is deeply upset and saddened. When informed by Carmela that a black bear has been foraging in his home's backyard while they were separated, during Season 5, he reacts with interest, rather than fear. During his stay in the hospital after his shooting, he can be seen reading a book about dinosaurs.

Tony is seen many times over the course of the show engaging in both freshwater and saltwater angling. His son Anthony Jr. frequently accompanies him on fishing outings. During the second season he presents his son with a Fenwick rod and a Penn International reel, both extremely high quality products. In the sixth season, while in Florida with Paulie, he rents a sport fishing boat. He is sometimes haunted by visions of Pussy Bonpensiero incarnated in the form of a fish – presumably a reference to the disposal of his body in the ocean. A Big Mouth Billy Bass novelty singing fish, brought into the Bada Bing by Georgie, recalled his nightmare and disturbed him greatly.

Tony enjoys sports, particularly baseball, football, basketball, golf, and horse racing. He played varsity baseball and football in high school, and is a fan of the New York Yankees and New York Jets. A large portion of his income is derived from illegal sports betting.

Tony is an amateur yachtsman and has owned two motor yachts over the course of the show – ''Stugots'' and ''Stugots II''. The name comes from the Southern Italian phrase ''stu cazz'' meaning "This dick," or in paraphrase "Fuck it."

Tony maintains an avid interest in history, particularly World War II. He is often shown watching programs on the History Channel about great leaders such as George Patton, Erwin Rommel, and Winston Churchill. He reads ''The Art of War'' by Sun Tzu, a work which is quoted by several other characters on the show, particularly Paulie Gualtieri.

Tony is often seen watching classic black and white films. Tony listens to classic rock and pop music, particularly of the 1960s and 70s. Over the course of the show he is seen to enjoy Jefferson Airplane, Eric Clapton, The Clash, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, AC/DC, Rush, Eagles, The Lost Boys, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple and Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Van Morrison, Journey .

Like most of the mobsters in the series, Tony is shown to be partial to Cadillac and Lincoln vehicles. When discussing with Dr. Melfi a bizarre dream in which his penis fell off, he mentions that he went to the guy who used to "work on my Lincoln, when I drove Lincolns." For the first four seasons, Tony drives a burgundy 1999 Chevrolet Suburban LT 4x4, but in season 5, this has been replaced with a black Cadillac Escalade ESV. This black Escalade is totaled in an accident, and quickly replaced with a white Escalade ESV. Tony has this Escalade until the end of the series.

Extramarital affairs

Tony has a penchant for carrying on extramarital affairs. His wife Carmela seems to know about this and usually turns a blind eye, though sometimes the bottled-up tensions explode in domestic arguments – particularly at the end of Season 4, when Tony's affairs drive Carmela to separate from him. He typically has mistresses who he consistently sees for long periods of time, though he also has a number of brief one-night stands with strippers from the Bada Bing.

Tony has a strong preference for women of European, particularly Italian descent, with dark hair and eyes and exotic features. His mistresses have been, in chronological order, of Russian, Italian, Italian/Cuban, and Jewish descent. He favors dark features but also had a few brief flings with blond European women, including a Russian housekeeper and a stewardess from Icelandic Airways. He had one very short encounter with an Asian-American escort during "The Test Dream".

Mistresses:

Irina Peltsin – a young Russian woman who he sees consistently throughout the first two seasons. She is a severe alcoholic and frequently calls Tony's house when drunk, and when Janice hints that she knows that he is seeing her, he breaks off the relationship.

Gloria Trillo – an Italian-American Mercedes-Benz saleswoman with stylish tastes and exotic looks. Tony dates her throughout Season 3 after meeting her at Dr. Melfi's office. He eventually stops seeing her when she begins stalking him and calling his house. She commits suicide after the breakup.

Valentina La Paz – a beautiful art dealer of Italian and Cuban descent. Initially the mistress of Ralph Cifaretto, Tony dates her throughout Season 4. They share a love of horses, and she visits Pie-O-My at the stable with Tony. She accidentally sets her robe on fire in Season 5 while cooking eggs for Tony. Shortly thereafter he decides to get back together with Carmela, and he breaks up with Valentina while she is in the hospital recovering from second degree burns to her head, face, and arm. Their relationship ends on bad terms.

Julianna Skiff – a real estate developer of Jewish descent. She meets Tony in Season 6 when offering to buy a building that he owns, to be converted into a Jamba Juice. They later begin an affair, along with a business relationship, but never consummate their relationship sexually; Tony backs off and decides to be faithful to Carmela, who stuck with him after the shooting and seemed re-devoted to him. Julianna eventually dates Christopher Moltisanti and the two begin a very destructive, co-dependent drug habit; she is last seen attending Christopher's funeral service, where she mentions that they had split up.

Therapy

Tony has suffered from panic attacks, that sometimes cause him to lose consciousness, since his childhood. He has his first on-screen panic attack while cooking sausages at his son's birthday party—this occurs in a flashback in the pilot episode. Tony loses consciousness and causes a small explosion when he drops a bottle of lighter fluid onto the coals. Tony describes the experience of the panic attack as feeling like he had "ginger ale in his skull". This prompts him to seek help for the attacks. After extensive testing that includes an MRI scan and blood work no physical cause can be found, so Dr. Cusamano referred Tony to psychiatrist Dr. Jennifer Melfi.

Tony's therapy allows a discussion of his thoughts and feelings away from both aspects of his life—this forum for reaching into the character's thoughts has been described as a Greek chorus, and as a key for viewers to understand the character.

Tony was initially very resistant to the idea that there was a psychiatric cause for his symptoms. He resented being in therapy, and refused to accept the diagnosis of panic attacks given him by the neurologists who had investigated his illness. Tony begins to open up once Dr. Melfi explains the doctor-patient confidentiality rules. He tells her about the stress of his business life—he has a feeling that he has come in at the end of something, and describes a reverence for the glorified "old days" of the Mafia. Tony leaves out the violence associated with his criminal career. Tony tells Dr. Melfi a story about ducks landing in his pool. He describes his mother Livia, a cold, mean-spirited woman with whom he has an openly hostile relationship. By the end of the first session Tony has admitted that he feels depressed, but storms out when Dr. Melfi presses him further about the relationship between his symptoms and the ducks.

When the family visits Green Grove, a retirement community where Tony is trying to place his mother, Livia's derisive outburst prompts a second panic attack. Melfi prescribes Prozac as an anti-depressant, telling him that no one needs to suffer from depression with the wonders of modern pharmacology. Tony fails to attend their next scheduled session.

At their next session, Tony is still reluctant to face his own psychological weaknesses. Tony is quick to credit the medication for his improved mood, but Dr. Melfi tells him it cannot be that, as it takes six weeks to work—she credits their therapy sessions. Tony describes a dream where a bird steals his penis. Melfi extrapolates that Tony has projected his love for his family onto the family of ducks living in his pool. This brings him to tears, to his consternation. She tells him that their flight from the pool sparked his panic attack through the overwhelming fear of somehow losing his own family.

In the episode "46 Long", they continue discussing Tony's mother and her difficulties living alone. Tony admits that he feels guilty because his mother could not be allowed to live with his family. We learn that he has been left to care for his mother alone by his sisters. When Dr. Melfi asks him to remember good experiences from his childhood, he has difficulty. He blames Carmela for preventing his mother from living with them. Later they discuss Livia's car accident, and Melfi suggests depression may have contributed to the accident – Tony misunderstands her and becomes angry. Tony has a panic attack while visiting his mother's home after she moves to Green Grove. In a later session, Dr. Melfi pushes Tony to admit he has feelings of anger towards his mother, and he again storms out. During this episode Tony introduces the concept of him acting like the sad clown – happy on the outside but sad on the inside.

In "Denial, Anger, Acceptance", Tony discusses Jackie's cancer with Dr. Melfi. She tries to use it as an example of Tony's negative thinking contributing to his depression. Tony becomes angry and storms out. He feels she is trying to trick him and manipulate his thoughts using the pictures that decorate her office. After Jackie worsens and Tony is called a Frankenstein by a business associate, he returns to therapy to discuss these things with Dr. Melfi. She asks him if he feels like a monster.

In "Fortunate Son", Tony discusses a childhood memory of an early panic attack. He saw his father and uncle mutilate Mr. Satriale, the local butcher, and later fainted at a family dinner made with free meat from Satriale's shop. Dr. Melfi makes a connection between meat and Tony's panic attacks. She explores his mother's attitude to the fruits of his father's labor.

Later Dr. Melfi tries prescribing Lithium as a mood stabilizer. In the episode "Isabella", Tony sinks into a severe depressive episode and experiences hallucinations—he sees a beautiful Italian woman named Isabella in his neighbor's garden. Tony sees Isabella several times during the episode, and later learns that she never existed. Melfi theorizes that Isabella was an idealized maternal figure that Tony's subconscious produced because of he was deeply upset about his own mother's actions at the time.

In "I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano", Tony abruptly ends his therapy and persuades Dr. Melfi to go into hiding when he discovers that Uncle Junior has found out about their sessions.

The relationship between Tony and Dr. Melfi is up-and-down, with Tony reaching a level of comfort with Dr. Melfi that he has never experienced with anyone else before, not even his wife. This closeness leads Tony to have something of a "crush" on Dr. Melfi, something that is unattainable. However, the "prying" from Dr. Melfi is uncomfortable for Tony and he often turns sarcastic and antagonistic towards her, leading to an ongoing strain in their relationship. In the episode when Tony's sister, Janice, goes back to Seattle, it is revealed during a rushed conversation between Janice and Tony that their mother suffers from narcissistic personality disorder.

During the episode "The Second Coming", aired in part II of season six, Melfi's own therapist suggests to her that her work with Tony could be considered enabling toward Tony's sociopathic tendencies. Finally, in the penultimate episode of the series, "The Blue Comet", Melfi severs her relationship with Tony after reading research recommended by her own therapist that indicates sociopaths can use talk therapy to improve their skills in manipulating others, and use what is learned in therapy to become more capable criminals.

Shootings

In the first season, Tony is attacked by William Johnson "Petite" Clayborn and Rasheen Ray, two thugs sent by Donnie Paduana to execute Tony. Tony sustains an injury to his ear, which is partially shot off, and minor bruises and cuts from crashing his vehicle. One of the two assailants, Clayborn, is shot dead by Ray in an attempt to kill Tony, and Ray is left bruised, but runs off.

In the premiere of the sixth season, "Members Only", Junior Soprano, suffering from dementia, believes Tony to be "Little Pussy" Malanga, and shoots him in the abdomen. Tony dials 911 but loses consciousness before being able to tell the operator what happened.

The second episode of the sixth season, "Join the Club", Tony is in a medically-induced coma in the hospital. In the second and third episode the viewer sees Tony in a dream-like state, eventually arriving at what could be purgatory, where he is greeted by a man who takes the physical form of his late cousin Tony Blundetto. The shadowy figure in the doorway of the house has the profile of his mother, who is dead. The voice of a younger version of his daughter calls him back. At the end of the third episode, he awakes from his coma in a confused but stable state.

By the fourth episode, Tony is mobile and fully aware, and has regained his voice. Tony's attitude to life has changed by his near death experience. He has yet to discuss his experiences while unconscious with anyone close to him. However, in the Season 6 episode "Kaisha", he admits to Phil Leotardo (who had just suffered a heart attack), that while he was in a coma, he went to a place where he never wants to go again. While talking philosophy with John Schwinn, another patient at the hospital, he mentions that while in the coma he had the experience of being drawn towards somewhere he did not want to go and narrowly avoided it.

In the sixth episode of season 6, part 2, "Kennedy and Heidi", Tony sustains minor injuries in a car accident that seriously injures his nephew, Christopher Moltisanti. Tony suffocates Christopher after this accident. Tony was on bed rest for a few days and quickly recovered. Nonetheless, this gave his family quite a scare and a painful memory of his nearly fatal shooting the previous year.

===Dreams=== Tony sometimes has vivid dreams that are shown to the viewer. Episodes with dream sequences include "Pax Soprana", "Isabella", "Funhouse", "Everybody Hurts", "Calling All Cars", and "The Test Dream".

In the pilot, Tony tells Dr. Melfi about a dream he had wherein a screw in his belly button, when removed, causes his penis to fall off. He tries to find a car mechanic (who had worked on his Lincoln when Tony drove Lincolns) to put it back on, but a duck swoops down and snatches it from his hand.

In "Meadowlands", Tony has a dream that several people in his life are present in Dr. Melfi's office, which causes him to worry that people will find out he is seeing a psychiatrist. The dream ends with Tony confronting Melfi, only to find out he's speaking to his mother, Livia.

In "Pax Soprana", Tony has several dreams and fantasies about Dr. Melfi. He becomes convinced that he is in love with her, but she turns him down when he makes advances towards her.

In "Isabella", Tony, suffering from depression after Big Pussy disappears, acquaints himself with a dental student named Isabella who is staying in the Cusamano home while they are on vacation. He later discovers that he'd hallucinated Isabella due to taking too much lithium, and that Isabella represented the mother he never had.

In "Funhouse", an extended dream sequence exposes many of Tony's subconscious thoughts and feelings through symbolic and sometimes bizarre events: he attempts suicide to preempt a doctor's diagnosis of early death by dousing himself in gasoline and lighting himself on fire; he witnesses himself shooting Paulie "Walnuts" Gaultieri to death during a card game; he has an innuendo-laden conversation with his therapist Dr. Melfi while sporting a prominent erection; and a fish that speaks with the voice of Sal "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero confirms his suspicions that the longtime friend and soldier is a federal informant.

In "Everybody Hurts", Tony dreams of his ex-comaré Gloria Trillo shortly after learning of her suicide by hanging. He visits her apartment and finds her in a black dress with a black scarf around her neck. She is cooking dinner, and when she goes over to the oven the scarf drapes across Tony. Plaster falls down in front of Tony and when he looks up, he sees that the chandelier is almost pulled out of the ceiling. Gloria is suddenly back at the table and offers Tony a choice between seeing what she has under her dress or under her scarf. As she begins to peel away the scarf, Tony wakes up and makes his way to the bathroom for some medication.

In "Calling All Cars", Tony has two dreams featuring Ralph Cifaretto. In the first, he is being driven by Carmela in the back of his father's old car while Ralph sits in the passenger seat. There is a caterpillar crawling on the back of Ralph's head. Tony's fellow passenger in the back seat changes—Gloria Trillo and Svetlana Kirilenko are both seen. The caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Dr. Melfi later tells him that the dream signifies a change for Ralphie (recently killed by Tony) and Carmela being in control.

In the second dream, Tony follows Ralph to an old house, which Ralph enters. Tony is dressed in trousers, suspenders, and an undershirt. He knocks on the door and a female figure descends slowly in shadow; the door creaks ominously. Tony says he is there for the stonemason job but does not speak English well (Tony's grandfather was an immigrant stonemason). Just as Tony is about to enter the house, he wakes up.

In "The Test Dream", Tony comes to terms with having to kill his cousin Tony Blundetto. The episode reflects on his inner demons and fears, including his children's future, his relationship with his wife, his infidelities, deceased acquaintances—including some who have died by his hand or by his orders—his fate, and his relationship with his father. He is again shown in his father's old car, accompanied by a range of past associates.

In "Join the Club", a comatose Tony finds himself in an alternate universe where he is a law-abiding salesman on a business trip. Among other differences, his accent has changed and his hotel's bartender condescends him (in sharp contrast to the bartender at The Bing, who is a recurring punching bag for Tony). Tony has mistakenly taken another man's briefcase – Kevin Finnerty's – along with all of his identification and work. The episode follows his attempts to discern his identity, recover his briefcase, and get back to his family.

In "Kennedy and Heidi", a stressed Tony Soprano has a dream following the death of Christopher Moltisanti. In this dream, he tells his therapist that Christopher was a burden and that he is relieved that he was dead. After that he also tells her that he murdered Big Pussy and his cousin Tony Blundetto. Following the dream, he acts differently to his friends and family, trying to see if they also feel relieved now that Christopher is dead.

See also

The Sopranos

The Soprano family tree

Vincent Palermo

Michael Taccetta

Fat Tony

References

External links

HBO Character Profile: Tony Soprano

What happened to Tony Soprano in the end

Category:The Sopranos characters Category:Fictional American people of Italian descent Category:Fictional characters from New Jersey Category:Fictional businesspeople Category:Fictional mobsters Category:Fictional gamblers Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1999 Category:Fictional Republicans (United States) es:Tony Soprano fr:Tony Soprano hr:Tony Soprano it:Tony Soprano hu:Tony Soprano pl:Tony Soprano pt:Tony Soprano ro:Tony Soprano ru:Тони Сопрано fi:Tony Soprano sv:Lista över rollfigurer i Sopranos#Tony Soprano

Coordinates	31°6′12″N77°10′20″N
{{infobox character | name	Furio Giunta
real name	Furio Giunta |
portrayer	Federico Castelluccio
creator	David Chase
alias	Mr. Williams
gender	Male
first	"Commendatori" ''(episode 2.04)''
last	"Eloise" ''(episode 4.12)''
occupation	Former master cheese maker at Nuovo Vesuvio Restaurant
title	Enforcer/Soldier in the Gualtieri crew of the DiMeo Crime Family, soldier in the Zucca Crime Family in Naples
spouse	none
children	none }}

Furio Giunta, played by Federico Castelluccio, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series ''The Sopranos''. He was an Italian mobster working for Tony Soprano.

Biography

Furio was one of two members of the DiMeo crime family born in Italy (the other being Michele "Feech" LaManna). Tony bargained with the Neapolitan Camorra mob boss Annalisa Zucca for Furio to come to New Jersey to work for him as part of an international car theft operation. This impulse to integrate Furio into his association emerged once he saw Furio beat a young boy for playing with firecrackers and consequently imitating the sound of gun shots. Tony Soprano saw that Furio had absolutely no inhibitions and a merciless wrath embedded by a sincere loyalty to his boss (Furio shields his boss with his own body when the firecrackers are first heard). In order to get Furio a visa, Tony got him a job as a mozzarella maker in the Nuovo Vesuvio Restaurant, enticing Artie Bucco with the idea that Tony will pay Furio's salary and he does not have to be on Vesuvio's payroll. Furio did not particularly excel at honest work, mainly because Artie imposed tougher standards on his kitchen workers than restaurants in Italy, such as hair nets and no smoking on duty. Upon his arrival in New Jersey, Furio became one of Tony's most feared enforcers, intimidating and beating up multiple people who owed Tony money as well as acting as Tony's driver and bodyguard, to the initial resentment of long time senior Soprano associate Salvatore "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero.

Furio was an extremely loyal and dedicated soldier for his boss Tony, but he does not appear to have been a violent individual outside of that context. On the contrary, his personality was rather passive and sometimes even childlike, and he generally behaved in a very calm and polite manner. He spoke respectfully at all times and was not known to lose his temper, nor did he ever become entangled in rivalries within the Soprano crew. He also displayed a great deal of sentimentality and nostalgia when talking of his native land of Naples and his former employment working in the olive garden of a rich man. Before his employment with the Neopolitan mafia, The Camorra, he presumably worked as a master cheese maker. Furio was also known for his long hair, which he usually wore in a ponytail, and his penchant for elaborate, flashy silk shirts.

Season 2

Furio's first assignment was to extract payment from a massage parlor owner whose wife had convinced him to withhold payment. In an earlier visit Chris had acted in an intimidating manner and shoved a paintbrush dipped in paint into his nostril. Furio was a little less restrained - he fearlessly smashed up the place, and showed no hesitation in hitting the guests or the owner's wife. He then broke the owner's arm with a bat and shot him in the knee cap - all of which made a positive impression on Tony. He was also one of the few people to know that Richie Aprile was killed, as Tony tasked him and Christopher for assistance with dismembering his body at Satriale's. Furio made collections from low-level associates Matthew Bevilaqua and Sean Gismonte and was not above taking a cut of his own. Furio's grabbiness with Matt and Sean would cause problems later, as they are convinced they are being used by Tony, and then attempt shooting Christopher.

Season 3

Furio's role in the overall plot of season 3 is minor. Most notably, in Amour Fou, Furio is shot in the leg by Jackie Aprile, Jr. while he and his friends Dino Zerilli and Carlo Renzi were robbing Ralph Cifaretto's card game in an attempt to gain some recognition amongst the crime family and possibly get made. Because of his injury, Furio walks with a cane for the next episode (the finale of season 3), but is fine several months later when season 4 begins. In that episode, Furio accompanies Vito Spatafore when Vito hunts Jackie down and executes him.

Season 4

In the season 4 episode "Everybody Hurts", a sly Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Colbert cons Artie Bucco into temporarily lending him $50,000 dollars for a business investment back in France. Artie borrows the money from Tony Soprano but when Artie goes to Jean Pierre's apartment to collect the money, he claims he doesn't have it and doesn't know when he's going to "get it." Artie and Jean-Pierre scuffle briefly, but Artie leaves bruised and bloodied. Furio is later tasked with reclaiming Tony's assumed debt from Jean-Pierre Colbert, which he does.

Furio eventually began to fall in love with Tony's wife, Carmela, who also saw him as a dashing, sensitive man — Tony's polar opposite — but the two never truly became romantically entwined. Carmela tried to deflect her attraction by arranging dates for Furio. For a time, however, there was significant sexual tension between them. Carmela found excuses to visit Furio including assisting him in buying and decorating a house, and planning a house-warming party, but made sure she was never alone with him. At the house-warming they shared a sexually charged dance, Furio later claims he forgot his sunglasses at the Soprano house, just as a ploy to talk with Carmela.

When Furio's father died, he returned to Italy for the funeral. He sought the advice of his uncle, another Mafia member, telling him that Italy no longer felt like home and that he was in love with his boss's wife, feeling that they could truly communicate. His uncle made it clear he had to move on or kill his boss. Upon his return Furio withdrew from Carmela, presenting gifts to her children but not her. In the season 4 penultimate episode "Eloise", Furio witnesses Tony's infidelity first hand on a night out at a casino when Tony was dancing and being excessively flirtatious with a stripper. This enrages Furio to no end, as he thinks Carmela deserves better. A helicopter had been arranged to take them home and while Tony was urinating on the tarmac, Furio suddenly grabs him by his jacket and contemplates pushing Tony into the back rotor blades of the helicopter. "What the fuck you doin'?!" exclaimed Tony in a very inebriated voice. Furio comes to his sense and realizes his fate would ultimately be sealed if he were to murder his boss. Furio then pulls him away and plays it off by telling Tony "You were standing too close..." Fortunately, Tony was so intoxicated he only seemed slightly fazed and didn't seem to recall the incident the following day. Faced with the possibility of being killed by a vengeful Tony — and with ongoing thoughts of killing Tony himself — Furio packed up, moved back to Italy and disappeared. Carmela later went by Furio's house and stared in awe at the fact it was empty and for sale. Carmela was devastated, and eventually revealed her feelings for him in an argument with Tony, to which Tony replies "If certain men see him, he's a dead man". (This is one of the only times in the show that Tony explicitly concedes to Carmela that murder is part of his business). In Season 5, it is said that Tony has men looking for him in Italy. However, it is never stated whether Furio was found, as this is the last time anyone spoke of him on the show. Furio's fate ultimately remains unknown.

External links

HBO Profile: Furio Giunta

Category:The Sopranos characters Category:Fictional Italian people Category:Fictional mobsters Category:Fictional immigrants to the United States Category:Fictional characters introduced in 2000 fr:Furio Giunta hr:Furio Giunta it:Furio Giunta pl:Furio Giunta ro:Furio Giunta

Coordinates	31°6′12″N77°10′20″N
name	Richie Aprile
real name	Richard Aprile
portrayer	David Proval
creator	David Chase |
first	"Toodle Fucking-Oo" ''(episode 2.03)''
last	"The Test Dream" ''(episode 5.11)''
occupation	Carting consultant of Barone Sanitation/Fishmonger
title	Capo of Aprile Crew in the Dimeo Family (1980s–1990, 2000)
family	Jackie Aprile, Sr (younger brother) (deceased) Rosalie Aprile (sister-in-law) Jackie Aprile, Jr. (nephew) (deceased) Adrianna La Cerva (niece) (deceased) Vito Spatafore (nephew) (deceased) Bryan Spatafore(nephew)
spouse	Janice Soprano (ex-fiancée)
children	Richie Aprile, Jr. (son)
footnotes	}}

Richard 'Richie' Aprile, Sr., played by David Proval, is a fictional character on the HBO TV series ''The Sopranos''. Richie was a capo and the older brother of former DiMeo crime family acting boss Jackie Aprile, Sr. One of the most ruthless characters on the show, he exhibited character traits similar to Ralph Cifaretto, including being impulsively violent, callous, irascible, greedy, and narcissistic. He was sadistically violent and remorseless as demonstrated by his paralyzing of Beansie Gaeta. He almost instantly takes on a feeling of jealousy and resentment when he finds out Tony Soprano, someone who is younger and who was at one time subordinate to him, is the new boss of the DiMeo Crime Family after his release from prison. Richie is also embarrassed by his son Richard "Little Ricky" Aprile, Jr's participation in ballroom dancing contests, which some Mafiosi consider to be a sign of homosexuality. Aprile couldn't raise him well, because he was sent to prison in his teenage years, and in 10 years he was grown up and wasn't like his father.

Plot details

Richie Aprile, the older brother of acting DiMeo crime family boss Jackie Aprile, Sr., was a capo in the DiMeo crime family before being sent to prison for ten years. While Richie was in prison, Jackie died and upon his release, Richie came back to a very different family with Tony Soprano as the boss. Richie had known Tony since before he became a made man; Tony himself recalled having to pay for dinners for Richie and others as a newly made man. Tony and Richie had gotten along in the old days; Richie intervened on Tony and Jackie's behalf when old-school mobster Feech La Manna wanted them killed for robbing his card game. There was no love lost between them upon Richie's return.

Impetuous and irascible, Richie still saw Tony as his younger brother's friend and subsequently had difficulty accepting orders from someone who was once subordinate to him. Due to Richie's belligerent narcissism, he automatically felt he was entitled to inherit everything he wanted for paying his dues in prison. Tony recognized that Richie's absence was due to his imprisonment and promised to work to give him his due, to which Richie immediately rebuffed that offer by saying that what is his is not Tony's to give.

Richie was arguably the most ruthless of the entire Mafioso cast in the series. His tensions with Tony developed throughout Season Two. One of Richie's first actions as a free man was to confront his old partner Peter "Beansie" Gaeta and try to claim money from him. When Beansie failed to pay Richie at his welcome back party, Richie tracked him down again and threatened to shoot him. Later, Richie waited for Beansie by his car, and when he went to get in, Richie rammed Beansie with his car, crushing Beansie between the two vehicles. Richie then puts the car in gear and drives over the paralyzed Beansie, then puts it in reverse and runs him over again. Richie was later forced by Tony to make amends by building Beansie a ramp for his wheelchair, after which Richie comments to Paulie and Silvio: "I'll build a ramp up to your ass, run a Lionel up in there".

Richie loaned money to Tony's childhood friend Davey Scatino and eventually cut him off when Scatino started to miss payments. Scatino managed to get a seat at Tony's high stakes executive game and when Richie found him there he flew into a rage. Tony intervened because he could not lose face by allowing one of his players to be harmed and sent Richie away. Tony later punished Richie for his disruptive behavior at the executive game, for which Richie feigned apologies. After the game, Scatino was so heavily indebted to Tony and Richie that both men took over Scatino's sporting goods store, Ramsey Sports and Outdoor, in what became known as "the Scatino bust out".

Richie disliked Tony's protégé Christopher Moltisanti because of his violent relationship with Richie's niece, Adriana La Cerva. This friction contributed to a failed attempt on Christopher's life by two young associates, Matthew Bevilaqua and Sean Gismonte, hoping to impress Richie. Richie had nothing to do with planning the hit and refused to help Bevilaqua afterward.

Richie and Janice Soprano, Tony's sister, used to date in high school. When Richie left prison, he and Janice resumed their old relationship and eventually became engaged. Janice frequently encouraged Richie to defy Tony, because she wanted to be married to the boss. One night while having sex, which ended abruptly when Janice said "Oh baby, you're the boss... it should be you." Richie became upset, and told Janice he needed to be loyal. Janice's response "Tell that to Paul Castellano," a reference to the real life slaying of the Gambino boss by John Gotti.

Richie acted as a mentor to his nephew, Jackie Aprile, Jr. for a short time before his death; he brought him along to meetings to discuss Mafia business.

In the end, Richie was preparing, with the approval of Tony's Uncle Junior, to take over the family as boss. Richie approached acting capo Albert "Ally Boy" Barese to ask for his support in his takeover bid but he declined. After weighing his options, Junior realized he was better off with Tony in charge and tipped him off about Richie's plans. Tony then ordered Silvio Dante to have Richie killed, but this later proved to be unnecessary.

After returning home one night, Richie and Janice entered into an argument over Richie's son's possible homosexuality, a notion Janice both dismissed and defended. As soon as she did this however, Richie punched Janice in the face before settling down for dinner. Appearing in complete shock, Janice left the room but quickly returned with a gun and shot Richie in the chest, and head once. A distraught Janice called her brother Tony who had Chris and Furio Giunta dispose of Richie's corpse by dismemberment at Satriale's Pork Store, and sent Janice off to Seattle to lie low. Apart from Tony and Janice, only Christopher and Furio know what really happened to Richie. Carmela knows of Richie's death but did not press Tony for the specifics. Everyone else has been told that he became an FBI informant and entered witness protection. Conversations with Silvio (in All Happy Families...) and Paulie (in Made in America) indicate that they also know of Richie's true fate. Later, during her involvement with them, the FBI heavily implied to Richie's niece Adriana that her uncle had not entered witness protection, regardless of what she had been led to believe.

After Death

In the season 5 episode The Test Dream, Richie briefly appears in Tony's dream riding in the backseat of a car being driven by Artie Bucco. Sitting next to Richie is also the deceased, former Aprile Crew capo Gigi Cestone.

Appearances

Appears in: "Toodle Fucking-Oo", "Big Girls Don't Cry", "The Happy Wanderer", "D-Girl", "Full Leather Jacket", "From Where to Eternity", "Bust Out", "House Arrest", "The Knight in White Satin Armor", "The Test Dream".

References

External links

HBO Profile: Richie Aprile

Category:The Sopranos characters Category:Fictional American people of Italian descent Category:Fictional mobsters Category:Fictional characters introduced in 2000 es:Richie Aprile fr:Richie Aprile hr:Richie Aprile it:Richie Aprile pl:Richie Aprile ro:Richie Aprile

Coordinates	31°6′12″N77°10′20″N
occupation	Maritime explorer for the Crown of Castile
title	Admiral of the Ocean Sea; Viceroy and Governor of the Indies
birth date	Between 22 August and 31 October 1451
birth place	Genoa, Republic of Genoa, in present-day Italy
death date	May 20, 1506
death place	Valladolid, Crown of Castile, in present-day Spain
names in other languages	; ; ; , formerly ''Christovam Colom''; Spanish: Cristóbal Colón;
nationality	Genoese
other names	Italian: Cristoforo ColomboCatalan: Cristòfor ColomSpanish: Cristóbal ColónPortuguese: Cristóvão ColomboLatin: Christophorus Columbus
religion	Roman Catholic
spouse	Filipa Moniz Perestrelo (c. 1455–85)
partner	Beatriz Enríquez de Arana (c. 1485–1506)
children	DiegoFernando
relatives	Giovanni Pellegrino, Giacomo and Bartholomew Columbus (brothers)
signature	Columbus Signature.svg }}

Christopher Columbus (c. 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the Western Hemisphere. Those voyages, and his efforts to establish permanent settlements in the island of Hispaniola, initiated the process of Spanish colonization, which foreshadowed the general European colonization of the "New World".

In the context of emerging western imperialism and economic competition between European kingdoms seeking wealth through the establishment of trade routes and colonies, Columbus' far-fetched proposal to reach the East Indies by sailing westward received the support of the Spanish crown, which saw in it a promise, however remote, of gaining the upper hand over rival powers in the contest for the lucrative spice trade with Asia. During his first voyage in 1492, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, Columbus landed in the Bahamas archipelago, at a locale he named ''San Salvador''. Over the course of three more voyages, Columbus visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America, claiming them for the Spanish Empire.

Though Columbus was not the first European explorer to reach the Americas, having been preceded, five centuries earlier, by the Norse expedition, led by Leif Ericson, that established the short-lived colony of Vinland in what is now Newfoundland, Columbus' voyages led to the first lasting European contact with America and inaugurated a period of European exploration and colonization of foreign lands that lasted for several centuries and had, therefore, an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of the spreading of the Christian religion.

Never admitting that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies he had set out for, Columbus called the inhabitants of the lands he visited ''indios'' (Spanish for "Indians"). Columbus' strained relationship with the Spanish crown and its appointed colonial administrators in America led to his arrest and dismissal as governor of the settlements in Hispaniola in 1500, and later to protracted litigation over the benefits which Columbus and his heirs claimed were owed to them by the crown.

Early life

The name ''Christopher Columbus'' is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and in Spanish he used Cristóbal Colón, which is the only known signature by his hand. Columbus was born between 25 August and 31 October 1451 in Genoa, part of modern Italy. His father was Domenico Colombo, a middle-class wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Christopher's mother was Susanna Fontanarossa. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino and Giacomo were his brothers. Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood.

Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, Columbus claims to have gone to the sea at the age of 10. In 1470 the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Columbus was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René I of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that Columbus was not from Genoa, but instead, from Catalonia, Portugal, or Spain. These competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars.

In 1473 Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro and Spinola families of Genoa. Later he allegedly made a trip to Chios, a Genoese colony in the Aegean Sea. In May 1476, he took part in an armed convoy sent by Genoa to carry a valuable cargo to northern Europe. He docked in Bristol, England; Galway, Ireland and was possibly in Iceland in 1477. In 1479 Columbus reached his brother Bartolomeo in Lisbon, while continuing trading for the Centurione family. He married Filipa Moniz Perestrelo, daughter of the Porto Santo governor and Portuguese nobleman of Genoese origin Bartolomeu Perestrello. In 1479 or 1480, his son Diego Columbus was born. Between 1482 and 1485 Columbus traded along the coasts of West Africa, reaching the Portuguese trading post of Elmina at the Guinea coast. Some records report that Filipa died in 1485. It is also speculated that Columbus may have simply left his first wife. In either case Columbus found a mistress in Spain in 1487, a 20-year-old orphan named Beatriz Enríquez de Arana.

Ambitious, Columbus eventually learned Latin, as well as Portuguese and Castilian, and read widely about astronomy, geography, and history, including the works of Ptolemy, Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly's ''Imago Mundi'', the travels of Marco Polo and Sir John Mandeville, Pliny's ''Natural History'', and Pope Pius II's ''Historia Rerum Ubique Gestarum''. According to historian Edmund Morgan,

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Throughout his life, Columbus also showed a keen interest in the Bible and in biblical prophecies, and would often quote biblical texts in his letters and logs. For example, part of the argument that he submitted to the Spanish Catholic Monarchs when he sought their support for his proposed expedition to reach the Indies by sailing west was based on his reading of the Second Book of Esdras (see 2 Esdras 6:42, which Columbus took to mean that the Earth is made of six parts of land to one of water). Towards the end of life, Columbus produced a ''Book of Prophecies'' in which his career as an explorer is interpreted in the light of Christian eschatology and of apocalypticism.

Quest for Asia

Background

Under the Mongol Empire's hegemony over Asia (the so-called ''Pax Mongolica'', or ''Mongol peace''), Europeans had long enjoyed a safe land passage, the so-called "Silk Road", to China and India, which were sources of valuable goods such as silk, spices, and opiates. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the land route to Asia became much more difficult and dangerous. Portuguese navigators, under the leadership of King John II, sought to reach Asia by sailing around Africa. Major progress in this quest was achieved in 1488, when Bartolomeu Dias reached the Cape of Good Hope, in what is now South Africa. Meanwhile, in the 1480s the Columbus brothers had developed a different plan to reach the Indies (then construed roughly as all of south and east Asia) by sailing west across the "Ocean Sea", ''i.e.,'' the Atlantic.

Geographical considerations

Washington Irving's 1828 biography of Columbus popularized the idea that Columbus had difficulty obtaining support for his plan because many Catholic theologians insisted that the Earth was flat. In fact, most educated Westerners had understood that the Earth was spherical at least since the time of Aristotle, who lived in the 4th century BC and whose works were widely studied and revered in Medieval Europe. The sphericity of the Earth is also accounted for in the work of Ptolemy, on which ancient astronomy was largely based. Christian writers whose works clearly reflect the conviction that the Earth is spherical include Saint Bede the Venerable in his ''Reckoning of Time'', written around AD 723. In Columbus' time, the techniques of celestial navigation, which use the position of the Sun and the Stars in the sky, together with the understanding that the Earth is a sphere, were beginning to be widely used by mariners.

Where Columbus did differ from the view accepted by scholars in his day was in his estimate of the westward distance from Europe to Asia. Columbus' ideas in this regard were based on three factors: his low estimate of the size of the Earth, his high estimate of the size of the Eurasian landmass, and his belief that Japan and other inhabited islands lay far to the east of the coast of China. In all three of these issues Columbus was both wrong and at odds with the scholarly consensus of his day.

As far back as the 3rd century BC, Eratosthenes had correctly computed the circumference of the Earth by using simple geometry and studying the shadows cast by objects at two different locations: Alexandria and Syene (modern-day Aswan). Eratosthenes's results were confirmed by a comparison of stellar observations at Alexandria and Rhodes, carried out by Posidonius in the 1st century BC. These measurements were widely known among scholars, but confusion about the old-fashioned units of distance in which they were expressed had led, in Columbus's day, to some debate about the exact size of the Earth.

From d'Ailly's ''Imago Mundi'' Columbus learned of Alfraganus's estimate that a degree of latitude (or a degree of longitude along the Equator) spanned 56⅔ miles, but did not realize that this was expressed in the Arabic mile (about 1,830 m) rather than the shorter Roman mile with which he was familiar (1,480 m). He therefore estimated the circumference of the Earth to be about 30,200 km, whereas the correct value is 40,000 km (25,000 mi).

Furthermore, most scholars accepted Ptolemy's estimate that Eurasia spanned 180° longitude, rather than the actual 130° (to the Chinese mainland) or 150° (to Japan at the latitude of Spain). Columbus, for his part, believed the even higher estimate of Marinus of Tyre, which put the longitudinal span of the Eurasian landmass at 225°, leaving only 135° of water. He also believed that Japan (which he called "Cipangu", following Marco Polo) was much larger, further to the east from China ("Cathay"), and closer to the Equator than it is, and that there were inhabited islands even further to the east than Japan, including the mythical Antillia, which he thought might lie not much further to the west than the Azores. In this he was influenced by the ideas of Florentine physician Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, who corresponded with Columbus before his death in 1482 and who also defended the feasibility of a westward route to Asia.

Columbus therefore estimated the distance from the Canary Islands to Japan to be about 3,000 Italian miles (3,700 km, or 2,300 statute miles), while the correct figure is 19,600 km (12,200 mi), or about 12,000 km along a great circle. No ship in the 15th century could carry enough food and fresh water for such a long voyage and the dangers involved in navigating through the uncharted ocean would have been formidable. Most European navigators reasonably concluded that a westward voyage from Europe to Asia was unfeasible. The Catholic Monarchs, however, having completed an expensive war in the Iberian Peninsula, were desperate for a competitive edge over other European countries in the quest for trade with the Indies. Columbus promised such an advantage.

Nautical considerations

Though Columbus was wrong about the number of degrees of longitude that separated Europe from the Far East and about the distance that each degree represented, he did possess valuable knowledge about the trade winds, which would prove to be the key to his successful navigation of the Atlantic Ocean. During his first voyage in 1492, the brisk trade winds from the east, commonly called "easterlies", propelled Columbus' fleet for five weeks, from the Canary Islands to The Bahamas. To return to Spain against this prevailing wind would have required several months of an arduous sailing technique, called beating, during which food and drinkable water would probably have been exhausted.

Instead, Columbus returned home by following the curving trade winds northeastward to the middle latitudes of the North Atlantic, where he was able to catch the "westerlies" that blow eastward to the coast of Western Europe. There, in turn, the winds curve southward towards the Iberian Peninsula.

It is unclear whether Columbus learned about the winds from his own sailing experience or if he had heard about them from others. The corresponding technique for efficient travel in the Atlantic appears to have been discovered first by the Portuguese, who referred to it as the ''Volta do mar'' ("turn of the sea"). Columbus' knowledge of the Atlantic wind patterns was, however, imperfect at the time of his first voyage. By sailing directly due west from the Canary Islands during hurricane season, skirting the so-called horse latitudes of the mid-Atlantic, Columbus risked either being becalmed or running into a tropical cyclone, both of which he luckily avoided.

Funding campaign

In 1485, Columbus presented his plans to John II, King of Portugal. He proposed the king equip three sturdy ships and grant Columbus one year's time to sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to the Orient, and return.

Columbus also requested he be made "Great Admiral of the Ocean", appointed governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands.

The king submitted Columbus' proposal to his experts, who rejected it. It was their considered opinion that Columbus' estimation of a travel distance of was, in fact, far too short.

In 1488 Columbus appealed to the court of Portugal once again, and once again John II invited him to an audience. It also proved unsuccessful, in part because not long afterwards Bartolomeu Dias returned to Portugal following a successful rounding of the southern tip of Africa. Now that it looked like Portugal could soon have the eastern sea route to Asia under its control, King John was no longer interested in Columbus' project.

Columbus traveled from Portugal to both Genoa and Venice, but he received encouragement from neither. Previously he had his brother sound out Henry VII of England, to see if the English monarch might not be more amenable to Columbus's proposal. After much carefully considered hesitation, Henry's invitation came too late. Columbus had already committed himself to Spain.

He had sought an audience from the monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who had united many kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula by marrying, and were ruling together. On 1 May 1486, permission having been granted, Columbus presented his plans to Queen Isabella, who, in turn, referred it to a committee. After the passing of much time, the savants of Spain, like their counterparts in Portugal, reported back that Columbus had judged the distance to Asia much too short. They pronounced the idea impractical, and advised their Royal Highnesses to pass on the proposed venture.

However, to keep Columbus from taking his ideas elsewhere, and perhaps to keep their options open, the Catholic Monarchs gave him an annual allowance of 12,000 ''maravedis'' and in 1489 furnished him with a letter ordering all cities and towns under their domain to provide him food and lodging at no cost.

[[File:Columbus Fleet 1893 Issue.jpg|left|thumb|350px|

~ Flagship of Columbus ~ Fleet of Columbus ~ ~ 400th Anniversary Issues of 1893 ~ ---- U.S. stamps reflecting the most commonly held view as to what Columbus' first fleet might have looked like. The ''Santa Maria'', the flagship of Columbus' fleet, was a carrack—a merchant ship of between 400 and 600 tons, long, with a beam of , allowing it to carry more people and cargo. It had a deep draft of . The vessel had three masts: a mainmast, a foremast, and a mizzenmast. Five sails altogether were attached to these masts. Each mast carried one large sail. The foresail and mainsail were square; the sail on the mizzen was a triangular sail known as a lateen mizzen. The ship had a smaller topsail on the mainmast above the mainsail and on the foremast above the foresail. In addition, the ship carried a small square sail, a spritsail, on the bowsprit.]]

After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba, in the ''Alcázar'' castle. Isabella turned Columbus down on the advice of her confessor, and he was leaving town by mule in despair, when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".

About half of the financing was to come from private Italian investors, whom Columbus had already lined up. Financially broke after the Granada campaign, the monarchs left it to the royal treasurer to shift funds among various royal accounts on behalf of the enterprise. Columbus was to be made "Admiral of the Seas" and would receive a portion of all profits. The terms were unusually generous, but as his son later wrote, the monarchs did not really expect him to return.

According to the contract that Columbus made with King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, if Columbus discovered any new islands or mainland, he would receive many high rewards. In terms of power, he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10% of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity; this part was denied to him in the contract, although it was one of his demands. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.

Columbus was later arrested in 1500 and supplanted from these posts. After his death, his sons Diego and Fernando took legal action to enforce their father's contract. Many of the smears against Columbus were initiated by the Castilian crown during these lengthy court cases, known as the ''pleitos colombinos''. The family had some success in their first litigation, as a judgment of 1511 confirmed Diego's position as Viceroy, but reduced his powers. Diego resumed litigation in 1512, which lasted until 1536, and further disputes continued until 1790.

Voyages

Between 1492 and 1503, Columbus completed four round-trip voyages between Spain and the Americas, all of them under the sponsorship of the Crown of Castile. These voyages marked the beginning of the European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of enormous significance in Western history. Columbus himself always insisted, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, that the lands that he visited during those voyages were part of the Asian continent, as previously described by Marco Polo and other European travelers. Columbus' refusal to accept that the lands he had visited and claimed for Spain were not part of Asia might explain, in part, why the American continent was named after the Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci and not after Columbus.

First voyage

On the evening of 3 August 1492, Columbus departed from Palos de la Frontera with three ships; one larger carrack, ''Santa María'', nicknamed ''Gallega'' (''the Galician''), and two smaller caravels, ''Pinta'' (''the Painted'') and ''Santa Clara'', nicknamed ''Niña'' after her owner Juan Niño of Moguer. They were property of Juan de la Cosa and the Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso and Vicente Yáñez), but the monarchs forced the Palos inhabitants to contribute to the expedition. Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, which were owned by Castile, where he restocked the provisions and made repairs. After stopping over in Gran Canaria, he finally departed from San Sebastián de La Gomera on 6 September, for what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean.

A lookout on the ''Pinta'', Rodrigo de Triana (also known as Juan Rodriguez Bermeo), spotted land about 2 a.m. on the morning of October 12, and immediately alerted the rest of the crew with a shout. Thereupon, the captain of the ''Pinta'', Juan Alonso Pinzón, verified the discovery and alerted Columbus by firing a lombard. Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier, thereby claiming for himself the lifetime pension promised by Ferdinand and Isabella to the first person to sight land.

Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) ''San Salvador''; the natives called it Guanahani. Exactly which island in the Bahamas this corresponds to is an unresolved topic; prime candidates are Samana Cay, Plana Cays, or San Salvador Island (so named in 1925 in the belief that it was Columbus's San Salvador). The indigenous people he encountered, the Lucayan, Taíno or Arawak, were peaceful and friendly. From the 12 October 1492 entry in his journal he wrote of them, "Many of the men I have seen have scars on their bodies, and when I made signs to them to find out how this happened, they indicated that people from other nearby islands come to San Salvador to capture them; they defend themselves the best they can. I believe that people from the mainland come here to take them as slaves. They ought to make good and skilled servants, for they repeat very quickly whatever we say to them. I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion. If it pleases our Lord, I will take six of them to Your Highnesses when I depart, in order that they may learn our language." He remarked that their lack of modern weaponry and even metal-forged swords or pikes was a tactical vulnerability, writing, "I could conquer the whole of them with 50 men, and govern them as I pleased."

Columbus also explored the northeast coast of Cuba (landed on 28 October) and the northern coast of Hispaniola, by 5 December. Here, the ''Santa Maria'' ran aground on Christmas Day 1492 and had to be abandoned. He was received by the native cacique Guacanagari, who gave him permission to leave some of his men behind. Columbus left 39 men and founded the settlement of ''La Navidad'' at the site of present-day Môle-Saint-Nicolas, Haiti. On 13 January 1493 Columbus made his last stop in the New World. He landed on the Samaná Peninsula where he met the hostile Ciguayos who presented him with his only violent resistance during his first voyage to the Americas. Because of this, and the Ciguayos' use of arrows, he called the inlet where he met them the Bay of Arrows (or Gulf of Arrows). Today the place is called the Bay of Rincon, in Samaná, the Dominican Republic. Columbus kidnapped about 10 to 25 natives and took them back with him (only seven or eight of the native ''Indians'' arrived in Spain alive, but they made quite an impression on Seville).

Columbus headed for Spain, but another storm forced him into Lisbon. He anchored next to the King's harbor patrol ship on 4 March 1493 in Portugal. After spending more than one week in Portugal, he set sail for Spain. He crossed the bar of Saltes and entered the harbor of Palos on 15 March 1493. Word of his finding new lands rapidly spread throughout Europe.

Second voyage

Columbus left Cadiz on 24 September 1493 to find new territories, with 17 ships carrying supplies, and about 1,200 men to colonize the region. The colonists included priests, farmers, and soldiers. This was part of a new policy — not just "colonies of exploitation", but "colonies of settlement" and conversion of the natives to Christianity. The Washington Post reported that "The studies hint that, among other things, crew members may have included free black Africans who arrived in the New World about a decade before the slave trade began." On 13 October the ships left the Canary Islands as they had on the first voyage, following a more southerly course.

On 3 November 1493, Columbus sighted a rugged island that he named Dominica (Latin for Sunday); later that day, he landed at Marie-Galante, which he named Santa Maria la Galante. After sailing past Les Saintes (Los Santos, The Saints), he arrived at Guadeloupe Santa María de Guadalupe de Extremadura, after the image of the Virgin Mary venerated at the Spanish monastery of Villuercas, in Guadalupe (Spain), which he explored between 4 November and 10 November 1493.

Michele da Cuneo, Columbus’s childhood friend from Savona, sailed with Columbus during the second voyage and wrote: "In my opinion, since Genoa was Genoa, there was never born a man so well equipped and expert in the art of navigation as the said lord Admiral." Columbus named the small island of "Saona ... to honor Michele da Cuneo, his friend from Savona." The father of Bartolomé de las Casas also accompanied Colombus on this voyage.

The exact course of his voyage through the Lesser Antilles is debated, but it seems likely that he turned north, sighting and naming several islands, including:

Montserrat (for Santa Maria de Montserrate, after the Blessed Virgin of the Monastery of Montserrat, which is located on the Mountain of Montserrat, in Catalonia, Spain),

Antigua (after a church in Seville, Spain, called Santa Maria la Antigua, meaning "Old St. Mary's"),

Redonda (for Santa Maria la Redonda, Spanish for "round", owing to the island's shape),

Nevis (derived from the Spanish, Nuestra Señora de las Nieves, meaning "Our Lady of the Snows", because Columbus thought the clouds over Nevis Peak made the island resemble a snow-capped mountain),

Saint Kitts (for St. Christopher, patron of sailors and travelers),

Sint Eustatius (for the early Roman martyr, St. Eustachius),

Saba (also for St. Christopher?),

Saint Martin (San Martin), and

Saint Croix (from the Spanish ''Santa Cruz'', meaning "Holy Cross"). He also sighted the island chain of the Virgin Islands (and named them Islas de Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgenes, Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, a cumbersome name that was usually shortened, both on maps of the time and in common parlance, to Islas Virgenes), and he also named the islands of Virgin Gorda (the fat virgin), Tortola, and Peter Island (San Pedro).

He continued to the Greater Antilles, and landed at Puerto Rico (originally San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, a name that was later supplanted by Puerto Rico (English: Rich Port) while the capital retained the name, San Juan) on 19 November 1493. One of the first skirmishes between native Americans and Europeans since the time of the Vikings took place when Columbus's men rescued two boys who had just been castrated by their captors.

On 22 November Columbus returned to Hispaniola, where he intended to visit Fuerte de la Navidad (Christmas Fort), built during his first voyage, and located on the northern coast of Haiti. Columbus found Fuerte de la Navidad in ruins, destroyed by the native Taino people.

Among the ruins were the corpses of 11 of the first 39 Spanish to have attempted New World colonization. Columbus then required from the Taino that each adult over 14 years of age was expected to deliver a hawks bell full of gold every three months, or when this was lacking, twenty five pounds of spun cotton. If this tribute was not observed, the Taínos had their hands cut off and were left to bleed to death. Columbus then moved more than 100 kilometers eastwards, establishing a new settlement, which he called La Isabela, likewise on the northern coast of Hispaniola, in the present-day Dominican Republic. However, La Isabela proved to be a poorly chosen location, and the settlement was short-lived.

He left Hispaniola on 24 April 1494, arrived at Cuba (naming it Juana) on 30 April. He explored the southern coast of Cuba, which he believed to be a peninsula rather than an island, and several nearby islands, including the Isle of Pines (Isla de las Pinas, later known as La Evangelista, The Evangelist). He reached Jamaica on 5 May. He retraced his route to Hispaniola, arriving on 20 August, before he finally returned to Spain.

Third voyage

On 30 May 1498, Columbus left with six ships from Sanlúcar, Spain, for his third trip to the New World.

Columbus led the fleet to the Portuguese island of Porto Santo, his wife's native land. He then sailed to Madeira and spent some time there with the Portuguese captain João Gonçalves da Camara before sailing to the Canary Islands and Cape Verde. Columbus landed on the south coast of the island of Trinidad on 31 July. From 4 August through 12 August he explored the Gulf of Paria which separates Trinidad from Venezuela. He explored the mainland of South America, including the Orinoco River. He also sailed to the islands of Chacachacare and Margarita Island and sighted and named Tobago (Bella Forma) and Grenada (Concepcion).

Columbus returned to Hispaniola on 19 August to find that many of the Spanish settlers of the new colony were discontented, having been misled by Columbus about the supposedly bountiful riches of the new world. An entry in his journal from September 1498 reads, "From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold..." Since Columbus supported the enslavement of the Hispaniola natives for economic reasons, he ultimately refused to baptize them, as Catholic law forbade the enslavement of Christians.

He had some of his crew hanged for disobeying him. A number of returning settlers and sailors lobbied against Columbus at the Spanish court, accusing him and his brothers of gross mismanagement. On his return he was arrested for a period (see Governorship and arrest section below).

Fourth voyage

Before leaving for his fourth voyage, Columbus wrote a letter to the Governors of the Bank of St. George, Genoa, dated at Seville, 2 April 1502. He wrote "Although my body is here my heart is always near you."

Columbus made a fourth voyage nominally in search of the Strait of Malacca to the Indian Ocean. Accompanied by his brother Bartolomeo and his 13-year-old son Fernando, he left Cadiz, (modern Spain), on 11 May 1502, with the ships ''Capitana'', ''Gallega'', ''Vizcaína'' and ''Santiago de Palos''. He sailed to Arzila on the Moroccan coast to rescue Portuguese soldiers whom he had heard were under siege by the Moors. On 15 June they landed at Carbet on the island of Martinique (''Martinica''). A hurricane was brewing, so he continued on, hoping to find shelter on Hispaniola. He arrived at Santo Domingo on 29 June but was denied port, and the new governor refused to listen to his storm prediction. Instead, while Columbus's ships sheltered at the mouth of the Rio Jaina, the first Spanish treasure fleet sailed into the hurricane. Columbus's ships survived with only minor damage, while 29 of the 30 ships in the governor's fleet were lost to the 1 July storm. In addition to the ships, 500 lives (including that of the governor, Francisco de Bobadilla) and an immense cargo of gold were surrendered to the sea.

After a brief stop at Jamaica, Columbus sailed to Central America, arriving at Guanaja (Isla de Pinos) in the Bay Islands off the coast of Honduras on 30 July. Here Bartolomeo found native merchants and a large canoe, which was described as "long as a galley" and was filled with cargo. On 14 August he landed on the continental mainland at Puerto Castilla, near Trujillo, Honduras. He spent two months exploring the coasts of Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, before arriving in Almirante Bay, Panama on 16 October.

On 5 December 1502, Columbus and his crew found themselves in a storm unlike any they had ever experienced. In his journal Columbus writes,

For nine days I was as one lost, without hope of life. Eyes never beheld the sea so angry, so high, so covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. Never did the sky look more terrible; for one whole day and night it blazed like a furnace, and the lightning broke with such violence that each time I wondered if it had carried off my spars and sails; the flashes came with such fury and frightfulness that we all thought that the ship would be blasted. All this time the water never ceased to fall from the sky; I do not say it rained, for it was like another deluge. The men were so worn out that they longed for death to end their dreadful suffering.

In Panama, Columbus learned from the natives of gold and a strait to another ocean. After much exploration, in January 1503 he established a garrison at the mouth of the Rio Belen. On 6 April one of the ships became stranded in the river. At the same time, the garrison was attacked, and the other ships were damaged (Shipworms also damaged the ships in tropical waters.). Columbus left for Hispaniola on 16 April heading north. On 10 May he sighted the Cayman Islands, naming them "''Las Tortugas''" after the numerous sea turtles there. His ships next sustained more damage in a storm off the coast of Cuba. Unable to travel farther, on 25 June 1503 they were beached in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica.

For a year Columbus and his men remained stranded on Jamaica. A Spaniard, Diego Mendez, and some natives paddled a canoe to get help from Hispaniola. That island's governor, Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres, detested Columbus and obstructed all efforts to rescue him and his men. In the meantime Columbus, in a desperate effort to induce the natives to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, successfully won the favor of the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse for 29 February 1504, using the ''Ephemeris'' of the German astronomer Regiomontanus. Help finally arrived, no thanks to the governor, on 29 June 1504, and Columbus and his men arrived in Sanlúcar, Spain, on 7 November.

Governorship and arrest

Under the terms of the Capitulations of Santa Fe, after his first voyage Columbus was appointed Viceroy and Governor of the Indies, which in practice entailed primarily the administration of the colonies in the island of Hispaniola, whose capital was established in Santo Domingo. By the end of his third voyage, Columbus was physically and mentally exhausted: his body was wracked by arthritis and his eyes by ophthalmia. In October 1499, he sent two ships to Spain, asking the Court of Spain to appoint a royal commissioner to help him govern. By then, accusations of tyranny and incompetence on the part of Columbus had also reached the Court.

The Court appointed Francisco de Bobadilla, a member of the Order of Calatrava, but not as the aide that Columbus had requested. Instead, Bobadilla was given complete control as governor from 1500 until his death in 1502. Arriving in Santo Domingo while Columbus was away, Bobadilla was immediately peppered with complaints about all three Columbus brothers: Christopher, Bartolomé, and Diego. Consuelo Varela, a Spanish historian, states: "Even those who loved him [Columbus] had to admit the atrocities that had taken place."

As a result of these testimonies and without being allowed a word in his own defense, Columbus, upon his return, had manacles placed on his arms and chains on his feet and was cast into prison to await return to Spain. He was 48 years old.

On 1 October 1500, Columbus and his two brothers, likewise in chains, were sent back to Spain. Once in Cadiz, a grieving Columbus wrote to a friend at court:

According to an uncatalogued document supposedly discovered very late in history purporting to be a record of Columbus's trial which contained the alleged testimony of 23 witnesses, Columbus regularly used barbaric acts of torture to govern Hispaniola.

Columbus and his brothers lingered in jail for six weeks before busy King Ferdinand ordered their release. Not long after, the king and queen summoned the Columbus brothers to the Alhambra palace in Granada. There the royal couple heard the brothers' pleas; restored their freedom and wealth; and, after much persuasion, agreed to fund Columbus's fourth voyage. But the door was firmly shut on Columbus's role as governor. Henceforth Nicolás de Ovando y Cáceres was to be the new governor of the West Indies.

Later life

While Columbus had always given the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, he grew increasingly religious in his later years. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a ''Book of Privileges'' (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a ''Book of Prophecies'' (1505), in which passages from the Bible were used to place his achievements as an explorer in the context of Christian eschatology.

In his later years, Columbus demanded that the Spanish Crown give him 10% of all profits made in the new lands, as stipulated in the Capitulations of Santa Fe. Because he had been relieved of his duties as governor, the crown did not feel bound by that contract and his demands were rejected. After his death, his heirs sued the Crown for a part of the profits from trade with America, as well as other rewards. This led to a protracted series of legal disputes known as the ''pleitos colombinos'' ("Columbian lawsuits").

On 20 May 1506, at age 54, Columbus died in Valladolid, fairly wealthy from the gold his men had accumulated in Hispaniola. At his death, he was still convinced that his journeys had been along the east coast of Asia. According to a study, published in February 2007, by Antonio Rodriguez Cuartero, Department of Internal Medicine of the University of Granada, he died of a heart attack caused by reactive arthritis. According to his personal diaries and notes by contemporaries, the symptoms of this illness (burning pain during urination, pain and swelling of the knees, and conjunctivitis) were clearly evident in his last three years.

Columbus' remains were first interred at Valladolid, then at the monastery of La Cartuja in Seville (southern Spain) by the will of his son Diego, who had been governor of Hispaniola. In 1542 the remains were transferred to Colonial Santo Domingo, in the present-day Dominican Republic. In 1795, when France took over the entire island of Hispaniola, Columbus' remains were moved to Havana, Cuba. After Cuba became independent following the Spanish-American War in 1898, the remains were moved back to Spain, to the Cathedral of Seville, where they were placed on an elaborate catafalque.

However, a lead box bearing an inscription identifying "Don Christopher Columbus" and containing bone fragments and a bullet was discovered at Santo Domingo in 1877.

To lay to rest claims that the wrong relics had been moved to Havana and that Columbus' remains had been left buried in the cathedral at Santo Domingo, DNA samples of the corpse resting in Seville were taken in June 2003 (''History Today'' August 2003) as well as other DNA samples from the remains of his sons Diego and Fernando Colón. Initial observations suggested that the bones did not appear to belong to somebody with the physique or age at death associated with Columbus. DNA extraction proved difficult; only short fragments of mitochondrial DNA could be isolated. The mtDNA fragments matched corresponding DNA from Columbus' brother, giving support that both individuals had shared the same mother. Such evidence, together with anthropologic and historic analyses led the researchers to conclude that the remains found in Seville belonged to Christopher Columbus. The authorities in Santo Domingo have never allowed the remains there to be exhumed, so it is unknown if any of those remains could be from Columbus' body as well. The location of the Dominican remains is in "The Colombus Lighthouse" (''Faro a Colón''), in Santo Domingo.

Commemoration

The World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 1893, commemorated the 400th anniversary of the landing of Christopher Columbus in the Americas. Over 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month duration.

The U.S. Postal Service participated in the celebration issuing the first US ''commemorative postage stamps, a series of 16 postage issues called the Columbian Issue depicting Columbus, Queen Isabella and others in the various stages of his several voyages. The issues range in value from the 1-cent to the 5-dollar denominations. Under Benjamin Harrison and his Postmaster General John Wanamaker the Columbian commemorative stamps were made available and were first issued at the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois, in 1893. Wanamaker originally introduced the idea of issuing the nation's first commemorative stamp to Harrison, the Congress and the U.S. Post Office. To demonstrate his confidence in the new Columbian commemorative issues Wanamaker purchased $10,000 worth of stamps with his own money. The Columbian Exposition lasted several months and, and over$40 million dollars in commemorative postage stamp had been sold. The 400th anniversary Columbian issues were very popular in the United States; more than a billion of the two-cent editions were printed.

In 1982, a second Columbian issue was released that was identical to the first to commemorate the 500th anniversary. These issues were made from the original dies of which the first engraved issues of 1893 were produced. In 1992 along with the United States, Spain also issued an almost identical series of Columbian issues, (using 'Spain' instead of 'United States of America') celebrating the 500th anniversary of the voyages.

Legacy

Although among non-Native Americans Christopher Columbus is traditionally considered the discoverer of America, Columbus was preceded by the various cultures and civilizations of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, as well as the Western world's Vikings at L'Anse aux Meadows. He is regarded more accurately as the person who brought the Americas into the forefront of Western attention. "Columbus's claim to fame isn't that he got there first," explains historian Martin Dugard, "it's that he stayed." The popular idea that he was first person to envision a rounded earth is false. The rounded shape of the earth has already been known since antiquity.

Amerigo Vespucci's travel journals, published 1502-4, convinced Martin Waldseemüller that the discovered place was not India, as Columbus always believed, but a new continent, and in 1507, a year after Columbus's death, Waldseemüller published a world map calling the new continent ''America'' from Vespucci's Latinized name "Americus". According to Paul Lunde, "The preoccupation of European courts with the rise of the Ottoman Turks in the East partly explains their relative lack of interest in Columbus's discoveries in the West."

Historically, the British had downplayed Columbus and emphasized the role of the Venetian John Cabot as a pioneer explorer, but for the emerging United States, Cabot made for a poor national hero. Veneration of Columbus in America dates back to colonial times. The name Columbia for "America" first appeared in a 1738 weekly publication of the debates of the British Parliament. The use of Columbus as a founding figure of New World nations and the use of the word 'Columbia', or simply the name 'Columbus', spread rapidly after the American Revolution. In 1812, the name 'Columbus' was given to the newly founded capital of Ohio. During the last two decades of the 18th century the name "Columbia" was given to the federal capital District of Columbia, South Carolina's new capital city Columbia, the Columbia River, and numerous other places. Columbia is also the name of NASA's first Space shuttle and was the first to launch into orbit. Outside the United States the name was used in 1819 for the Gran Colombia, a precursor of the modern Republic of Colombia. The main plaza in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico is called Plaza Colón in honor of the Admiral.

A candidate for sainthood in the Catholic Church in 1866, celebration of Columbus's legacy perhaps reached a zenith in 1892 when the 400th anniversary of his first arrival in the Americas occurred. Monuments to Columbus like the Columbian Exposition in Chicago were erected throughout the United States and Latin America extolling him. Numerous cities, towns, counties, and streets have been named after him, including the capital cities of two U.S. states: Ohio and South Carolina. In 1909, descendants of Columbus undertook to dismantle the Columbus family chapel in Spain and move it to Boalsburg near State College, Pennsylvania, where it may now be visited by the public. At the museum associated with the chapel, there are a number of Columbus relics worthy of note, including the armchair which the "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" used at his chart table.

More recent views of Columbus, particularly those of Native Americans, have tended to be much more critical. This is because the native Taino of Hispaniola, where Columbus began a rudimentary tribute system for gold and cotton, disappeared so rapidly after contact with the Spanish, due to overwork and especially, after 1519, when the first pandemic struck Hispaniola, due to European diseases. Some estimates indicate case fatality rates of 80–90% in Native American populations during smallpox epidemics. The native Taino people of the island were systematically enslaved via the encomienda system. The pre-Columbian population is estimated to have been perhaps 250,000–300,000. According to the historian Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes by 1548, 56 years after Columbus landed, less than five hundred Taino were left on the island. In another hundred years, perhaps only a handful remained. However, some analyses of the question of Columbus's legacy for Native Americans do not clearly distinguish between the actions of Columbus himself, who died well before the first pandemic to hit Hispaniola or the height of the encomienda system, and those of later European governors and colonists on Hispaniola.

The anniversary of Columbus's 1492 landing in the Americas is usually observed as Columbus Day on 12 October in Spain and throughout the Americas, except Canada. In the United States it is observed annually on the second Monday in October.

The term "pre-Columbian" is usually used to refer to the peoples and cultures of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and his European successors.

Physical appearance

Although an abundance of artwork involving Christopher Columbus exists, no authentic contemporary portrait has been found. James W. Loewen, author of ''Lies My Teacher Told Me'', said that the various posthumous portraits have no historical value.

Sometime between 1505 and 1536, Alejo Fernández painted an altarpiece, ''The Virgin of the Navigators'', that includes a depiction of Columbus. The painting was commissioned for a chapel in Seville's Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) and remains there to this day, as the earliest known painting about the discovery of the Americas.

At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, 71 alleged portraits of Columbus were displayed, most did not match contemporary descriptions. These writings describe him as having reddish or blond hair, which turned to white early in his life, light colored eyes, as well as being a lighter skinned person with too much sun exposure turning his face red.

In keeping with descriptions of Columbus having had auburn hair or (later) white hair, textbooks have used the Sebastiano del Piombo painting (which in its normal-sized resolution shows Columbus's hair as auburn) so often that it has become the iconic image of Columbus accepted by popular culture. Accounts consistently describe Columbus as a large and physically strong man of some six feet or more in height, easily taller than the average European of his day.

Popular culture

Columbus, an important historical figure, has been depicted in fiction, cinema and television, and in other media and entertainment, such as stage plays, music, cartoons and games.

;In games Christopher Columbus appears as a Great Explorer in the 2008 strategy video game, ''Civilization Revolution''.

;In literature

In 1889, American author Mark Twain based the time traveler's trick in ''A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'' on Columbus' successful prediction of a lunar eclipse during his fourth voyage to the New World.

In 1958, the Italian playwright Dario Fo wrote a satirical play about Columbus titled ''Isabella, tre caravelle e un cacciaballe'' (Isabella, three tall ships and a con man). In 1997 Fo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The play was translated into English in 1988 by Ed Emery and is downloadable on the internet. In 1991, author Salman Rushdie published a fictional representation of Columbus in ''The New Yorker'', "Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella of Spain Consummate Their Relationship, Santa Fe, January, 1492".

In ''Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus'' (1996) science fiction novelist Orson Scott Card focuses on Columbus' life and activities, but the novel's action also deals with a group of scientists from the future who travel back to the 15th century with the goal of changing the pattern of European contact with the Americas.

British author Stephen Baxter includes Columbus' quest for royal sponsorship as a crucial historical event in his 2007 science fiction novel ''Navigator'' (ISBN 978-0-441-01559-7), the third entry in the author's ''Time's Tapestry Series''.

;In music

Christopher Columbus is regularly referred to by singers and musical groups in the Rastafari movement as an example of a European oppressor. The detractors include Burning Spear (''Christopher Columbus''), Culture (''Capture Rasta''), and Peter Tosh (''You Can't Blame The Youth'', ''Here Comes The Judge'').

;Onscreen

''Christopher Columbus'' is a 1949 film starring Fredric March as Columbus.

The 1985 TV mini-series, ''Christopher Columbus'', features Gabriel Byrne as Columbus.

Columbus was portrayed by Gérard Depardieu in the 1992 film by Ridley Scott, ''1492: Conquest of Paradise''. Scott presented Columbus as a forward-thinking idealist, as opposed to the view that he was ruthless and responsible for the misfortune of Native Americans.

''Carry On Columbus'' is a 1992 comedy.

''Christopher Columbus: The Discovery'', is a 1992 biographical film film by Alexander Salkind.

The 42nd episode of ''The Sopranos'', titled "Christopher" (2002), addresses the controversies surrounding Columbus' legacy from the perspectives of numerous identity group members.

;In sculpture

''Isabella and Columbus'' by Larkin Mead, 1874, California State Capitol, Sacramento, California

''Christopher Columbus'', by Moses Jacob Ezekiel, Arrigo Park, Chicago. Illinois, 1891

''Drake Fountain'', also known as the ''Columbus Monument'' by Richard Henry Park, Chicago, Illinois, 1892

''Christopher Columbus'' by Ferdinand von Miller the Younger, St. Louis, Missouri, 1884, This work is different from most in that it shows a bearded Columbus. It is believed to be the first bronze statue of Columbus in the United States.

Colossal Columbus statue by Mary Lawrence, 1893, at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, Illinois,

''Columbus'' by Paul Wayland Bartlett ca. 1895 Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

''Christopher Columbus Memorial'' by Pietro Piai 1904, Pueblo, Colorado. "Colorado was the first state to make Columbus Day a legal holiday in 1905 and this is reportedly the first monument to Columbus erected in the United States."

''Christopher Columbus'', by Augusto Rivalta, Detroit, Michigan, 1910,

Columbus Fountain, by Lorado Taft, 1912, Washington D.C.

''Christopher Columbus'', by Virgil Rainer, Chicago, Illinois, 1924

''Christopher Columbus'' by Charles Brioschi, assisted by Leo Lentelli, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1931

''Christopher Columbus'' by Charles Brioschi, Grant Park (Chicago), 1933

''Christopher Columbus'', by Frank Vittor, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 1958

''Christopher Columbus Monument'' by David W. Oswald, Columbus, Wisconsin, 1988

;In space

Asteroid 327 Columbia is named in his honour.

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

Cohen, J.M. (1969) ''The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus: Being His Own Log-Book, Letters and Dispatches with Connecting Narrative Drawn from the Life of the Admiral by His Son Hernando Colon and Others''. London UK: Penguin Classics.

Cook, Sherburn and Woodrow Borah (1971) ''Essays in Population History, Volume I''. Berkeley CA: University of California Press

Crosby, A. W. (1987) ''The Columbian Voyages: the Columbian Exchange, and their Historians.'' Washington, DC: American Historical Association.

Davidson, Miles H. (1997) ''Columbus Then and Now: A Life Reexamined,'' Norman and London, University of Oklahoma Press.

Fuson, Robert H. (1992) ''The Log of Christopher Columbus''. International Marine Publishing

Keen, Benjamin (1978) ''The Life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his Son Ferdinand,'' Westport CT: Greenwood Press.

Loewen, James. ''Lies My Teacher Told Me''

Morison, Samuel Eliot, ''Christopher Columbus, Mariner'', Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1955

Phillips, W. D. and C. R. Phillips (1992) ''The Worlds of Christopher Columbus.'' Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.

Sale, Kirkpatrick ''The Conquest of Paradise: Christopher Columbus and the Columbian Legacy'' Plume, 1991

Turner, Jack (2004) ''Spice: The History of a Temptation''. New York: Random House.

Wilford, John Noble (1991) ''The Mysterious History of Columbus: An Exploration of the Man, the Myth, the Legacy''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

External links

The Letter of Columbus to Luis de Sant Angel Announcing His Discovery

Columbus Navigation

Columbus Monuments Pages (overview of monuments for Columbus all over the world

Category:1451 births Category:1506 deaths Category:15th-century explorers Category:15th-century Roman Catholics Category:Age of Discovery Category:Colonial governors of Santo Domingo Category:Columbus family Category:Explorers of Central America Category:Italian expatriates in Spain Category:Italian explorers Category:Italian Roman Catholics Category:People from Genoa (city) Category:Spanish people of Italian descent Category:Spanish Roman Catholics

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