Finca Son Colom is one of the oldest inhabited houses on the island of Majorca.
The main part of the house is believed to date back to the 14th century and has been sympathetically renovated, restored over many years and has been expanded (by way of a walk through tunnel to a breath-taking main cave room) by the current owners.
Some historians argue that Christopher Columbus was not Italian but was in fact Spanish born and raised in Mallorca. ‘Colom’ is the Spanish for Columbus. Surprisingly little is known about his early days but local legend has it that Finca Son Colom is the Columbus family home and that the explorer spent his formative years here. Columbus himself was always mysterious about his origins, insisting: “I come from nowhere.” Perhaps we will never know.
The following is an extract on the subject from the Times in 2006:
“DNA specialists from the US and the University of Granada are collaborating to try to compare samples from the bones of the explorer, his brother Diego, and the remains of a Majorcan man who Spaniards claim was his real father.
The truth may not be revealed for some time yet, however. Life was never straightforward for Columbus when he was alive, and it is even less so 500 years after his death.
When Columbus died in Valladolid, Spain, in 1506 he was laid to rest in a Franciscan friary. Some 36 years later his remains were transferred overseas to Santo Domingo (in what is now the Dominican Republic) where he stayed until France gained control of the caribbean island in 1795. Then his bones were moved to Havana. After Cuba gained its independence in 1898, the explorer’s bones were once again rattled and he was returned to Spain, this time to Seville.
However, problems had arisen in 1877. A casket inscribed with the name “Columbus” was found hidden in the wall of the cathedral in Santo Domingo. It would seem that somebody had perhaps taken the wrong body from the Dominican Republic. Scientists have made repeated requests to extract DNA samples, but so far the Dominican authorities are stalling. They are understandably fearful of discovering that the grand lighthouse mausoleum built to house Columbus’s remains may not have been the bona fide resting place of the explorer. In the meantime, DNA extracts from the remains in Seville have proved inconclusive, because the samples were too small. The solution to the enigma now depends on the Dominican authorities agreeing to further scientific investigations.”
As far as we know the investigation by the University of Granada has never progressed further (whether through lack of funds or lack of evidence is not clear). And to be honest we prefer it that way – the Colombus mystery has become part of the house and we’d like to keep it that way!
