Description
The Columbus House is the small house, a stone's throw from Porta Soprana, where Christopher Columbus lived as a boy with his family. The one you visit is an eighteenth-century reconstruction, but it stands on the exact site of the Colombo family home.
From the outside it is a narrow building, cut down to just two storeys, in the old quarter of the wool workers and weavers. On the façade a Latin plaque says that no house is more worthy than this one, where Columbus spent his childhood and early youth within his father's walls.
Inside you find the layout of the workshop houses of the time: on the ground floor the workshop, with the front door beside it, and above, beyond a floor of wooden beams, the rooms where the family lived.
Next to the house is the twelfth-century Cloister of Sant'Andrea. The convent was demolished in 1904 when the hill was levelled; the architect Alfredo d'Andrade saved the stones of the cloister, which were later reassembled here.
The family arrived in Vico Dritto di Ponticello in 1455, when Christopher was four. His father Domenico, having lost his post as keeper of the gate, worked as a weaver and sold wine and cheese; but the debts kept growing.
The bombardment by Louis XIV's fleet in 1684 destroyed much of the house. It was rebuilt on the original remains and over time grew to five storeys, resting its beams on the walls of the neighbouring houses.
That is exactly what reduced it to what it is today. Around 1900, to open Via XX Settembre, the houses on either side were demolished: without those walls the house could not stand, and the three upper floors were removed.
The City of Genoa bought it in 1887, ahead of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. The historian in charge of the research pointed out that Florence had Dante's house and Milan had Manzoni's: Genoa had to have that of its hero.
From the outside it is a narrow building, cut down to just two storeys, in the old quarter of the wool workers and weavers. On the façade a Latin plaque says that no house is more worthy than this one, where Columbus spent his childhood and early youth within his father's walls.
Inside you find the layout of the workshop houses of the time: on the ground floor the workshop, with the front door beside it, and above, beyond a floor of wooden beams, the rooms where the family lived.
Next to the house is the twelfth-century Cloister of Sant'Andrea. The convent was demolished in 1904 when the hill was levelled; the architect Alfredo d'Andrade saved the stones of the cloister, which were later reassembled here.
The family arrived in Vico Dritto di Ponticello in 1455, when Christopher was four. His father Domenico, having lost his post as keeper of the gate, worked as a weaver and sold wine and cheese; but the debts kept growing.
The bombardment by Louis XIV's fleet in 1684 destroyed much of the house. It was rebuilt on the original remains and over time grew to five storeys, resting its beams on the walls of the neighbouring houses.
That is exactly what reduced it to what it is today. Around 1900, to open Via XX Settembre, the houses on either side were demolished: without those walls the house could not stand, and the three upper floors were removed.
The City of Genoa bought it in 1887, ahead of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America. The historian in charge of the research pointed out that Florence had Dante's house and Milan had Manzoni's: Genoa had to have that of its hero.