Cristopher Columbus, the man who discovered America on October 12, 1492, must have known and loved Sicily a lot, for, whenever he arrived in a new land, he compared it with his beloved Sicily.
This can be seen in his logbooks.
When he explored Cuba, on October 28, 1492, he wrote in the logbook: “The island is full of very beautiful mountains, although not very high, and all the remaining part of the island is also high and resembling Sicily.”
During his second travel to America, when he landed in Puerto Rico on 17 September 1493, he compared the island to Sicily, because they both had a triangular shape.
When he finally arrived in Jamaica on May 5 1494, he wrote in the logbook that the island was bigger than Sicily.
Apparently, Sicily was in the heart and mind of Cristopher Columbus, for he used it for comparison, as if Sicily were his home island.
On the other hand, in the fifteenth century, Sicily was a point of reference for the whole of Europe, in the fields of art, literature and science.
Ettore Grillo author of these books:
– November 2: The Day of the Dead in Sicily
– A Hidden Sicilian History
– The Vibrations of Words
– Travels of the Mind
Ettore Grillo's Blog 