"Letter Written by Christopher Columbus Announcing Discovery of New World Heading for Auction Block"

The letter is expected to sell for as much as $1.5 million

"In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

A year later the legendary explorer wrote an astounding letter announcing his discovery of America. Now a rare Latin translation of that letter will be offered for auction by Christies, 530 years later, in a sale expected to fetch up to $1.5 million.

Portrait of great explorer Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer and navigatorGetty Images
In the original letter, written after his return to Europe, Columbus told Spanish royal treasurer Luis de Santángel: “I know you will be rejoiced at the glorious success that our Lord has given me in my voyage.”
He added: “I write this to tell you how in thirty-three days I sailed to the Indies with the fleet that the illustrious King and Queen, our Sovereigns, gave me, where I discovered a great many islands, inhabited by numberless people."
And "of all I have taken possession for their Highnesses by proclamation and display of the Royal Standard without opposition."

Old engraved illustration of Reception of Christopher Columbus by King Ferdinand and Isabella I of Castile - April 1493Getty Images
The 1493 Latin translation of the letter was reportedly produced on an early printing press to share news of the explorer's discovery with elite Europeans. The document has been sitting in a private Swiss collection for almost a century, and is described by Christie’s as “the earliest obtainable edition of Columbus’s letter.”

Christopher Columbus is depicted in an artwork in 1492 standing with his crew on the Santa Maria with the distant view of an island on the horizon. Columbus called this North American island (what is now the Bahamas) San Salvador. The natives called it Guanahani.Getty Images
Originally written in Spanish, the Latin translation is the text which spread the news of Columbus’s transatlantic voyage across Europe, containing the first descriptions by a modern European of the Americas,” Christie’s says of the letter.

The letter’s international publication led to one of the world’s first “media frenzies” for the printed word, according to the auction house.
Professor Geoffrey Symcox of the University of California, Los Angeles, told the Guardian that the Spanish crown sent copies of the letter to other European courtsto stake their claim to the discovery.
“The significance of the letter is its wide diffusion, thanks to the printing press,” Symcox told the newspaper. “The news circulated rapidly — not just through diplomatic channels but mercantile channels as well.”
Columbus famously believed that the land he discovered was part of the far east, instead of the significant discovery of a whole new set of continents.
His 1493 letter highlights this, as Columbus repeatedly refers to natives he encountered as “Indians.”