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Third Stolen Columbus Letter Returned to Vatican
In a stunning turn of events, U.S. Attorney David C. Weiss for the District of Delaware and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) returned a more than 500-year-old copy of a Christopher Columbus’ letter describing his discoveries in the Americas to the Vatican during a morning repatriation ceremony at the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (the “Vatican Library”) in Vatican City.
The letter, originally written in 1493, was stolen from the Vatican Library and later sold in 2004 for approximately $875,000. It is the third letter to be returned to the Vatican in two years, following a multi-year joint investigation conducted by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware.
According to officials, the letter was donated to Pope Benedict XV by the Superior General of the Society of Jesus in or around December 1921. The Columbus Letter was preserved in the Vatican Library, but it was stolen and replaced with a forgery at an unknown time and date.
Law enforcement determined that the original letter was located in a private art collector’s personal collection in Atlanta, Georgia. The collector purchased the stolen Columbus Letter in good faith during a February 2004 transaction worth $875,000.
Following negotiations between the U.S. Attorney’s Office and representatives for the individual in possession of the letter, the parties agreed to permit a subject matter expert to inspect and compare both the Columbus Letter in Atlanta against a copy of the Columbus Letter in the Vatican Library’s possession. The expert determined that the Columbus Letter located in Atlanta was, in fact, the original Columbus Letter that belonged to the Vatican Library, and that the copy in the Vatican Library’s possession was a forgery.
“This marks the third time in two years that agents from HSI, along with prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Delaware, have partnered to return these precious letters documenting Columbus’ journey back to their rightful home,” said U.S. Attorney Weiss.
Ambassador Callista L. Gingrich of U.S. Embassy to the Holy See said, “The Columbus Letter, written in 1493, is a priceless piece of cultural history. I am honored to return this remarkable letter to the Vatican Library – its rightful owner.”
Vatican Librarian Archbishop Jean-Louis Bruguès said, “We are extremely grateful to be able to reinsert this volume in its rightful place in De Rossi’s collection, where it will remain at the disposal of the researchers who come from around the world to study the collections of the Vatican Library.”
“Homeland Security Investigations is dedicated to investigating those who pilfer history’s most important records and chronicles and retuning those antiquities, like this Columbus Letter, back to their rightful owner naturally,” said the HSI official.
Key Facts
- State: Delaware
- Category: Fraud & Financial Crimes
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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