📍Casa di Cristoforo Colombo, Vico Dritto di Ponticello, 16121 Genoa, Italy
1455 – 1470“Between the ages of about four and nineteen I lived with my family in a narrow house just outside the Porta Soprana, the twin-towered medieval gate of Genoa. On the ground floor was the workshop of my father, Domenico, a wool weaver who also traded in wool and cheese and for a time served as keeper of one of the city gates; we lived upstairs, among the noise of looms and the traffic of the city. Genoa was a republic of sailors, merchants and bankers, and from the lanes above the harbour I watched the ships come in from the Levant, Africa and the north. I went to sea young, learning my trade on voyages to the Greek islands, Africa and beyond, before settling in Lisbon among the Portuguese navigators. My voyages from 1492 brought Europeans to the Americas, with consequences for the peoples who already lived there that history rightly remembers. The original house was damaged in the French bombardment of Genoa in 1684 and rebuilt; the city bought it in 1887, and it is now the Casa di Colombo museum.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today