Book of Privileges Issued to Christopher Columbus by King Fernando and Queen Isabel, 1492-1502

From the moment King Fernando and Queen Isabel sponsored Christopher Columbus’s voyage, they began issuing contracts, decrees and privileges implementing the project. Previous editions of these collected documents, known as the Book of Privileges , have been published. Yet, because their ordering of the materials has followed that in which Columbus left them, use of these books has proven problematic. This Repertorium Columbianum edition presents these documents in chronological order, providing a continuous historical narrative of the monarchs’ and Columbus’s enterprise. (The documents also appear, separately, in Columbus’s arrangement.)