Paolo Emilio Taviani, Europe's foremost expert on Columbus, here distills his four-volume scholarly study of the navigator into a rich, highly readable biography for the general reader. Taviani presents Columbus's life with the pace of a novel while putting the man in the context of his extraordinary times. A contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, a few years older than Henry VIII, Christopher Columbus changed their world more than any man since Jesus. Taviani gives us a sketch of Columbus's Europe and shows how Columbus's skill as a sailor (nurtured in his hometown of Genoa, then the world's premier port) joined with his deep religious faith (steeped in the Franciscan tradition), and led him to confront the mystery of the antipodes, which remained a subject of dread and superstition to his fellow men. - Jacket flap.