Queen Isabella I of Spain

Visiting Granada with King Ferdinand to inspect the Kingdom of the Moors conquered by Spain, the month Vasco da Gama returned to Portugal after discovering an ocean route to India, Queen Isabella orders a payment to one of her servants.

      Manuscript Document Signed “Yo la Reyna” (“I the Queen”), one page, 8.5” x 11.5”. Granada, September 26, 1499. In old Spanish, not translated. “La Reyna” at top center. Countersigned by the Queen’s secretary “Gaspar de Trizio” beneath the words “By Command of the Queen.” On laid paper watermarked with a five petal flower above a right hand; inconspicuous cancellation cuts used during this period strengthened by glassine on verso. Fine condition. An order to her chamberlain, Sancho de Paredes, to pay her servant Maria de Medina 1,000 maravedis, a receipt to be obtained. Manuscript receipt signed by Maria in lower portion of document. Docketed on verso. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand had commissioned Alonso de Ojeda, a veteran of Columbus’s second and third voyages, to explore the Caribbean and northern South America. On May 18, 1499, four months before this document was signed, Ojeda left Spain with four ships. Columbus’s cartographer Juan de la Cosa and Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci were on this voyage, the first to visit many areas, including a bay where the natives had built houses on stilts on Lake Maracaibo. It reminded Ojeda of Venice, so he named it “Little Venice,” Venezuela. In September 1499, the explorers arrived in Hispañola. In was in September 1499, that Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama returned to Lisbon a hero after sailing around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, discovering an ocean route from Portugal to the East. Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand visited Granada in September 1499 to inspect the Kingdom of the Moors conquered by Spain in 1491. It was in Granada that this document was signed.