Susanna Fontanarossa


Susanna of Fontanarossa was the mother of navigator and explorer Christopher Columbus.

Biography

Susanna was born in the hillside village of Monticellu, on the then Genoese island of Corsica, to a wealthy Catholic family. Her family owned substantial real estate in Quezzi, a little village in the low-lying valley of Bisagno. She married Domenico Colombo in 1455 and bore him 5 children: Cristoforo, Bartolomeo, Giovanni, Giacomo, and a daughter named Bianchinetta.
A notarised document of sale in the Genoa state archive contains the Latinate text «Sozana, de Jacobi de Fontana Rubea, uxor Dominici de Columbo de Ianua ac Christophorus et Pelegrinus filii eorum», which can be translated as "Susanna was of Giacomo from Fontanarossa of the Bisagno, wife of Domenico Columbus from Genoa, their sons are Cristoforo and Pellegrino." The :it:Val Bisagno|Val Bisagno was a significant inland district in the ancient Republic of Genoa including the valley of the Bisagno. Thus she was described as 'Susanna from Fontanarossa' within the Val Bisagno, rather than Suzanna Fontarossa.
Today the hilltop village of Fontanarossa, Goretto, Genova, Liguria, in the Val Trebbia and only 6 km beyond the watershed of the river Bisagno, has a marble stone with the inscription Susanna Fontanarossa, the mother of Christopher Columbus, was born in this village..
Little is known about her after 1484. She died before her husband, Domenico.