Bức thư của Columbus được bán với giá 3,9 triệu USD

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The last time Christie’s sold a copy of a famed (nổi tiếng) 15th-century pamphlet (sách mỏng; cuốn sách nhỏ có bìa mềm) announcing Christopher Columbus’s first voyage (chuyến đi đầu tiên) across the Atlantic Ocean was in 1992, and it did not end well. It later emerged that the document had been stolen, and it was eventually repatriated (hồi hương, trở về nước) to Italy.

That wasn’t the only one. Since the early 1990s, four other examples of the Latin-translated document that came on the market were discovered to have been stolen and returned to libraries in Spain, Italy and the Vatican.

Christie’s tried again on Thursday, auctioning off another copy of the pamphlet for $3.9 million, including fees — more than double the auction house’s estimate. Christie’s said that it had investigated (điều tra) this copy, which it said came from an anonymous private collection (bộ sưu tập tư nhân ẩn danh) in Switzerland, relentlessly (không ngừng nghỉ) to ensure it was neither stolen nor forged (giả mạo).

... Printed en masse (được in hàng loạt) to spread news (truyền bá tin tức) across Europe of Columbus’s voyage, the examples of this document that survived have been closely studied by scholars, coveted by (thèm muốn bởi) rare book collectors (nhà sưu tập sách quý hiếm) and, at times, sold by auction houses. No wonder they have tempted forgers and thieves over the years. (Their meager size — easily tucked into a coat or bag — no doubt played a role as well.)

... Christie’s own auction materials depict Columbus’s deeds with a critical eye, describing the explorer as prone to violence, his assessment of the islands’ spice (gia vị) and gold resources as an “exaggeration” (cường điệu) and the Spanish colonies that arose from his discovery as rife with “chaotic brutality.”

source: nytimes,