On the islands recently discovered in the southern and Indian seas

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1493 · Authors: Guillermo Coma

One of the first written references, perhaps the first, made by someone about the population of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria was written by the Aragonese Guillermo Coma in 1493, only fifteen years after the founding of the city. 

Coma, who was aboard one of the ships of the fleet that Christopher Columbus organised on his second voyage to America, wrote a report entitled On the islands recently discovered in the southern and Indian seas , whose incunable is held in the Biblioteca Trivulziana in Milan, although we have a translated version in Private letters to Columbus. Contemporary accounts , edition by Juan Gil and Consuelo Varela from 1984.

 In this report, the author, when stopping at the port of Las Isletas and visiting the newly founded settlement, offers us a magnificent and valuable description of the early moments of the city of Las Palmas; with its bishopric, its main church, its brand-new Franciscan convent and its active urban life. He narrates it as follows: 

“In the Canaries colonies were founded under the auspices of the kings of Spain. And everything appropriate to give lustre to a province has been arranged with care. Indeed, there is a hospitable bishop there, and a temple worthy of veneration to visit, a convent of the Minor Brothers of notable religiosity, in an elegantly constructed building. There were already merchants from different places, skilled artisans in every kind of craft, a large population”.

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