Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe TURIN, Italy, June 14 (UPI) -- A group of historians claims Christopher Columbus came from a tiny Piedmont village and not the busy Italian port of Genoa. Organizers of a conference this weekend in Turin say they will prove Columbus was born in Cuccaro Monferrato, a small village southeast of Turin, ANSA reported. Advertisement Giorgio Casartelli, head of the village's Columbus Center, said the conference would be attended by "numerous" descendants of Columbus. ANSA said the generally accepted view that Columbus was the son of Genoese wool trader Domenico Colombo has been challenged at various times over the years. Several Spanish scholars have contended the explorer was of noble Spanish or Catalan origin. Italian historian Renato Biagioli claims Columbus was the illegitimate son of a Roman noblewoman and a pope.
