Mesianismo Imperialista En El Siglo De Oro: Experiencia Imperialista Y Espiritualidad Mesianica En El Caso De Cristobal Colon

Religious ideology played a powerful role in the shaping of the Spanish Empire as seen in the writings of Christopher Columbus, the first widely documented European explorer to reach the Americas. Columbus was driven by intense feelings of divine providence and saw his project in biblical and prophetic terms. In his diaries and letters, as well as his Book of Prophecies, Columbus religious fervor shows a messianic zeal and his rhetoric mimics that of the newly emerging Spanish Empire who, in turn, mimicked the messianic and imperialist rhetoric of the Catholic Church. This zeal was not particular to Columbus personality but rather it reflects the common beliefs of his times. The cosmology of Columbus was a composite of various Medieval and early Renaissance philosophers whose erroneous conceptions of geography and apocalyptic visions of the future were based on astrological patterns and various prophecies in the Bible rather than empirical facts.