Columbus, Christopher, Mother of

Christopher Columbus's mother remains a mystery. Columbus's mother is cited as an Italian woman, Susanna Fontanarossa, the daughter of a wool farmer. There aren't any records of his mother prior to her marriage to Domenico Columbus, Christopher's father. Christopher Columbus was the first of five children: four boys (Christopher, Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo) and one girl (Bianchinetta). However, some scholars claim that Susanna Fontanarossa was not the mother of Christopher Columbus, but rather that a woman named Maria Spinola was his mother. A third theory is that neither of these two women were Columbus's mother, and that a Jewish woman who had to change her name to escape persecution gave birth to the explorer.