It was 1921 when the Vatican Apostolic Library managed to acquire a very valuable copy of a letter written by Christopher Columbus back in 1493. In the letter, he was describing the Caribbean islands and his first impressions of them to the Spanish monarchy. About 90 years later, American officials contacted the library to say that they believed that real letter was actually stolen and replaced with an almost perfect fake. Fortunately, last week, the original letter was found in Atlanta, Georgia, and returned to its place in the Vatican library.
However, this doesn’t mean that the mysterious case of this letter’s disappearance has been solved. The problem is that the authorities still don’t have a clue regarding the date when the letter was stolen and who the thief was. Moreover, they are uncertain if this Vatican theft has anything to do with other similar cases which took place in other two libraries. The letter, which has eight pages, has been valued at $1.2 million. It is